My cuttles

[craigl]

Speaking of which here is a video of that!
Photo and Video Storage | Photobucket

 

[L8 2 RISE]

wow they blend in so well, my untrained eyes werent able to see the first one untill -20 seconds when it moved, and the second one at the very end of the video when it ate the food!

 

[DWhatley]

I wonder if net feeding has anything to do with the cuttles not eating the filefish. Since are trained to the net, perhaps they don't expect food freely swimming.

 

[Thales]

There are also lots of stories of people saying this wont work or that wont work until someone tries it. Then soon enough it becomes common practice when it does work.

True, which is why I haven't said you shouldn't be trying what you are trying with that particular fish. At the same time, because lots of people read these threads, I think its important to point out that most of the time when someone says that we don't know until someone tries it that it often has already been tried. In this specific example, lots of people have tried fish with bandensis, and in general, it hasn't worked out well. At the same time, the filefish is something that most people don't keep and it may be fine. I guess the short of it is I hope people reading this thread don't get the idea that they should try putting fish in with bandensis because I don't think fish should be treated as disposable commodities, and in most cases, cuttles eat the fish.

You are prob right and i respect your vast knowledge and experience with these animals but even you had to learn somehow right? I have been closely watching them interact and it is just too intriguing seeing them behave like this to seperate them yet. However i do have another tank setup that has been running much longer than the cuttle tank that is only inhabitted right now by a serpent star and some reef janitors. If need be i can move the cuttles or the filefish there if something goes wrong. I have trained the cuttles to take shrimp right out of the net so catching them would be almost too easy

You're right, which is why I try very hard to not tell people what to do, but to express my opinion or relate similar experiences. Remember I said that they may be fine forever. I am very interested to see how this pans out. Do we know if orange spot files are toxic?
BTW, if something goes wrong, you prolly won't be able to do anything about it.

 

[Colin]

There was also a case of a bandensis who belonged to a member from a few years back called Joel. Don't think he hangs about here anymore but he even had a lionfish of about the same size eaten by a cuttle.

Experience tells us that most cephalopod and fish cohabitation stories end with losses...

 

[craigl]

I guess the short of it is I hope people reading this thread don't get the idea that they should try putting fish in with bandensis because I don't think fish should be treated as disposable commodities, and in most cases, cuttles eat the fish.

I agree that i wouldnt reccomend trying and i dont consider the fish a "disposable comoditiy". I dont want anyone to get the idea that i dont care for the wellbeing of all of my fish as well as my other pets. However the thing that interests me with this is that it has been said that cephalopods are one of the most intelligent creatures in the ocean next to marine mamals. (This may be more true for octopus??) Anyway, if these animals are now being bred in captivity im wondering if they can somewhat be domesticated (for lack of a better word) I highly doubt that you would be able to get a wild bandensis to eat from a net while on a dive. Or in DWhatley's case get a dwarf octo come up to you in the wild and want to be "pet". These seem like they are learned behaviors that can only happen in captivity. So I am trying this more so to see if they can be taught what is its food and what isnt.
Anyone with experience with keeping fish with their cuttles that would share their experience please do Id like to know How long the cuttles were in the tank before adding the fish? Were the captive bred or wild caught? if captive bred...how old when they took the fish down? Were they readily excepting frozen/prepared foods? What size tank? What species of fish did you try and how big was it in comparison to the cuttles?

 

[craigl]

Oh and according to fishbase the filefish are harmless.

 

[esquid]

It sounds like what you are looking to do is see how tame members of a wild species can become and the extent the having been captive breed/raised has on that. This is different from domestication, which is a couple thousand year long process of interdependence between humans and a non-human species. It could be an interesting experiment for someone.

 

[Animal Mother]

Oh and according to fishbase the filefish are harmless.

Yeah but they live on coral. Very expensive to maintain long term.

 

[craigl]

I have actually had the filefish for quite some time and have it eating frozen foods...Every now and again ill break off a nice sized acro frag from my reef tank and give it the filefish. Who said cuttlefish were cheap to feed?

 

[craigl]

Well i havent been on in awhile but here are some updated pics of the cuttles...

Happy Waldo

ANGRY WALDO

 

[sorseress]

Awwww! They're so cute!

 

[Thales]

Nice shots! Adam showed me some pics of your stuff - cool!

 

[monty]

great pics! Thanks!

 

[dreadhead]

Very nice! How old are they?