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Keeping Sepia Bandensis in my sump?

joe

Hatchling
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Jan 18, 2016
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Location
Luxembourg
Hello everyone, I m new on this site i did a lot of reasearch in the internet but i couldnt find an answer, so I hope here is anybody who can help me :smile:
I have a reef tank 240 L with only a few fish and corals, and i wanted to keep Sepia bandensis in my sump.
I m gonna buy an new sump which one is big enough to keep them with everything I need but my question is does this affect my reef in a bad way ?
Thanks for the Help :smile:
 
:welcome: Joe! I moved your request from our news forum to Cuttlefish Care for better exposure for your inquiry.

Unlike octopuses, you can actually keep cuttles in a minimal reef but still need to be concerned to avoid stinging corals. The only reef negative to your sump idea would be the advent of heavy inking. Bandensis don't ink as heavily as larger octopuses and a good skimmer should eliminate any concerns.

However, most sumps contain hardware that can be a problem for the cuttlefish. In particular, any pump intake (skimmer/return pump/powerhead) needs to be well shielded (netting works well) so that the cuttles don't lose their feeding tentacles. Another concern (again, more of a problem with octopuses) is any heater you have in the sump. Bandensis do crawl close to the bottom at times and need to be protected against coming in contact with the heater.
 
Thanks for the ansewer :smile:
I thought about this, I m gonna build the sump, that its like a small tank seperated in two parts, So in the big part I wanted to put some live rocks with macro algae where the sepia should live, the whater from my main tank flows immideatly in this part and has to flow over to the small part with everything inside like heater, skimmer... and from there back to the main tank.
But my biggest concern is the ink, i thought it could be a problem with the corals.
In the moment i have the aqua medic evo 1000 skimmer for 500 L I hope its strong enough.
Is it better to keep them alone or in pairs ? :smile:
Are there other points I have to pay attention ? :smile:
 
Bandensis are often kept with corals (albeit, not highly sensitive or harsh stinging) and no one has reported a problem with the slight amount of ink the bandensis emit. You will want at least 35 gallons of space for them (larger is better) with places to hide (live rock with numerous caves is typical). Pairs or threesomes seem to work well with a single female but the fighting seems to increase if there are too many males in one tank.

If you are planning to raise these from eggs, you need to be aware of the need for live mysid shrimp for the first month (or so). Unless you can catch these yourself, this runs into quite an expense both because the mysid are hard to keep alive and the quantities needed to feed. Live shore shrimp and small crabs are usually their next foods but they can often be trained to take frozen mysis after the first month (sometimes slightly longer - some never adapt to frozen).
 
okay thank you :smile:
Yes I thought to raise them from eggs, i dont have a local fish store here so i have to order them from the internet.
Yes thank you for the informations :smile:
 

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