• 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.

sepia bandensis food alternatives

dude4682

Pygmy Octopus
Registered
Joined
Apr 1, 2014
Messages
10
Location
york county pennsylvania
I recently purchased 2 sepia bandensis eggs and two sepia bandensis hatchlings from my LFS. the eggs are both doing great but one off my hatchlings passed away. I cant find a food source that they will accept, so does anyone know of any small food source that I could try and raise my hatchlings on ? my tanks parameters are cephalopod friendly and no other tankmates are in their breeder net other than each other and a few bristle worms. thanks for your answers everyone.
 
I forgot to include that I have done my research, and that I know Mysis is the best food source for them but it is so expensive. I have not tried fish fry yet, but have tried hatchling brine shrimp, feeder guppies, and grass shrimp, but I think most of these foods are either too large or too small so they wont accept it.
 
the other day I threw in about 500 bbs while hoping that the little guy would eat. today I was checking up on him and he got much bigger! I don't know if he ate them all or if they escaped or what but they are all gone now so I guess I just have to catch him eating his food sometime. would I be able to feed him brine shrimp/other until I am able to get him to eat frozen Mysis?
 
No, brine shrimp to do not have enough nutrition to sustain a cuttlefish. Kind of like feeding your baby only lollipops. Do you have any access to someone who has amphipods or a refugium that might have pods? Did you order any mysids yet?
 
not yet I will be ordering some ASAP. how long would he last on brine shrimp? I heard that you can enrich them with vitamins/phytoplankton and other stuff. do you know how I can do that? would it be ok if I fed him enriched brine shrimp until he eats frozen? thanks for your help.
 
If you don't have any food then brine shrimp will be better than nothing but there isn't much nutrition in them. You can enrich them by putting some of them in a container and putting whatever you want to enrich them with in the water. They are filter feeders so they will consume it out of the water column. I would search online for specific instructions. In any case, I would get some better food as soon as possible.
 
Hi,

I'm late in answering I know. But a few years ago I had some success with freshwater shrimps like red fire or so called 'neck strap' shrimps. They are easy to raise and breed in a small tank with no need for monitoring water quality. You'll soon find that there is plenty of different sizes of the shrimps and the cuttles will feed them right away. My cuttles grow remarkably within two weeks (for the first clutch I used mysis) but all died shortly after that age (maybe due to some stupid water additives I used...)

Picture in german sorry, but there is a Mysis, a juvenile shrimp I feed after hatching and an adult I feed after two weeks indicated by the arrows.

The freshwater shrimps survive about two hours in saltwater without any adaptation. So you should only feed as much as needed to avoid stress in the animals. Just uploading a video, coming up tomorrow.
 

Attachments

  • size compare.jpg
    size compare.jpg
    128.6 KB · Views: 147

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