Sepia Bandensis - First Round

[snowmaker]

Live food collecting 05/23

Went collecting live foods in hopes of getting some tiny amphipods for anticipated cuttlefish eggs to hatch soon. In one spot, just a few sweeps of the net yielded maybe 1000 amphipods at .25" or less.
Another spot we came up with 6 mysids at about 1"
Trying to get out on a boat to tow a plankton net to see if we can get copepods and maybe try to culture them.

 

[Reef Geek]

What sort of net are you using to catch the pods? I live at the coast in Florida and I'm not sure where would be the best place to look and how to go about catching any quantity of such tiny creatures.

Here we have the ocean of course, but we also have the Inter Coastal Waterway which is brackish water. Sebastian Inlet is only 30 minutes away so I have all sorts of options for catching things. I'm just not sure of the best way to do it.

 

[CaptFish]

Here we have the ocean of course, but we also have the Inter Coastal Waterway which is brackish water. Sebastian Inlet is only 30 minutes away so I have all sorts of options for catching things. I'm just not sure of the best way to do it.

You will find tons of pods in the grass flats in the Intercoastal. I catch tons there. You will even get some bonus Seahorses and Gobies..... Get a net with as fine a mest as possible then drag it trough the flats, I use a fine mesh shrimp net. You will get a big bunch of loose grass. dump that in a bucket and sort through it bit by bit. grab anything that moves.

 

[cuttle-dude]

Hi snowmaker i am doing an intel project at my school on cuttlefish intelligence and after a mishap with a faulty chiller unit i lost my first batch of sepia bandensis I was wondering if you had any extra hatchlings as i am in desperate need of some babies. Thanks!
- Cuttle-dude

 

[snowmaker]

I have a list going for hatchlings (pick-up), and can put you on it in 5th or 6th place. Where are you located?
I know eggs, babies and adults seem to transport fine, but not sure about shipping anything other than eggs.

+For a net, I just used one of the 8" to 10" blue net with about a 2' handle. A longer handle might be better. When looking under rocks I use about a 6" net.

So I can see movement in some eggs in this 2nd cluster.

 

[cuttle-dude]

im in NYC. also how many would be available and how could a possible transaction work? If you had enough for me would i drive up to pick them up or could you ship them to my school?

 

[snowmaker]

I will keep you posted via pm.
Pick up here is going to be best option. I may be able to drive a bit South to meet (NH).
There are 5 requests in front of you, one of which is for several for a public aquarium's captive breeding pgm. and they're getting priority.
I am down to 2 egg clusters ATM, of 20 - 30 eggs each, and so far, hatch rate has been dismal (6 out of 24 from first bunch of eggs).

 

[snowmaker]

Had 3 hatch from the 2nd egg cluster within the last 12 hrs. 1 appears dead, but has color. I forgot just how tiny these are when they hatch.

Around 27 days since eggs laid, give or take a day. There are still active ones unhatched that I can see.

The 3rd batch was laid around 5/13, so est. hatch maybe around 6/10.

 

[snowmaker]

As of yesterday, I have 4 apparently healthy hatchlings.
Amazingly - I gave a friend 2 adult "males" a short time ago... well, one of them laid eggs in his frag trough, so I guess they both weren't males...

 

[snowmaker]

The eggs mentioned above are fertile. Can see babies inside.
I have several babies ready to bust out of eggs any day now. A friend brought me lots of mysids and small amphipods. Now have native baby mysids and the "store bought" ... is it Bahai mysids, which have several babies...
I think I'm ready...

 

[MAKOOKAM]

Glad to hear you are having success! Looks like I still have no fertile eggs. Thinking about letting my male pay a stud visit to the isolated female. She is going nuts producing eggs.

 

[snowmaker]

That would be a good idea. I gave a male as stud to a friend who has a solitary female and that worked out well. Has some hatchlings already.

 

[snowmaker]

Picture from this weekend.

 

[MAKOOKAM]

Nice coloration! Male?

 

[snowmaker]

I can't tell. If they were side by side, I think the male is larger than the female.
A friend here suggested stating the size of the fish for scale. I told him the fish is a 40" Atlantic salmon.