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Sepia Bandensis - First Round

I collected 2 shore type shrimp - really as by-catch, and they ate them fine. They are scarce, as are local mysids here in Maine in the wintertime. I do have PLENTY of live caught amphipods - up to 1.5" and we easily captured some very small crabs as well. These live foods from our coast are very hardy - going from 30'F water to 70'F in 4 or 5 hours and living in a 10g set up w/ airstone for 3 weeks+.
I moved them (cuttles) out of the sump and into a 5g plumbed inline with the larger system. After I witnessed some slight aggression - just a displayed dispute over a prime daytime hide out - I realized I should have gone right to a 10g which I have since build and is ready to plumb in.
Here are a couple of pics of just a small amount of the booty we caught on a 30'F Saturday afternoon. I estimate about 80 - 100 amphipods and maybe 25 small crabs in less than an hour.
 

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Yes,
We are very fortunate. Only 1.5 hr. to the mountains, with lakes and ponds within minutes of just about anywhere.

I just finished moving the works to a 10g. It is set up next to a 50g coral frag trough, and above a 40g sump. It is lit by the light that spills over from a 4' t5 fixture over the trough. A week old neon polyp Sarcophyton frag seems to be doing well in there.
 

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Amazing - Around the end of December I had a short power outage and the 2.5 in-sump tank flooded over by about 1/2". Ever since then, I have had 4 instead of 5 cuttlefish. I took almost everything out of the sump looking for it, but never saw it... until today! I haven't been able to catch it yet, but will get in there promptly.
So for 6 weeks it has lived unaided in the sump.
Got it!
It might have been hungry. As soon as I released it into the 10g it swam right into an amphipod nest and grabbed the biggest one. Was most violent capture I have seen yet. The pod was the same size, if not slightly bigger than the newly found cuttlefish. I did get a photo by chance:
 

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Have to say, it doesn't look worse for wear. That is really cool news, glad it made it. Kind of puts into perspective the I have to feed twice a day at exactly the same time. Do you have pods or mysid in your sump that it could have been feeding on?
 
Yes, our "normal" reef amphipods and such, The pod population in there is low as I had been harvesting them once a week or two. No mysis in there.
Looking at notes, I see I received the 3 cuttlefish hatchlings on Dec 21 and had 3 more hatched by the 22nd, which were slightly smaller. Christmas day was the power outage that allowed one to escape. I believe it was one of the small ones. Now I am even more amazed that it lived in the sump, and stayed in the refugium chamber from 3 days old to day 50.
I found a dead one on Jan 7.
It is also interesting that they do not seem to get overly freaked out about being harassed, caught, and transferred. At least it does not affect their appetite or willingness to eat. I watched a friend catch one, (his sump escapee) put it in a 500ml beaker, put a few mysids in there and the cuttlefish began picking them off right away.

So today I record 2 - hatchlings at 55 days old or 8 weeks, and 3 maybe up to 1 week older.
 
I picked up (for free even) 12 or 14, 1/2" to 3/4" mollies from a LFS and drip acclimated up to 1.025 over 24 hours. I put them all in the tank and they slowly got eaten over the course of a couple days. I know not very nutritious although I did feed them some spirulina beforehand.
A short, very amateur clip:
 
That is a great video, and the ones in the video are 8 weeks? Gives me something to look forward to, mine are only about 2 weeks or so.
 
Here is a short clip from this past weekend of some very small crabs and small to medium amphipods. This is about what the 5 cuttlefish will eat by morning.
 
Suggestion, Put the dime UNDER the cup for measurement. Money (especially pennies because they contain lethal copper that I have SEEN come out into the water - even the new one) is not a clean substance.
 

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