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Need advice on setting up ceph. tank

paddy

Pygmy Octopus
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Joined
Aug 7, 2007
Messages
11
Howdy I have a 260 litre tank with a protein skimmer powerhead and Canister Filter thats been cycling through for about 3 weeks now. My parameters are now relatively stable and I have added some small shrimp as the canaries in the coalmine and they are happily eating and growing. I am about to pop 2 or 3 Euprymna (Dumpling Squid) in there. Before I do can I get some expert advice on my tank set-up and whether it will handle the cephs. ok?
Leaner plates still on.
Cheers
Paddy
 
L8 2 RISE;115665 said:
Ceph tanks should cycle for 3 months before you add a ceph to them, because they produce a huge amount of waste. make sure your skimmer is well oversized as well.
Thanks ALot for that I was given the protein skimmer and I suspect it is a bit small for the tank I have I may get another bigger one. Will just 1 Eheim Canister Filter be enough because I had been thinking about getting another one. I will be running temperate squid so am getting a chiller $$$$ wow they are expensive I have a cheaper option struggling to get the water temp down to 14-15 degrees C. Currently my tank is at 18-20 which is still a bit warm. How will I know that I am ready for some squid? Ammonia spike and drop followed by Nitrite then Nitrate ???
Thanks again for any help
Paddy
 
cuttlegirl;115672 said:
What is your substrate? Do you have any live rock?
Because I'm running temperate squid with a tank at 18-20 deg.C, I'm trying to get it colder , there is no live rock available it's all tropical. My substrate is sand. Do I need 2 Eheim Canister Filters for a tank of this size (260L or 70gal)? I was thinkin of 2 Eheim CF and 2 protein skimmers, is this overkill?? Is there such a thing aas overkill as far as water quality and cephs. are concerned???
Thanks again for your help
Aussie Paddy says cheers
 
fishkid6692;115761 said:
where are you getting the squid?
We know a location from some other researchers at a different uni. Euprymna are shallow water nocturnal squid so a shore dive at night with a big spotlight apparently should be successful. I am just waiting for the appropriate permit from the government then away we go. We know they have been run quite successfully in captivity from a colleague out of Tasmania who kept a colony of them for some time.
2 small squid in 70 gallon tank hopefully isn't too taxing on our Eheim Canister Filter. Do I need 2 of these or is this overkill?
Cheers any help gratefully welcomed.
Paddy in Australia
 
Hi Paddy - have a look and see if you can pick up an old 2nd hand beer chiller... unfortunately (yeah right) you may need to crawl round a few pubs, or have a look on classified sites or newspapers and that is a cheap way of getting a chiller. I got one a few years back from a water cooler too.

just make sure it gets a good clean and a run through in salt water long before being added to the cephalopod tank

i think 1 eheim would be fine

cheers
 
Hanlon et. al. have a paper on lab culture of Euprymna scolopes that may help somewhat here, although it's more aimed at people with a full research facility. Jean has also had some bobtail squids (I think tasmanica ) in the past. I think gjbarord, cuttlegirl, and marinebio_guy might have worked with Euprymna in labs as well. There are very few who have kept them as pets, though. Littlemarley has a few threads about "the bobs" but to a large extent that's been about trying to compensate for her having put them into a tank that wasn't really prepared for them, the threads about that can be found here.
 
we keep Sepioloidea pacifica, we provide a medium grained sand for them to burrow into and feed to excess zooplankton including a good quantity of Mysid and Euphausiid shrimps. Because we run a flow through system we have never bothered with chillers etc as our tanks run at ambient (in relation to the local SST) .

where abouts in Aus?

J
 
Can you plumb into a flow through system? Is this for research or for pets? The distribution of E. tasmanica includes the Eyre Peninsula so they should be able to handle your local water temps I would have thought. Rocks collected from the local area could be used for aquascaping (which is what we do, we never buy live rock) my :twocents:

J
 
Thanks Jean
Where can I find out the distribution of Euprymna tasmanica?
The tank will be set-up for research but also will be nice to try to inspire undergraduate Biology students.
We are looking at ceph ink.
My tank is up to 18-20 degrees and some have said this will kill them or at the very least make them sick.
Is this your understanding?
Cheers
Shaun
 
Norman & Lu (1997) Redescription of the Southern Dumpling Squid Euprymna tasmanica and a revision of the genus Euprymna (Cephalopoda: Sepiolidae). JMBA 77 p 1109-1137.

I have a pdf if you want to pm me an email addy.

But do you think I can find the specific ref to the Eyre Peninsula????? I will keep looking!

J
 
Found it! It was on the website Ocean Biodiversity Information System

and if you down load the collection info you'll see that some was done by CSIRO so I'd imagine the data is pretty good!

If they are found in the Bight I would say they should be able to survive 18-20.......I guess it might pay to have a chiller on standby!

If you can contact David Sinn or Natalie Moltschaniwskyj at the University of Tasmania, in Launceston they should be able to give you more info, as they have worked with this species and have a couple of papers out!

Cheers

J
 

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