My first baby bandensis, one of many I hope.

[corpusse]

The reason I said Chromis is they aren't "feeders" per say but reef fish that just happen to be small and cheap.

Anyway I bought 10 ghost shrimp today for $4. I actually got 18. They're in a bucket with an air pump. I'll feed them marine pellets for a few days then start feeding them. For $4 I might as well just pick up some of these every couple of weeks. I'd even consider seeing if they can sell me 100s or 1000 for cheaper next time I hatch because as far as I can tell they're nearly identical to shore shrimp. Both are of the Palaemonetes genus and the shore shrimp are really brackish so I don't think it would make much difference feeding them the freshwater type long term. After all my fish and corals eat PE mysis almost exclusively and they are freshwater mysis which are far larger and more nutritious then marine mysids like what our baby cuttlefish eat.

 

[MrThate]

One thing I won't recommend: damsels! me and my roommate bought 4 damsels way back when we bought our tank almost a year ago for our wunderpus we had at the time...well, they survived past the octopus, and just flourished. The only things that killed them was our arrowcrab we had at the time (that was cool to wake up and see) and eventually Zoiberg (our cuttle) ate the smallest dime sized one, but only because we hadnt been able to catch crabs in 3 days due to work and rain (washington).
We got rid of our damsels just the other day, took them back to our lfc and begged for our damsels to get put in the shark tank, we wanted our feeder fish to serve their purpose, and they didnt even last 5 seconds in the shark tank. its a long story, but they left us on a real bad bad note
I'm sorry i rambled and went way off topic, but long story short: Damsels are a no-go by me

 

[DWhatley]

MrThate, Could create a now thread in octopus care and provide a list of the reasons with examples from your experience as to why you found the damsels such a bad choice (as well as the kind of damsel you had)? We recommend against them but there is nothing as impactive as a set of examples.

Thanks,

 

[Thales]

Damsels are generally very territorial and have no problem taking on animals many times larger than themselves defending their turf. For that reason alone, they are a terrible feeder fish for cephs.

 

[corpusse]

Chromis are a lot wimpier then typical damsels though. Clownfish may be another idea although they may be too "cute" to feed to a ceph. Other then that gobies is probably the next option for cheapish tropical marine fish.

 

[Thales]

I don't know what you mean about chromis? Chromis would be fine if not for the wild collection issues at discussed earlier.
I tried to source clownfish culls for feeds, but they were difficult to get with regularity in my part of the world. The thing we are all looking for is a readily available, cheap, captive bred saltwater fish.

 

[corpusse]

I don't know what you mean about chromis? Chromis would be fine if not for the wild collection issues at discussed earlier.
I tried to source clownfish culls for feeds, but they were difficult to get with regularity in my part of the world. The thing we are all looking for is a readily available, cheap, captive bred saltwater fish.

I'm sure you can find a local breeder. Tons of hobbiests breed clownfish. They may not want them sold as "feeders" though. Another option would be bangai cardinals they seem to breed relatively easy.

As for the wild collection issues, 90% or more of are reef fish are wild collected. As long as they go through a quarentine period they should be fine. Note I said should not would. When I originally mentioned chromis I was thinking of them as an occasional treat maybe offered 3 or 4 times over the cuttlefishes life. Not as a a staple food.

 

[Thales]

I have talked to local breeders all over the US. No one has them with any regularity. You need to be lucky to find someone with enough culls of the right size when you need them. I may contact ORA, but once you add overnight shipping into the equation, it gets expensive.

Banggai's don't produce the numbers - 10-40 every 26 days if you are rotating males.

Sorry about the chromis throw back - I was confused with a different thread which discussed some ethical issues with using wild caught animals for feeders. Sorry for the confusion.

If you are looking for occasional nutritional variation, frozen silversides should be regularly available.

 

[corpusse]

That's interesting. I know of at least a few guys around here breeding clownfish. They just do it for fun, not as a business which is why they might be hesitant to have them used as feeders.

To be perfectly clear I was speaking of an occasional live treat - thus the basis for the original thread "my cuttlefish is getting so lazy". Banggai's would be prefect if you could rear 10-40 every month. Not that I plan on going to this extreme.

Buying chromis for 3-4$ each once a month or so would be more then enough for my original purpose. I could throw them in my frag tank for a month to qt them as well.

 

[Thales]

Gotcha.

FYI it was the using chromis that way that rubbed some the wrong way. Why not use a less resource intensive animal for feeders?

 

[snowmaker]

This Saturday, I almost picked up some small green Chromis for a cuttle treat, but the LFS owner told me he treats this set of 4 tanks w/ copper so I did not get any.

 

[DWhatley]

There is no real reason to feed them fish and the danger of copper, either at the pet store or at the wholesaler, makes it undesirable.

 

[snowmaker]

Like was said, I was thinking about something different to feed them maybe once a month. We have Mummichong here which I believe is a type of killifish and I can probably get a few now and then. They're wild caught in the cold N. Atlantic, but kept captive at a friend's shop. No copper or anything for that matter is used there.
I recently heard of a company in Seabrook, NH that raises mysids for water quality checking. I should check into them as it's not too far from me.
Granted I'm a total noob, but I think these large live amphipods we have are awesome cuttlefish food and possibly easy to culture as first foods as I noticed hundreds of tiny ones in their tanks carbon reactor as I emptied it.