Sepia Bandensis For Sale!!

[Reef Geek]

Absolutely. I'm still waiting to hear back from Cephdoc but if all goes well I'll be sure to have video and pics for a journal.

 

[Reef Geek]

I've been chatting with Cephdoc trying to make arrangements to ship his cuttles, but I believe we (I) have hit a snag. Perhaps someone can make a suggestion to help us out.

Cephdoc has a 13x9x10 styrofoam box that he planned to ship the cuttles in. I priced Priority Overnight shipping from him to my office at about $89. Not too bad. However after reviewing Thales notes, I found that for the adult cuttles we should use 12" bags. That would be 1 cuttle in the size box Cephdoc has and shipping 4 boxes . . . . well when shipping alone starts approaching $400 . . . . HOLY COW!

Anyone know of any good shipping tricks that could help me get this down closer to $100 for shipping?

 

[ceph]

NRCC made it work with NIH funding and the ability to hire student armies to collect local mysid shrimp.

Every so often someone "discovers" just how efficient cephalopods are at converting food into biomass and gets the idea to raise them. The problem with this is that pound for pound, the mysid shrimp are worth more. . . It would take a grant, or a dedicated hobbyist with a very understanding spouse, etc to make reliable availability of captive raised cephs work. It is possible - just not easy and the market is small.

Captive raised cephs have some huge advantages - simply knowing the animals age is one of them.

Shipping is always a real challenge and mortality is often very high. I've not had much luck unless I am personally shipping them and am on the same airplane. My advice is to try and find someone in your state that is interested in them and drive them over yourself.

The NRCC had shipping down as much as anyone could. They sometimes used MgCl2 - to much is deadly. Also, you pay for water weight so a bigger box, which doesn't weigh much more with the same amount of water allows for more 02 which also doesn't weigh much more. My feeling is that cutting to many corners is just going to decrease the chances of success which are already not great for adult animals traveling any significant distance.

Young and especially eggs do much better than mature animals for a variety of physiological and logistical reasons.

James

 

[Thales]

The 13x9x10 box seems too small really for anything besides eggs or hatchlings. I think the standard 'small' box that we use is 20x20x20. There are all different sizes, so I would look for a box that can fit 4 10 or 12 inch bags. IME one slightly larger box is less expensive to ship than multiple smaller boxes.

You can prolly get a bigger shipping box from an LFS or an local importer. You might be able to get away with 10 or 8 inch bags, but its more of a risk.

I am shipping out 12 5 or 6 month old cuttles today...I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[Reef Geek]

Thanks for the input. Let me know how your packaging goes. Perhaps I can find the appropriate materials and send them to Cephdoc to help the process.

Thales, I'd be interested to know how many cuttles you get in one box and what the shipping ends up being if you are able to share that info. I know FedEx uses the dimensions of the box to help calculate shipping so that would be useful info if you happen to pack 4 in one box.

Thanks!

 

[Thales]

I was able to get 12 into the box I used. I used 8 inch wide bags with 16 oz of water and at least the same volume with O2. No anesthetic was used. They all arrived well, apparently with no inking. I think this kind of successful shipping has a lot to do with captive raised cuttles, packing them at the last minute and paying to have them arrive before 1030 am.
I did not feed the cuttles for at least 12 hours before shipping. No macro algae was added to the bags. One 40 hour heat pack was included in the box.

This was an experiment, and the success should not necessarily be taking as me saying 'this is how to ship cuttles!' - future results may be drastically different.

 

[Mike Bauer]

What was the end result of this? Are they still alive and well?

Mike

 

[Reef Geek]

I looked into various shipping options - even found a good local source for cooler boxes. Up to 36"x19"x19". But the priority overnight shipping costs alone would still be close to $400 for me. I just couldn't spring for that kind of money plus the cost of the cuttles.

Shipping adults takes a bit more than shipping eggs or hatchlings. Hopefully he found a good home for them locally. Or someone with deeper pockets than I have.

But I haven't heard myself what if anything he's done with them.

I would be interested in the shipping cost for Thales 'experiment' outlined above.

 

[Mike Bauer]

Well I hope they made it ok and are still doing well.

 

[asid61]

Good luck!

 

[Cephdoc]

They are all gone but one. Sad to wathc them go. I will miss them so much, they were by far the coolest thing i have ever kept in a home aquarium!! I really suggest keeping them if you are up for the challenge. Because trust me.. it is a challenge.