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My first baby bandensis, one of many I hope.

Don't feed them at all for a day or two. No food. If there is always food available, they can become used to it and not strike, and if you are trying to get them to eat all the time you can freak them out. Also, the shrimp you have can be pretty aggressive looking for food and may be harassing the cuttles.

Are the cuttles in the 10 gallon or the other tank now?
When they were in the 10 gallon, what were your ammonia and nitrite readings over the time you were losing them? What are the ammonia and nitrite readings now?
 
Well I got one of them to eat a dead shrimp but I'll go ahead and remove the other live ones and leave them alone until later tonight.

The 2 cuttles are back in a breeders net in my display tank's refugium. There is 0 nitrate / ammonia.

When they were in the 10g nitrate peaked at 25ppm approx. To be honest I've never tested for ammonia since I really have never had the need to any it's my understanding that any ammonia would be toxic.

They are both certainly eating just not very much.

I'll update you guys again later tonight or tomorrow morning.
 
Do you test ammonia in the display tank?

Ammonia is toxic to different organisms at different levels. It is not uncommon for rising ammonia levels to only gradually effect animals. I suspect that in the 10 gallon, with the messy eaters, mess wasters and frozen foods, you experienced a cycle (ammonia>nitrite>nitrate) and that there were damaging levels of both ammonia and nitrite before the nitrate started to rise. The stress of all the moves and the water changes with freshly mixed salt water probably didn't help. Sorry for you losses.

I would remove the food items and not feed anything until at least tomorrow morning. They are big enough to go without food for few days, and IME its always better to have cuttles that want to eat over cuttles who ignore food.
 
Thales;139789 said:
Do you test ammonia in the display tank?

No I don't. There is no way you should ever have ammonia in an established tank. Display is a 112 gallon mixed reef, with everything from acros, to zoos, and about a dozen fish which are mainly different fairy wrasses who appear to LOVE the shore shrimp. I gave them a couple as a treat.

You are likely correct about the 10 gallon. However I had no choice, water was pouring out of the tank they were in onto the floor and there simply isn't room for breeders nets in my display tank or sump other then the one I have in now.

I'll feed again in the morning and go from there. I'm hoping I can get more eggs in a few months but for now I'm focused on these 2.
 
corpusse;139793 said:
No I don't. There is no way you should ever have ammonia in an established tank. Display is a 112 gallon mixed reef, with everything from acros, to zoos, and about a dozen fish which are mainly different fairy wrasses who appear to LOVE the shore shrimp. I gave them a couple as a treat.

You are likely correct about the 10 gallon. However I had no choice, water was pouring out of the tank they were in onto the floor and there simply isn't room for breeders nets in my display tank or sump other then the one I have in now.


I asked because you said there was no ammonia in the established tank, but if you don't test, you really don't know. You are right, you shouldn't but if you have problems you might. I don't mean to harp on this because it is a pet peeve of mine, but you can't say you have 0 ammonia if you don't test because you don't actually know.
I always keep an ammonia test kit around, or a ammonia test card (Petco: Pet Supplies, Pet Food, & Pet Products) as cheap easy insurance. In this case a 10$us ammonia card might have saved all the animals.

I completely understand about setting up the 10 gallon. I wish you had checked for ammonia so we could know what actually happened and perhaps not lost the animals.
Again, I am sorry for your losses and hope the two do well for you.
 
Sure, but if you aren't testing you don't really know which I think is an important distinction.
I only bring this up because I feel it is a very important mindset to have for long term success and trouble shooting - accurate reporting. If someone says they have no ammonia, people who are tying to help think they have been testing for it, and their help becomes less useful because they don't have all the information.

In any case, I suggest that anyone setting up an emergency tank get an ammonia card. For the last 7 months I have been coordinating a QT/holding room with roughly 40 systems, and it is amazing how quickly ammonia can spike when you add animals - even in a system with cycled live rock and even in a system that got a 50% water change 6 hours earlier. Ammonia alert cards have saved many animals, and are so cheap that they should be part of any saltwater emergency kit.
 
I'm not disagreeing with you and I actually did find one of those ammonia alert things (not sure if it still works) while i was cleaning about, but for a reef tank you should never have to worry about ammonia in it, and if you do have it you're going to see signs right away.

While it would have been nice for the cuttlefish to have this and know, I really had no other options. Stupid tank cracking caused many problems and the cuttlefish dying is likely tops of the list.

Back to the cuttlefish I can't wait till morning and hope to see them pounce once I add some food.
 
So one ate this morning and one didn't.

The one that didn't is likely the last one to eat yesterday. For now it looks like 1 shore shrimp is all they want to eat per day. This is considerably more then 4 or 5 live mysids or 1 or 2 pe mysis so hopefully they will continue to grow.

At least my shore shrimp will last a while.
 
I just cant get these guys excited for food. They are still alive and pretty active, I try and only check them out once or twice a day. There's lots of cheato for them to hide in but I do see them hover about from time to time.

I put in PE mysis again today since it wont move around too much again they snap at it but wont bring it in. It's all gone so I'm assuming they ate it, unless the small bristleworms inside got it all. There is again one shore shrimp in with them that I think I'll remove and then try again in 24hrs.

They do eat, but only when the food is dead / dying and it's waved right in front of their faces.

I wish they'd go and attack like the first time they tried shore shrimp, im not sure what's changed other then maybe all it takes is one per day and a half to sustain them. Once they get a little bigger I can at least not check to see if they're alive every day, instead check how they're doing.
 
octopi88;140157 said:
Are they still doing ok

Okay. I'm fairly certain one actually did eat 2 shore shrimp yesterday, and am completely certain they did eat 1 each. One actually attacked one vs reluctantly eating it. Maybe they are starting to make progress. Considering they are about a month and a half old they should be around the stage where they start eating a ton and growing a ton.
 

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