Cuttlefish went crazy

[corpusse]

So yesterday all of my cuttlefish decided to ink together several times in a row.

Really weird they've never done this. Anyway I changed some water but 3 still did die. I'm not sure if it was the ink or just whatever the heck caused them all to ink at once.

I shouldn't say all of them, but more then a dozen inking in a system that is only about 50 gallons was a little much. I have 8 roaming around in their display and I'm moving 4 more over in case water quality is an issue.

While I'm sad a few have died it does lesson the burden of feeding so many. Having them in their big tank is better for them but makes it very hard for me to see them.

 

[robyn]

Well I have to admit that the title of this thread made me envision something far more diabolical than multiple inking. However:

In other molluscs it's been shown that ink contains alarm chemicals that might communicate threat to other individuals and sensitise them to also release ink, so you might have been observing something similar here. Ink is high in ammonia which is highly toxic even at low doses, so this may have been the cause of the deaths, although it's hard to tell what is the cause of death, generally speaking. Do you have a test kit for ammonia? If you still have residual levels present it may be worth changing more water out, particularly as your water volume is quite small to handle 12 shots of ink. Good luck!