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My cuttlefish just layed eggs!!!!!!!!!

rbrthh

Pygmy Octopus
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Nov 2, 2009
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Ok i need any and all info on what i need for the baby cuttles. My cuttlefish just layed her eggs sometime between 2 A.M. 8 Jan 2010 and 12 P.M. I first need to find out how long it takes for them to hatch, what the likely hood of their survival is, a good food for them to be feed, what i need to do to keep them safe in the tank, and the growth rate for a dwarf cuttlefish is. pretty much any info you can give me will be greatly appreciated! thank you in advance

P.S. if you need any info about my tank just let me know and i will be more than happy to tell you.
 
Hi there and... congratulations? How sure are you these eggs were fertilized? I should probably check your other posts first, but did you keep her with a male?
 
Usually it takes between 3 and 5 weeks for them to hatch.
It can be difficult to tell if the are fertile. At around week 2-3 they will begin to swell and become transparent, and you'll be able to see the cuttle inside.
Growth seems pretty slow for the first months, then accelerates as they move to bigger food.

Here is an excerpt from and upcomm9ing article in FAMA about feeding hatchlings:

Hatchling cuttles need small easy to catch food, and lots of it. Live mysis is currently the best food available, and yes it must be live. Many new cuttle keepers think they will be able to catch enough mysis for their cuttles from their sumps or from LFS tanks, but the amount available from those sources is nearly never enough. A hatchling cuttle will take a mysis at least 2 times a day, but 4-6 is preferable because the more nutrition that gets into the animal the faster it will grow. So, if you have 5 cuttles, and we average 4 mysis a day that comes out to 20 mysis a day, or 140 mysis a week, which is a lot of mysis. Given that mysis can be cannibalistic, keeping mysids in stock can be difficult, and getting a shipment weekly (reedmariculture.com or aquaculturestore.com) can be expensive. But it is necessary; cuttles need to eat. Brine shimp, adult or baby, has been tried as cuttle food many time, but is simply not sutible – the cuttles who are fed such a diet fail to thrive. After a month or so,amphipods can be introduced into the cuttle die, before that they may be too strong for the cuttles easily getting away from them, or even injuring them. These can be collected locally if possible or ordered from many online sources.

When the cuttles are between 6 -8 weeks, they can be weaned on to thawed frozen mysis. Start by introducing the thawed frozen food along with the live food, so the cuttles become accustomed to non living foods. The key here is to have enough flow in the cuttle’s aquarium to keep the non living foods moving around – generally if they stop moving they will be ignored.


There is more information in the articles section of TONMO and in last Augusts TFH - not sure if it has been posted here yet.

Good luck!
 
Ok so Jason (rbrthh) is actually my roommate, so pertaining to the same cuttlefish i had some questions myself. How long can they hold on to sperm sacks? we've had her exactly a month and 7 days today and we found the eggs yesterday morning.. We're looking into buying all the supplies we need, and finding a place for our carnivorous fish (i.e. lionfish) to stay until we can find a good leeway for our baby cuttles. But we want to know if there's actually a chance or possibility they'll hatch before we go into spending all of that money (that we dont have, thanks Navy!). We cant look inside them to see if there are any embryos because Zoidberg filled them with ink, and maybe it's just my human mind arguing with a cephalopods instinctive nature, but i dont think that she would take all of this care of these eggs...if there was nothing inside them, she even burrows under them to sleep. I've found no consistency on any of these things online, so its possible that no one knows for sure.. After our wunderpus died, we cant go through losing zoidberg too, these eggs are a big deal to us haha.
 
My female laid her eggs over a period of months, so you may have some time left with her still... If you have only had her a month, I think it would be possible that the eggs are fertile. You will just have to wait and see... good luck!
 
Unfortunately, there are multiple journals on Cuttlegirls adventure (Jenn, can I consolidate?) but here is a partial that might interest you. Searching for Baby A by cuttlegirl will bring up others.

cuttlefish eggs
 
236 eggs in 5 months..thats the craziest thing I've ever heard! Imagine if they all did that.. I don't know what I would do if Zoidberg turned into a little factory. But then she's also the only cuttlefish in our tank, and has been solo for over a month, its possible some of these eggs could hatch i guess ifshe 'cuddled' before being shipped and just held onto the sperm sack until she got to a calm environment(our tank)..I'd be happy if just 1 was viable even, not just 20+ ink-filled cuttle-less eggs
 
i can't thank all of you enough for all the quick and helpful replies, please keep the information coming. My room mate and I would love to hear any and all info everyone here has for us. thank you again!
 
Congrats on the eggs, I currently have two sepia offiicinalis in my care and my female laid around christmas I knew for a fact that she hadn't cuddled with any other cuttles as when we got her when she was still very young. However her next door neighbour is a boy and he was trying to break through the wall after her once she had laid her eggs. I set them up on a date on new years eve and after some very impressive displays she laid hundreds of eggs on new years day which suggests that the meeting was successful. You may wish to try the same if you know anybody with another dwarf as she may have sometime left to mate. Either way good luck with your eggs I hope you become proud grandparents!
 
Update, Zoidberg just laid about 10 more eggs, so now im 90% sure that they're not fertilized (the other 10% is hope that they are) but the good news is that her eating habits have improved drastically, when we drop crabs in the tank they don't even hit the ground before she snatches them
 

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