Nautilus Care

[skywindsurfer]

I have a few question about the care of nautilus.
1.) If they are found in tropical waters why do you need to keep them in cold water?
2.) What cause their shells to turn black?
3.) How do you prevent/treat this issue?
4.) What is the ideal habitat for them(temp/salinity/substrate/current/et cetra)?
5.) Is there any vital husbandry information I should know?

 

[Thales]

1) The descend to 1500 feet plus every day. When kept at cooler temps they seem to live longer. At work I keep them at 66 degrees for the last year and a half and have regular mating and egg laying.
2) No one knows
3) No one knows
4) Ideal? Natural conditions from where they were collected. Reef like parameters. I have been considering having the temp cycles to mimic their daily/nightly trip to the surface, but since they seem to be doing well I may not.
5) Feeding. Shrimp with shells on, molts, etc.

 

[skywindsurfer]

Thanks. Do you know of any studies or discussions about the effects of preasure or lack there of that they would endure in the wild from thier natural virtical migrations that they don't get in captivity? Also what about water current and lighting? Should the tank be kept dark 100% of the time of could you do a day/night cycle? And lastly what about tank mates?

 

[gjbarord]

Nautiluses are found in "tropical" waters but rarely come to the surface and when they do (in certain places), they do not remain there very long. They usually inhabit extreme depths along the reef slope.

Nautiluses produce a black substance in response to other injuries that they may incur in the wild, such as predator attacks, but the black shells in captivity is unique, though it may just be an extreme response to an "injury" in captivity. I use the term injury very lightly for lack of a better term. There is a paper on "scrubbing" the shells to reduce the appearance of the black shell but I do not believe this to get at the root cause of the problem so I have never attempted this.

Vital information??? Well, WATER QUALITY is the most important thing to consider. All parameters (NH3, NO2) should remain 0 and NO3 should really not exceed 10.

There are publications detailing implosion depths of nautiluses in the wild but no comparative studies of pressure changes in captivity... Additionally, the simple migration pattern that was thought to occur in all nautilus populations is not so simple with at least one population of nautiluses in Australia performing multiple depth migrations at night, but also in the day time.

I have seen nautiluses exhibited with Sepia officinalis as well as numerous invertebrates and other deep sea fishes, such as pinecone fish.

Are you setting up a system? Home system?

Greg

 

[skywindsurfer]

I would like to, but I want to get all the facts first. The only thing in the tank will be a few rocks covering the back wall and two small (less than 6" diameter) Cortez Roundrays and a shallow sand bed. I have low current and low lighting, and plan on keeping the tank between 66F and 69F. I will definately have to work on my water chems because my NO3's are currently a little above 20.

 

[skywindsurfer]

Could nautilus do well in 57°F water?

 

[gjbarord]

What would be the reason to keep a nautilus at 57F?

Greg

 

[skywindsurfer]

There is an exhibit at my work that is kept at that temperature and I think it would look amazing with nautilus in it.

 

[skywindsurfer]

1) The descend to 1500 feet plus every day. When kept at cooler temps they seem to live longer. At work I keep them at 66 degrees for the last year and a half and have regular mating and egg laying.

How long do they live? Do you have any pictures of the mating/eggs/hatchlings that you could send me? I've been looking online but cannot find any.

4) Ideal? Natural conditions from where they were collected. Reef like parameters. I have been considering having the temp cycles to mimic their daily/nightly trip to the surface, but since they seem to be doing well I may not.

What are their ideal conditions? Sand/mud/silt? Rockwall drop? I was thinking of a sandy/muddy bottom with a very thin, fake rockwall background. How would you simulate the temperature change of a nightly virtical migration? Also could this stress the animal out? What I'm getting at is do they do this every single night like clock work or is it a once in a while only when they need to eat and/or breed?

5) Feeding. Shrimp with shells on, molts, etc.

What do they naturally eat? I've seen videos of them hunting, but never what they caught.

 

[skywindsurfer]

Is there any trace elements, minerals, et cetra that I would need to add to the water other than Ca+ to help keep the animal healthy as well as promote good shell growth?

 

[skywindsurfer]

I was reading some posts under the Nautiladae threads and Robyn said she kept her animals between 59F and 63F, and Thales said that he keeps his at 66F. What is the max (Lowest - Highest) temperature range these animals can be kept at?

 

[skywindsurfer]

It also said that they need crustaceans with their shells on and/or molts for calcium. Are there other ways to enrich the food or water with Ca+ to get more Ca+ inside the animal?

 

[skywindsurfer]

The reason I am posting all of these question is because I hope to have my nautilus tank set up this week and have an animal in it within the next month or so and I want to be absolutely sure that I do everything right for this animal. So any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[CaptFish]

posted by Robyn in '09

Welcome to Tonmo. I am a scientist in the US who has worked with captive nautiluses in a research facility for about four years. Generally we discourage people from keeping nautiluses as pets because they are difficult to keep healthy in captivity, and because we don't know enough about the health of their wild populations to be confident that a pet trade is supportable.

A chiller is essential - even though they are from the tropical ocean, they live in deep water that remains cold. A temperature of about 15-18 degrees celcius is necessary, anything above about 23 degrees will be fatal. So if you are keeping it in an outside tank you must have a chiller. The size of the chiller you need will depend on the size of the tank. For one nautilus, no smaller than 150 gallons, and a vertical tank is better than horizontal. If you want to keep more than one, you should expect to have a tank of about 200 gallons. People keep them in smaller, but since they routinely swim hundreds of meters up and down every day, bigger is better.

It sounds from your posts that you have not had a saltwater tank before - (apologies if I have read that wrongly). I definitely don't recommend nautilus for a first-time keeper, they are very sensitive to water quality and can become ill without showing many effects. An experienced keeper would be more likely to know if there is something subtle that is wrong.

You definitely need to keep them in a tank on their own - whoever kept them with trigger fish condemned their animals to a certain death. Trigger fish are a main predator of nautilus and will kill each and every one in the tank.

My overall advice is, get something else. Nautiluses are beautiful, yes, but they are also quite boring aquarium animals as they are sedentary 90 % of the time. They need to be kept in the dark, so they don't go blind (this happens a lot with animals from pet stores), they need very good water quality and constant monitoring. If you are just starting with reef tanks, I would recommend something more interactive and enjoyable to start with.

Hope this helps!

Robyn.

 

[skywindsurfer]

Also I would like to journal my attempts at keeping these animals. Would that be allowed on TONMO? If so should I place it here?