• Looking to buy a cephalopod? Check out Tomh's Cephs Forum, and this post in particular shares important info about our policies as it relates to responsible ceph-keeping.

Looking for a little insight.

Joined
Mar 9, 2011
Messages
8
I was told to come to this forum from a friend on Fish Lore.

My girlfriend brought home a cuttlefish from out LFS about a week ago.

I'm pretty sure its been doing pretty good, eats ghost shrimps regularly, but he doesnt really do much around the tank.
Just kinda loafs around.

But the reason I'm posting this is because now that she has this cuttle, she already ordered a cluster of eggs. -.-

I have a spare 30 gallon, that a friend is currently using, but I'm getting it back very soon.
It has a aquaclear 110 filter on it and its been running salt with no problems.

I would like to know and info I would need to get this 30 gallon equiped almost perfect for cuttles, and how many can I keep in said tank, because the rest our LFS want to buy back, because they havnt hatched eggs on thier own.

Our current cuttle is in a 8 gallon 180 nano cube, hes only about a month old, I'm not sure if this is good for long term, but he seems to be doing good. >.<

Any info would be appreciated.
I know, this isn't an ideal start to cuttles, but the little guy is so awesome, I just want to find a way to keep them so they live thier full lifespan.

Thank you in advance
 
Good Morning,

I have had some luck over the years and raised 4 cuttlefish to adults. You will need to make sure your water is copper free when you get it and a 30 gal is ok for a cuttlefish until it get older and starts inking the tank. Need to have lots of water mixed and ready to do a massive water change if needed. The bigger the tank the better results you will have. Use soft sand on the bottom that will not cut the cuttlefish's belly. Do not put lots of live rock in the tank because the cuttle will run into it with it's butt and cut itself. This does not heal up and can get infected and kill it. So as big a tank as you can handle; more longed and wider instead of higher (sort breeder tanks are better).
Mike Bauer
 
Mike Bauer;173925 said:
Good Morning,

I have had some luck over the years and raised 4 cuttlefish to adults. You will need to make sure your water is copper free when you get it and a 30 gal is ok for a cuttlefish until it get older and starts inking the tank. Need to have lots of water mixed and ready to do a massive water change if needed. The bigger the tank the better results you will have. Use soft sand on the bottom that will not cut the cuttlefish's belly. Do not put lots of live rock in the tank because the cuttle will run into it with it's butt and cut itself. This does not heal up and can get infected and kill it. So as big a tank as you can handle; more longed and wider instead of higher (sort breeder tanks are better). .

Morning! There are lots of generalities in the above quote that I don't think are quite right.
The most important thing is that we don't group all cuttles as needing the same kind of care. For instance in the UK it is very difficult to get Sepia bandensis, but easy to Sepia officinalis and in the US the reverse is true. A 30 gallon is fine for a single S. bandensis, but woefully inadequate for a S. officinalis. Ink with S. bandensis is generally not a problem, and our protein skimmers deal with it pretty readily. I have never heard or seen any cuttle having a problem cutting its belly on coarse substrates, nor have I heard of a cuttle getting a belly infection from such a cut. The idea of 'butt -burn' is not a problem with S. bandensis, and for the larger species it usually becomes a problem due to the animal jetting into the side of the tank, not to the rock.

Finally, I would avoid Ocean Pro Aquatics like the plague. Do a search on them and you will find person after person that has had bad experience with them. Even now, they are still using my photos even though they have been asked to stop, and they are still mislabeling ceph for sale with incorrect names even though they have been told numerous times of the substantial inaccuracies contained on their website. They advertise eggs as tank raised, but that doesn't make any sense and I have to wonder what they are feeding their 'tank raised' cuttles and wonder if something simply hatched in captivity counts as 'tank raised'. Here is one report - there are many others - http://www.tonmo.com/forums/showthread.php?23112-Oceanproaquatics.com&highlight=oceanproaquatics
 
Cuttlefish - everything you want to know about them

When I started getting cuttlefish in 2003, I use to get them from Octopets. But they had a bad run of luck and lost the entire stock of everything due to bad water from the ocean and went under. I started with the larger type of cuttlefish ( Sepia officinalis )and my 2 would ink a tank 30 gal tank black in one try. It seems that the smaller ones (Sepia bandensis) are not as bad, from what I have been reading of late, and can be kept in a 30 gal tank. I have 7 of them at this time and it is a lot harder to keep them alive due to food size. My larger type could eat baby fist at birth; while these smaller type need special care and feeding. You must supply smaller food for them like copepods, amphapods, or some types of small shrimp to keep them alive until thay can accept other foods. I had to start a second tank of feeder foods just to get though this stage. It contains rotifers, brine shrimp, copepods and small ocean shrimp. This mix seems to keep them happy and eating daily for the last 2 weeks. All is looking good at this time.

Mike Bauer
:wink:
 
Mike Bauer;174522 said:
This was the 1st site I found when on cuttlefish back in 2003 and it still holds true.
Cuttlefish Husbandry: Part I - What is a Cuttlefish anyway? - The Cephalopod Page

That article is out of date - though some of the general information is still good. Referring to 'cuttlefish' as a group is no considered to be not a great idea because we are now keeping different species and they have different requirements of food, space, flow, etc. S. officinalis are now even harder to get than they were in the past in the US, and they don't really make a good home animals due to their size and skittishness.
 
not sure it is out of date

I see that the articles have been updated over the years and they even point to your article on keeping S. bandensis as one of the sources for how to keep cuttlefish. It does still focus on the larger and harder to raise cuttles but it does have links to all the other kinds as well as squids and octopus. Cephalopod Links - The Cephalopod Page

Also, I had a lot less trouble keeping my 2 first S. officinalis than I am with these smaller ones. Guess I just got use to keeping the larger type in colder water in a 150 gal tank.
 

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