Cuttle egg adventure

[DeepBlueWonders]

Sure thing D! I'll have to do those readings either later tonight or tomorrow, but I know that my temperature stays between 78.8 and 79.2 and salinity (following the advice from an article Thales wrote) stays between 34 and 35ppt.

 

[DeepBlueWonders]

Salinity - 34.5 (but usually it's closer to 34)
Temperature - 78.9
pH (lights have been off for a few hours, I can test again in day time)- 8.2
Alkalinity - 179ppm
Calcium - 360ppm
Nitrites - 0ppm

Thats all I have time for tonight. Will test everything again tomorrow.

 

[giar]

Very informative! It's been a great post to follow!

 

[DeepBlueWonders]

Very informative! It's been a great post to follow!

Thank you!

I'm now on my way home from St Augustine with more mysid. I ran out Saturday night, so the cuttles should be very happy for food.

 

[DWhatley]

DBW, If you don't mind, please give my hellos to Paul and his daughter when you pickup your mysid . I have been a customer for many years (preoctopuses) and managed to stop by on my way back from FL awhile ago and spend a nice quality hour or better with Paul and briefly met Sara. Good people and they would get a kick out of the indirect hello.

 

[DeepBlueWonders]

Sure thing D. They are indeed great people that take wonderful care of their customers.

 

[DeepBlueWonders]

Ok, I am conviced the cuttles have found some way to fake eat the mysid, and then stash them somewhere else in the tank. There is no way the are really eating 5 mysid per feeding! Lol. Little pigs
I got home from St Augustine at about 6pm. It is now almost 11pm, and each cuttle has eaten 4 or 5 mysid shrimp within that time frame. [Insert Pig Face Here]

 

[DWhatley]

If I remember others correctly, this is a very good sign and you are well on your way to healthy cuttles.

 

[DeepBlueWonders]

Just caught one of my larger cuttles chewing on a ghost shrimp about twice his size
I think I might be able to have a lot of them fully on ghost shrimp by the end of the week. Fingers crossed!

 

[DeepBlueWonders]

I just tried feeding small shore shrimp to my cuttles. The shrimp were about 1.5-2 times the size of the cuttles. Four cuttlefish from the larger 6 net breeder ate one, and 1 cuttlefish from the smaller 6 net breeder ate one. One of the cuttles, right after he stuck at the shrimp, began inking all over. Lol. I guess he was surprised at the strength of the new food. Just as soon as he caught it (and began inking), he let it go. Then a different cuttle sucked the shrimp right up. Then Mr. Ink (lol) went for a different shrimp, he inked a little this time too, but at least he ate the shrimp.
I didn't have my camera for all this action, but once it was done, I left the room to get my iPad to log this in the journal. When I came back, the thought occured to me that maybe one of the smaller cuttles would eat. So I put a shrimp in the other net breeder and began to post. In the middle of my post, I saw a cuttle inch for the shrimp, so I quickly switched my iPad from TONMO to the camera and began recording. I caught the attack just in time:

 

[DeepBlueWonders]

Later today, I plan to clean the net breeders again. I'll post a few pictures of the cuttles with a quarter for size reference. They are getting huge!

 

[DeepBlueWonders]

I now have 5 and 1/2 cuttles eating shore shrimp. I just witnessed one more cuttle eating another shore shrimp (not sure if it was a cuttle that had already eaten a shore shrimp earlier today or not so I didn't count it in the 5) and then another striking twice at one unsuccessfully. Although he was unsuccessful, it is still very promising. At least he is interested.
Just cleaned one of the net bredders. Pictures on the way.

 

[DeepBlueWonders]

Picture!

This picture is of the larger 6 cuttlefish. The net breeder with the smaller 6 cuttles wasn't dirty enough to have to clean it, so I let them be.

 

[DeepBlueWonders]

I now have 8 cuttles eating shore shrimp.

 

[DeepBlueWonders]

I now believe all 12 of my cuttles are eating shore shrimp. They eat about 1-2 a day right now. They dont seem to like the head of the shore shrimp either. Every morning there is literally a pile of heads. I guess they all agree on a place to leave their "garbage", because every single head is in one place, in a small pile. They aren't spread all over the net breeder. Anyone ever experiece this behavior.
My oldest cuttle is now 20 days old while my youngest is 8.