• Looking to buy a cephalopod? Check out Tomh's Cephs Forum, and this post in particular shares important info about our policies as it relates to responsible ceph-keeping.

Rearing Flamboyant Cuttlefish

Hello all,

First off I want to thank everyone for all of their help and input. I just thought I would share an update.

When I first published my question in October of last year, of that initial clutch, we only reared one flamboyant out of a ridiculous amount of hatchlings. All the others hatched prematurely and were overstimulated with food as we were learning about this particular species. How the one survived, I had no idea.

Luckily, that one turned out to be a female, but since she was captive-bred (probably inbred way too many times) her development was extremely slow and didn't really reach sexual maturity until March of this year (so about 5 months old). I lovingly named her Penelope.

We were lucky to have received two wild caught cuttles to put with her in January. As luck would have it, we ended up with a male and a female. The female was quite young and the male was persistent. Both Penelope and my new female started laying eggs around the same time in late March early April. Penelope sadly died in the middle of April (April 14th) but I had witnessed successful copulation with all cuttles. That same day I noticed that the eggs were starting to develop. It was a bittersweet day as Penelope had taught me so much (and I attach to my Cephalopods quite easily) but now I had our second opportunity to rear these animals.

On May 15th, the baby cuttles began to hatch. They hatched through the next week. I am so very proud to say of the 13 that have hatched ( I think we have had 2 that died mid-development) we have had only 2 losses thus far. Everyone is eating well, we had zero premature hatching, and we are so very excited to learn even more. I will update as needed throughout their time with us.

I just really want to thank everyone for all of their help, especially @Bret Grasse MBA. I don't think we realized when this process first started 9 months ago how difficult this species is to care for at this point in their lives and all of you have been so wonderful in providing your knowledge to help us. I very much appreciate it.

I've attached a few photos (done with my phone so not the best pictures) of their first week and the last photo is a comparison of when they were born 5 weeks ago to last week.
IMG_5379.JPG
IMG_5546.JPG
IMG_5549.JPG
IMG_5662.JPG


~Brittany
 
Last edited:

Shop Amazon

Shop Amazon
Shop Amazon; support TONMO!
Shop Amazon
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Back
Top