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How do you tell one type of cuttlfish egg and hatchling from another type

Joined
May 29, 2003
Messages
290
Ok, I have see different looking eggs of all sized called dwarf cuttlefish eggs. How can you be sure what kind of cuttlefish egg that it is you have?
Size, color, clearness... If you get a hatching, how can you tell by looking at it? I think they all look the same to me at this point.

Dwarf, Large, flamboyant I know how to tell when they are older but looking at a hatching little face without a microscope is hard enough as is.

For example:

These eggs are all suppose to be dwarf eggs but one is twice the size of the others and almost clear.
 

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If it's a latimanus it'll do that weird thing with its arms when it hatches.

Dwarf cuttlefishes tend to be more colorful than officinalis/etc.

I can't tell the difference between officinalis and pharaonis and elegans, but they're the same size.
 
Telling them apart is difficult. If you know where they came from you can make a guess. Also, so species are known to inject ink in egg skin while others generally don't.
 
I would imagine all the eggs in your pics are bandensis eggs, the smaller ones look like they failed to develop. Regardless of what some vendors say, I have yet to see any eggs imported for retail sale in the US that didn't turn out to be bandensis.
 
That large egg looks very different from mine that hatched. Infact your smaller black ones look like my Bandensis eggs that hatched... Mine didn't clear up all that much but you could see a cuttle inside even so. My largest egg was around nickle sized.
 
Well I have never got one yet, the store always sends eggs and I get babies. I don't have any at this time except the dwarf. But I think the the store is sending me large dwarf eggs that hatch on the way and I never see the egg myself. But the last egg I got that was a dwarf was the one in the photo and it is almost completely clear and much larger than any dwarf eggs I received in the past. That is why I am annoyed and confused. I think I have been getting dwarf cuttlefish as larger cuttlefish and trying to adjust them to the colder water and killing them in the process? :shock:
 
I think the store keeping them at 19.5 ppt and your acclimation to low salinities is also killing them.

I was skeptical from the start that a shop in the US was getting any eggs other than bandensis....they just haven't ever shown up in the last 8 years.
 
NY Aquatic has the dwarfs at the 19.5 ppt ( none has ever lived for me more than a few days and had the floaty butt issue) Currently have 3 eggs in a breeder net (at 34 ppt time will tell).
The Fish Room has both the large and dwarf eggs, from time to time. I only ordered the large cuttlefish but none lived more than a few days and they all hatched before I got them so I never got to see one of the eggs. Other members have dwarfs from this store that are alive and eating well.
OceanPro Dwarf eggs all hatched and I had them for 2 weeks but was feeding them the wrong food and lost them all but one. I still have it (3 weeks old now)
Thumbs from Reef Central sent me a 2 week old and a small group of eggs. The baby is eating and looking good, 3 hatched premature during shipping and died within a day (Thumbs said they wouldn't make it because the were not ready to hatch yet (yoke still attached). 2 hatched yesterday.

So that is the list I have used for the last 3 months and the results I have had.
 
Whats the fish room? I looked on their site and couldn't find how to order. Did you contact them?
 

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