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New babies

Dan,

I think your cuttles (two of them!) must be eating more than mine... I just placed my second order of shore shrimp from Sachs (due Wednesday). I still have about 20 shrimp left, so I have enough to last until Wednesday... Mine typically eat one shrimp a day.
 
Mine will eat two small shrimp per day or one larger shrimp.

My fiancee and I will be out of town for ten days in August for our wedding, so we're going to have the neighbor boy feed them and have a ceph-friendly service company stop by once in the middle to make sure things are OK. By that time I imagine the cuttles will be out of the net breeder but not yet ready to have the whole 75 to themselves. I plan to build a divider out of egg-crate and fiberglass window screen.

Dan
 
Hi, I'm "the fiancee" (Beth) Dan refers to from time to time. Dan takes care of the babies while I get to enjoy them. I'm starting to dip my toes in the water learning about cuttlefish. I've been enjoying this website- especially all the photos. My current oil painting-Ink eating a crab- is from this site.

The cuttle fish are getting so big. Dan is right, we really have seen them grow each day. Since I get to name them, I will name the larger one Chubbs and the smaller one Checkers.

I like watching them in the morning before I leave for work. Feeding time is exciting, but in the morning, you really get a sense of their personalities. One likes to clean his arms, and the other usually is "walking" around.

I hadn't realized before we got the cuttlefish how much time they are benthic and "walking" with their #1 and #8 arms. They look like really big headed bipedal aliens sometimes.
 
Blueschist said:
Since I get to name them, I will name the larger one Chubbs and the smaller one Checkers.


Named for Chubbs Peterson, the golf pro in Happy Gilmore played by Carl Weathers?


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:welcome: Beth!

Would love to see a pic of your oil painting! I believe the pic you are painting from was one of my favorite octopuses!

Somehow I missed this thread! How exciting to have all these babies thriving! Any pics yet?

Carol
 
Carol,

We've been procrastinating taking pictures because we don't have a digital camera and because Righty's website is full of perfect pictures of cuttles that look just like ours :smile:

Dan
 
Update

I spent most of yesterday with the system down doing maintenance and trying to fix a couple of drippy bulkheads. Lo and behold one of the wily cuttles escaped my divider and was sitting on top of one of the rocks! I'm really lucky Beth saw him or he would have dissapeared forever like Bill!

So anyway, I have a new and improved divider and even gave them a little more space. After growing up in a net breeder they've really taken to their new space well, they love digging in the sand and climbing on the rocks. I was worried having more space would give them trouble finding food, but it seems they're better hunters in the tank than they are in the net.

I'm still fascinated watching them square off. Just as interesting to observe when they don't square off: I had them in a two quart paint bucket all afternoon while I was working on the tank and they behaved very well together, even "cuddling" occasionally. When I let them go back in the tank they squared off almost immediately. Its difficult not to anthropomorphize their behavior: it would almost seem that in the stressful, unfamiliar environment of the bucket they conserve their strength and benefit from eachother's presence. Then the moment they feel confident of their surroundings again they're back to showing off for eachother.

This morning I noticed Checkers has a thin white ellipse on this mantle just behind his eye. I've read of octopuses getting sucker marks while battling their foes, but this looks a bit too big to be from a sucker. He seems to be eating and behaving normally though, so I'm not too worried.

Dan
 
Yes. Its a bit smaller relative to body size. Other than the fact that its white it doesn't appear to interfere with his color or texture changing abilities.

Does this mean they're not playing nice?
 
I originally thought they were bite marks, but not we aren't so sure. Someone at TONMOcon told me that they could be a fungal infection, but I haven't been able to find any information.

In my earlier groups of cuttles there were a number of those marks. In subsequent batches, there were very few.

I'd give you a dollar if you could get video of the mark being inflicted! :biggrin2:
 

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