New project - Sepia officinalis

[Antropoteuthis]

Hi everyone! i'm planning to use my 54 litre tank to keep in a mediterranean cutttlefish (im from valencia, spain). ive kept shrimps in captivity, but ive never kept cephs. How should I take care of it? how can i feed it without being very expensive? i put gravel, should it be sand? is it enough with 54l? if not which other editerranean ceph do you reccomend?? pleaze help!!

 

[L8 2 RISE]

You're gonna need a lot more than 54L for an officinalis. Also, look through the articles section on tonmo, that should help you to get started.

 

[OB]

You'll need at least 10 times that volume, S. officinalis grows to about 35-50 cm and (like all cephalopods) presents a humongous bioload to your clean-up brigade and filters. O.vulgaris is also out of the question for similar, if not worse reasons. Let's not discuss Eledone and other more rare species, some of which are pelagic (i.e. Tremoctopus/)

The only thing I could imaginably fit in a small tank like you are suggesting, would be one of the mediterranean Sepiolidae, but they are likely impossible to come by, and I am not at all aware of any of these being kept, at all. Even so, even a bobtail needs space to roam and volume to carry its load...

In 2002, a Turkish census trawled specimens of the following species:

*Rossia macrosoma (Della Chiaje, 1839)
*Neorossia caroli (Joubin, 1902)
*Heteroteuthis dispar (Rüppell, 1845)
*Sepiola affinis (Naef, 1912)
*Sepiola ligulata (Naef, 1912)
*Sepiola intermedia (Naef, 1912)
*Sepiola robusta (Naef, 1912)
*Sepiola rondeletii (Leach, 1834)
*Sepiola steenstrupiana (Lévy, 1912)
*Sepietta oweniana (Naef, 1916)
*Sepietta neglecta (Naef, 1916)
*Sepietta obscura (Naef, 1916)
*Rondeletiola minor (Naef, 1912)

I don't think any of these qualify as pets. Further, without prior extensive experience, keeping and feeding bobtails would likely prove too much of a challenge to the enthusiast. I am sorry

 

[perke]

Hi Antropoteuthis,

I wouldn't recomend keeping sepia officinalis in a 54l unless they are a baby even then you'd need a pretty good set up, these guys grow pretty big and fast they would outgrow that tank within a few weeks. You need to give them a nice amount of area so they don't get butt burn (damage to their mantle) by being in a tank that's too small. Keeping ceph's is very rewarding if you can get it right so do lots of research into seeing if there is anything suitable for your tank and what it entails before getting the little fella. Good luck