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Cuttle egg adventure

Ya me too! Im afraid to look at them too much with the flashlight. It looks like I might have a hatch today or tomorrow because one of the cuttles has no yoke left and is kind of floating/swimming around in the egg.
 
I see more cuttles in more eggs tonight, idk if it was because i changed my angle of flashlight-> eye but i dont really see movement but i see more cuttles in the eggs than i did yesterday. Not 100% if the ink depletes over time as it gets closer to hatch but, if i remember correctly in my past experiences an egg looked like it was going to burst before they hatched and was more clear than it was the days before it. If i had a better flashlight and camera available a picture would be worthy but since i dont and i dont it is not. Hope deepblue had some luck or notable progress today since i feel like we are keeping a shared journal! Probably didnt post after morning because he didnt leave his tank-side watching his new little cuttle (i hope!) lol
 
Haha. Sorry, didn't mean to hijack your journal.
What I recently learned is that try shining the light through the bottom of the egg going up (if that is possible for you). I have a bare bottom nursery so it worked for me. I got much better looks at the cuttles that way.
And you are correct :heee: my first cuttle hatched this morning. Just a wee little thing!
It's kind of funny, because one of the eggs yesterday was leaking/oozing out clear gel from the inside of the egg. I thought the egg was going through a "self-abortion" process, but I could still see the cuttle inside. As it turns out, I woke up this morning to find a baby cuttle, hatched from the "aborting" egg, and the egg is now almost fully deflated.
The cuttle looks great, I'll be sure to post pics in a little while, if you want.
 
Well, the joy ceases. After a few hours, I found my new cuttle lifeless. I immediately did water test, only to find my alkalinity through the roof. I'm working on a 50% water change. Hopefully I can get things under control before the next hatch.
 
DeepBlue,

I can't remember your tank parameters (size, do you have a protein skimmer?). So sorry, are you sure it was dead? They really don't move much right after they hatch. If it is still on the bottom of the breeder net and not floating, you should not disturb it.
 
It was on the bottom of the net breeder. I gently moved it into a small tuberware container (where it is still sitting on the bottom). It's not moving at all, or changing colors. It's simply whiteish grayish translucent. Should I slowly move it back into the net breeder? I've preformed about a 65% water change.
I'm running a "nursery" seperate from any system. It's a 29 gallon tank with a Reef Octopus protein skimmer rated for 120 gallons. There is only about 9inches of water in the tank (to accomadate the skimmer). The skimmer is the only filtration on the tank.
The only parameters that are out of wack is the alkalinity, which was 286.4 ppm KH. After the water change, it is now about 180.
Salinity was just below 36 also. Now it is slightly above 34
 
Thanks. If it doesn't float, does that mean it isn't dead? Or can it be dead and not floating?
Thanks again for the glimmer of hope. It's quite disheartening to lose my first cuttle
 
Cuttle number 2 just hatched.
Now one of the eggs I have is HUGE! The cuttle on the inside looks almost twice as big as the hatchlings and is swimming all over the egg. I expected this egg to hatch first, but its not even second....weird...
 
It's still the same color (black) and it was bundled with the other eggs. Right now, sitting on top of a plastic (but accurately sized) quarter, it almost blocks the entire view of the quarter.
Also, I think it still has a tiny yoke left.

How could one egg be S. officinalis while the others are bandensis? They were all bundled together by what appeared to be a cuttlefish...
 
More than one S. bandensis could have laid eggs in that bundle. I don't think that a S. officinalis would have contributed an egg to the bundle, but I'm wondering if the person who collected the eggs could have picked up an officinalis egg.

Maybe it's just really inflated...
 

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