SQUIDCAM IV - NOW LIVE!!

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I've had to increase the biofiltration rate in the tank, and as a consequence you'll see that the water looks murky and the squid are less easy to see. This is a consequence of the squillions of air bubbles now in the tank. I'll have to remedy this ... once done clarity should improve within a matter of minutes (it's just those air bubbles that are making visibility poor). Sorry about this - I did it last eve before heading home and didn't check the camera until now.

Also, you may well see a few fish go in today, which will mean there'll be a lot of fish debris on the tank by afternoon (as they discard the frames). Growth will soon explode, as we're over the difficult part now - the hardest part being the first 4-or-so weeks when the squid tend to fall over).
 
Many are about a month old today (~ 15 mm total length), but some are 3-or-so weeks only; all are doing fine.

Now's the time I start contemplating liberating some, as they're really starting to eat me out of house and home, and we're spending about 3 hours/day commuting and collecting live prey ... and it's lasting a day only! I don't really have those 3 hours spare!
 

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I had to let about 30 go this morning; it is simply becoming too hard to collect enough food, and there were too many in the tank (stocking density), they were dirtying the water too quickly for the filtration and skimming systems to work (all in the attached sump that you cannot see). They are now, hopefully, swimming around a local jetty (rather than in the stomachs of fish that occur there!).

Shortly we'll move from mysid prey to fish prey (I've tried a few fish over the last week, the fresh-water Gambusia [it tolerates salt for quite a while]); the larger ones would eat them, but there was so much wastage, and after 24-or-so hours the bottom of the tank would be covered in partially eaten frames). I don't think this lot of squid likes Gambusia as much as earlier cohorts; will have to move to small yellow eyed mullet (Aldrichetta forsteri) very soon, and the palemonid shrimp Palaemon affinis (but this is a little large at this point).
 
Off to another mass whale stranding, so I'll be out of the office for the next 4 or 5 days. We're so remote where we're going that there's only candlelight .... so I just have to trust folk here to look after the squidlets. Am I glad I released many!!
 
It is with regret that I must shut SQUIDCAM down. I have a ruling to the effect that keeping squid alive in captivity requires Animal Ethics Committee approval, which I do not have.

The plug will be pulled today or tomorrow.

My apologies to everone.
Steve
 
Sorry to hear that's how this rolled up. Let us know if we can petition this "Animal Ethics Committee" with our input.
 
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