cuttle lagoon

[hobogato]

well, i am ready to get some cuttles in the tank and another local reefer sent me a link to an online store that has cl/ch cuttles. i ordered some for my classroom as well as four for this tank. rather than keep them in netbreeders, i fabricated this holding chamber in preparation

here is a quick fts from the other night

will be trying to catch those damsels before long to rehome them so they dont become cuttle food....

 

[sedna]

Good luck! I will be having fun reading your journal!

 

[corpusse]

Wow the tank really filled in nicely. Good luck with the damsels.

 

[hobogato]

thanks for the comments. got the little cuttles in today
boy are they are tiny but look healthy

here they are drip acclimating in a 1 gallon pitcher

here are a couple of individual shots (pun intended) of one in transfer to the tank

here they are in their new home - had to add the net breeder because i was worried about them getting thru the slots in the acrylic holding box

here they are with some macro - four are visible

 

[Lmecher]

Congratuations on the cuttles. How are they doing? Can't wait to see them swimming in your tank, it is beautiful, nice job

 

[hobogato]

thanks, i got a batch of live mysids in today and three of the four ate right away - it doesnt look like the fourth one will make it.

once they are a little more comfortable and eating out in the open, i will try to get some video

 

[Lmecher]

Sorry to hear about #4, Keeping my fingers crossed. Cuttles are very foreign to me but I am begining to really like them. Who know, maybe some day...

I look forward to photos

 

[hobogato]

ok, so two are still with me and eating well. all of the live mysids have disappeared into the rocks of the tank, so i was faced with the possibility of ordering another batch, when i logged in here and saw corpusse's thread and thought i would give pe mysis a try. one of them instantly grabbed it and started eating, the other was a little reluctant, but when i left the house, he was getting close and flashing colors in stalk mode, so i am hopefull that he took it as well. i am gonna put some saltwater acclimated mollies in the main tank and hopefully thier babies will provide a little more varied diet than just pe mysis. also, when the water at the coast warms up i will be able to go catch shore shrimp.

 

[hobogato]

one of that batch has graduated to frozen mysis and live molly babies. it is really gaining size now.

i got 10 more eggs on thursday.

here is a pic the day after i got the eggs, one hatched that night (the other one is the hatchling i have had for a couple of weeks)

a little closer

 

[hobogato]

here are a couple more pics from today - two more hatched last night

closer - sorry for the oof

 

[hobogato]

up to six babies with four eggs left - one baby died right after hatching

i spent a couple of hours setting up the mysid shrimp tanks. the idea is to keep a constant slow flow going between the two tanks with different size filter screens so the adults are trapped in one tank and the juveniles are trapped in the other while the larvae can move between them freely. it involves and air lift tube and a siphon to return the water.

here are the two parts before installation

also, each tank has a home made air driven sponge filter. this pic shows one assembled (left) and the other in pieces (right)

to jump start the bio filter, i put the new sponge filters in the main tank and used the filters that have been in the main tank for these new tanks.

i also did a big water change and used old tank water in the new mysid setup.

here is the whole thing running

 

[DWhatley]

OK, more explanation for this weak mind please. Where are you putting the filter screens and how are the shrimp getting through them? If the shrimp on the "little guy" side grow, do they just stay there or do you expect to harvest the small ones so that there will not be larger ones on that side?

 

[hobogato]

i have not added the screens yet, still looking for some. i got this idea reading thru the following article


Advanced Aquarist

here is the quote from the article

if you are willing to set-up a separate tank just for the adults alongside the main culture tank. Keep the top of this isolation tank exactly even with the top of the culture tank, and position an air lift tube in a corner of the adult's tank so that it returns water to the main culture tank, while a siphon tube in the opposite corner maintains the water level (see diagram) between the tanks. The air-lift tube should be sheathed with plankton netting or nylon screen with a mesh size (800 microns) that will restrain the adults while allowing the larvae to pass through unimpeded. Likewise, the end of the siphon tube should be covered with 500 mM plankton netting that will allow newly-hatched brine shrimp to pass through but not the juvenile mysids. Adjusting the air lift so it produces a slow, gentle, steady flow of water will automatically deposit the juvenile shrimp in the main culture tank while keeping the adults isolated in the adjacent tank, thereby eliminating cannibalism.

right now, i have adults in both tanks because i got 1000 in today. i am also going to set up five tanks in my classroom setup like the diagram on the left edge of the article, and that is where i want to actively culture them in the future.

 

[DWhatley]

Ace,
Before you start setting up on the classroom ... you might want to experiement with the siphon system just a little bit . I have messed with several contraptions while I was trying to raise seahorses and the theory worked a lot better than my practice after a few days (initially it is really facinating). The biggest problem is keeping the siphon (as it is with using a siphon for an overflow vs a drilled bulkhead). Then there is the fact that if the tank intended to be filled gets higher than the tank you are filling, the flow of the siphon reverses. It is cool to watch and the kids should enjoy it but be prepared for siphon issues.

 

[hobogato]

thanks for the heads up D. i am not sure how i will set up the system in the classroom, but it will likely not use the air lift/siphon method. that article has a diagram of a nice 5 tank setup on the left edge that i may try to emulate. regardless, i will not be setting that up for a while. the priority right now is keeping the baby cuttles at home well fed right now.

the mysids have moved mostly into the 20 gallon over night, so i will harvest from the 10 gallon until those are mostly gone and then i will set up the screens. fed them freshly hatched brine last night and they went nuts! two days in shipping with no food, they were really hungry. soaked some more baby brine in live phyto overnight and fed those this morning.

also, we have a new cuttle hatchling this morning and the cuttlefish ate all of the mysids we put in with them last night - about 20. still have three eggs - two small ones and one big one that looks like it will hatch any day.