- Joined
- Jun 5, 2014
- Messages
- 22
Hello,
My name is Sean and I go to Francis Scott Key high school and I own a year old reef tank with zoas, mushrooms and a torch. There is a course at my school called Science Research and I want to do a project on Breeding Dwarf Cuttlefish (Sepia Bandensis). Just a quick thing, I understand the costs and complexity of keeping and raising cuttles but I am 100% up to the challenge. I plan to get the cuttlefish from bluezooaquatics.
My cousin has a 35 gallon tank that he used to keep turtles in and he is going to give the tank to me and I am planning to fill it with vinegar and let it set for a few days to clean it. After I clean it, I am going to use some of Dr. Tim's One and Only nitrifying bacteria to do a quick start up on the tank, the directions for the nitrifying bacteria say to immediately put a fish in the tank or else it won't set up properly, so I'm probably just going to put a green chromis or some damsel in it(when the cuttles get big enough, they will eat things that are almost as bug as themselves so the chromis/damsel will make for a nice, live snack when they get bigger. I am going to order the cuttles and some live brine shrimp and bigger feeder shrimp for later feeding as the cuttles are shipped as babies because they don't ship well as adults. I am keeping them at my house for the majority of the summer and for a small portion of the school year so I can get them to adult size so I can get them to breed as much as possible while in lab. I plan to purchase 6 cuttlefish from Blue zoo aquatics they are sold as hatchlings so they will arrive to me at .25-.5 inches, they don't specify the size of the brine shrimp or even the number they are selling, they just say they are going to ship 4 oz of brine shrimp, the feeder shrimp are sold at the same size as the cuttles which will not be a problem as the cuttles grow very quickly, I will keep the feeder shrimp in my quarantine tank (I'm not going to get any fish while I am doing this project at home. As for housing the brine shrimp, I think I am going to put about half into the cuttle tank and the other half I am going to store in a spare 2.5 gallon tank with an air pump and stone and maybe they will breed in storage so that might be going for me). For the tank set up, I will have a half inch of sand, if blue zoo has any macroalgae in stock at the time I order, I will try to get some of it and I will run a single 17 watt t5 on the tank as anything else will be too powerful for the eyesight of the cuttle and should grow macro algae just fine at the same time. For filtration, I have an extra protein skimmer and I will be buying an oversized hob filter which I will be putting a sponge on the bottom of the filter so there are no compatibility issues with the cuttles and I think I will get some filter bags and put some GFO, activated carbon and maybe Phos-ban for extra filtration almost forgot to mention, I will also have to buy myself another heater.
I have spoken to my teacher and she is ecstatic about my project as it is more complex than anything ever done in the program and the fact that I am planning this so far in advance. If I have any facts wrong, please correct me. Is this a good setup for a cuttlefish tank? What are your tank setups like? What is your experience with this? Also, does anybody know where I could find some published studies done with Sepia Bandensis (my teacher wants me to find some other sources that I might be able to replicate in my project)?
My name is Sean and I go to Francis Scott Key high school and I own a year old reef tank with zoas, mushrooms and a torch. There is a course at my school called Science Research and I want to do a project on Breeding Dwarf Cuttlefish (Sepia Bandensis). Just a quick thing, I understand the costs and complexity of keeping and raising cuttles but I am 100% up to the challenge. I plan to get the cuttlefish from bluezooaquatics.
My cousin has a 35 gallon tank that he used to keep turtles in and he is going to give the tank to me and I am planning to fill it with vinegar and let it set for a few days to clean it. After I clean it, I am going to use some of Dr. Tim's One and Only nitrifying bacteria to do a quick start up on the tank, the directions for the nitrifying bacteria say to immediately put a fish in the tank or else it won't set up properly, so I'm probably just going to put a green chromis or some damsel in it(when the cuttles get big enough, they will eat things that are almost as bug as themselves so the chromis/damsel will make for a nice, live snack when they get bigger. I am going to order the cuttles and some live brine shrimp and bigger feeder shrimp for later feeding as the cuttles are shipped as babies because they don't ship well as adults. I am keeping them at my house for the majority of the summer and for a small portion of the school year so I can get them to adult size so I can get them to breed as much as possible while in lab. I plan to purchase 6 cuttlefish from Blue zoo aquatics they are sold as hatchlings so they will arrive to me at .25-.5 inches, they don't specify the size of the brine shrimp or even the number they are selling, they just say they are going to ship 4 oz of brine shrimp, the feeder shrimp are sold at the same size as the cuttles which will not be a problem as the cuttles grow very quickly, I will keep the feeder shrimp in my quarantine tank (I'm not going to get any fish while I am doing this project at home. As for housing the brine shrimp, I think I am going to put about half into the cuttle tank and the other half I am going to store in a spare 2.5 gallon tank with an air pump and stone and maybe they will breed in storage so that might be going for me). For the tank set up, I will have a half inch of sand, if blue zoo has any macroalgae in stock at the time I order, I will try to get some of it and I will run a single 17 watt t5 on the tank as anything else will be too powerful for the eyesight of the cuttle and should grow macro algae just fine at the same time. For filtration, I have an extra protein skimmer and I will be buying an oversized hob filter which I will be putting a sponge on the bottom of the filter so there are no compatibility issues with the cuttles and I think I will get some filter bags and put some GFO, activated carbon and maybe Phos-ban for extra filtration almost forgot to mention, I will also have to buy myself another heater.
I have spoken to my teacher and she is ecstatic about my project as it is more complex than anything ever done in the program and the fact that I am planning this so far in advance. If I have any facts wrong, please correct me. Is this a good setup for a cuttlefish tank? What are your tank setups like? What is your experience with this? Also, does anybody know where I could find some published studies done with Sepia Bandensis (my teacher wants me to find some other sources that I might be able to replicate in my project)?