Cuttlefish!!!

[schmunkel98]

Well guys, my local Petland finally came through for me on the cuttlefish after two months of waiting! They called me out of the blue at lunch today and said they had two cuttlefish in the store. More importantly, they were alive and kicking! They are about 4 inches big each, and I'm pretty sure they are both Sepia officinalis. I have some blue damsels in there for them to feed on, which they should be able to do since the damsels are about 1/3 the size of the cuttles. I may swing by my pet store and get some live shost shrimp as well. Anyway, I took some quick photos with my digital camera at lunch. I will post them on here if they can fit. More info, pictures, and movies to come! If you watch my web cam you may even see them!!!


Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[schmunkel98]

Cuttle in the bag getting adjusted to the temp and water.

[schmunkel98]

Both cuttlefish blending in with the live rock.

[schmunkel98]

Another photo of the two cuttles blending in with the live rock.

[schmunkel98]

A blurry close up of one of the cuttlefish staring at me.

[OctoMonkey]

:D

at last!!!!!!!
keep us up to date and get some pictures happening!


C

[cephalopoder]

CONGRADULATIONS MIKE!!!!
Do you know if they cam in under a scientific name? Or a location?. I do know Sepia.bandensis is in the trade right now. But they only get about 3" full grown and walk along the bottom rather than swim. If you do have Sepia.o then it looks like you have a young ones and a good life ahead of them. Do you have Ceph World Guide? Great guide to ID the beasts. Keep us posted.
chris

[schmunkel98]

I talked to the guy at Petland, and he said that they came from Indonesia. He is going to double check on that though. I thougt they looked like Sepia officinalis, but Colin thinks their eyes and coloration is different. I'll try to get some better pictures when I zoom home from work today. I will try to take some movies with my web cam as well. I haven't seen them on the web cam, but they were last hidng out in the rocks right below where the camera view is.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[Rudiger]

Thats great, keep us posted. I have a question though. You said you were going to get some ghost shrimp. I thought those were freshwater shrimp, so don't those die shortly after you put them in the tank?

[Iwantacephalopod]

Wow I am impressed. Those are beautiful cuttles. I think they look better than Sep. o's and your pictures are blurry!. Very very cute to.. makes want to hung em..ah Well I see your wait was worth it after all.
Very very impressed and great job once again.
I Hope you have a good time with your cuttles man, you waited along time for them,
Take care of your self,
Devon,
BTW: Hey chris on the chat room I left ona bad note..but I didnt leave because I was angry.( I got disconnected) sorry about that and thanks for the tips.

[Iwantacephalopod]

sorry I meant.. hug them..not hung them

[cephalopoder]

Mike
Sepia.o comes from europe the mediterranean and baltic seas. Sepia bandensis comes from indonesia. There are a few others that come from that area as well. As I mentioned before Sepia.bandensis in currenty in the usa trade.
This species is nocturnal and walks using its arms. Your pics look alot like the ones in the ceph world guide for this species.I think yours are too big though for this species.?
As far as ghost shrimp, they are fresh water but will live for a few days in salt. I feed them to my cephs at a treat now and then.
chris

[schmunkel98]

The cuttles have been hiding behind the live rock for a while now. I think it is going to take them a little while to get used to the tank. I have seen them move though, and they are not Sepia bandessis. They went zooming toward the ghost shrimp that I put in when I got home from work. All of my damsels are still there, and it seems like the cuttles are a little afraid of them at times. The cuttles are about 2 to 3 times the size of the fish, so I am not worried. There was one instance where 4 or 5 of the damsels went for the same shrimp as one of the cuttles. Well, the cuttle got it, but turned a dark black and retreated back behind the rocks. It seems that white or brown are normal colors and that dark brown or black are a warning. I'm not sure if cuttles are better day or night hunters, so it will be interesting to see howmany damsels are left in the morning. I saw each cuttle get two ghost shrimp, so at least I know they have eaten today. I took some more pictures, and I will post them here in a minute.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[schmunkel98]

Here's the one that zoomed into the open to snatch a shrimp. It had some competition from the damsels, so it turned a darker color while it slowly backed up behind the live rock while chewing on the shrimp.

[schmunkel98]

Here is the other guy, who has parked behind the rocks on the right side of my tank. He got lucky when a few shrimp swam his way.

[OctoMonkey]

Mike,
The head is definetly all "wrong" for officinalis. Can you get a close up of the cuttle yet? Iam interested to see the eyes..........

[schmunkel98]

Colin,

I'll try to get some close-ups this weekend. I did notice that these guys explored a little more at night than they did during the day. Maybe they even snaged a few damsels while they were sleeping! I don't think they were walking using their arms though. Could you tell which species just by eye color?

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[schmunkel98]

Another aquarium place called me and said that they have 2 cuttlefish in! Can I fit 4 adult cuttlefish in a 135 gallon tank or should I just tell the store to put them up for sale? What if they are a different species? Can I mix cuttlefish species.? Please let me know ASAP!

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[cephalopoder]

If they are the same species it would be fine. I am not sure how well different species would react. Is there a way you could devide the tank in half? I would think you have a chance of getting the same species from the other place. Sounds your LFS might have gotten them from the same wholesaler. You could also drive over to the LFS and see what they look like. Perhaps you could as Dr. Caldwell.
chris

[schmunkel98]

I'm mainly concerned with the size of these guys when they get to be adults. I'm pretty sure my tank is big enough for 4 of these guys, since Colin had 7 in his 80 gallon. Anyway, the cuttles seem to be terrified of the damsels from what I can tell. The last time I checked on them at lunch one of the cuttlefish was in a corner of the tank and one was on top of a powerhead. They both freaked out whenever a damsel would come near. I guess I thought they would consider the damsels a meal not a threat. Will this change soon, or do I need to hunt the damsels down myself?

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[cephalopoder]

The less stress on the cuttles the better. So if you have to bait litte hooks and fish for them I would get them out of there.
As far as cuttle size, with out ID ing the species you don't know how big they get.
They could be full grown now for all you know. A lot of cuttles stay rater small compaired to Sepia.o
chris

[OctoMonkey]

Hi Mike,

My tank is closer to 200 gallons if you include the sumps etc. I am down to 6 cuttles as of last week because one got eaten by the other. I never meant to get 7 i ordered 5 but Richard being such a nice guy threw in extra. My intention has always been to re-home most of them and keep a pair or trio for breeding so my stocking level was temporary at best. also remeber that i run a aqua medic 5000 skimmer. that holds and extra 7 gallons or so too and stands over 4 feet tall.

If your tank is mature enough and can handle the waste then go for it, i would. remeber they are way more messy than an octo to keep!

I would take those damsels out!

From looking at the pics again i would guess yours have a mantle length of 3" is that about right? The size guide of the mantle alone will help ID

Hope your having fun with them :)
C

[Rudiger]

i had the same situation a few months ago. A brand new octopus in the tank and I had not taken out my four damsels. I didn't realize the octopus would be so small. I had to take out all the rocks (except for the one the octo was in) and spend an hour catching all the damsels. Once I got to the fourth one I was actually pretty good at catching them :D

[schmunkel98]

Well guys, I'm down to just one cuttlefish now. I have no clue what killed the other 3. That's right, 3 are dead. I decided to go ahead and get the other two that were at the other store. So, I had a total of 4 in my tank as of last night. This morning I saw one of them not moving, so I decided to turn the lights on to take a look. I found 3 dead ones right off the bat out in the open. I don't think they were picked on, because there were no signs of them being eaten. After searching around, I found one guy left alive. He is the smallest of all of them at about 2" mantle length. I find it odd that he made it out of all of them since the big guys should be able to hack it more. Anyway, I'm determined to get the damsels out now, even if I have to strip the tank bare. I'm going to try to bait them with small hooks first though. Below are the results of the tests I did on my tank after noticing the dead duttles.

Nitrite = between <.3 and .3
Ammonia = 0
Nitrate = 12.5
Salinity = 35 ppt
PH = 8.0
Temp = 72

I didn't think these numbers were that bad. The nitrite is up some, but that's it. I may do a water change anyway just to make sure everything equals out. Anyway, any ideas on what caused them to die? Was it just stress? I thought I did everything I could to make it stress free, short of getting rid of the damsels.


Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[OctoMonkey]

Sorry to hear about your crappy luck again!

I hope the other one survives!

Let me know if i can help.....................

[cephalopoder]

Mike sorry to hear about your loss.
I was kind of joking about the hooks, (they might work though) You can buy fish traps or try a plastic minnow trap.
I really hope this litte guy pulls through for you.
Were all here if you need help.
chris

[schmunkel98]

Guys,

I took all of the live rock out of the tank and got the damsels. The little guy is out and about now, probably wondering where the rocks went. I'm going to re-setup the aquarium and hope for the best.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[schmunkel98]

Well, the lone survivor has the run of the tank now with the two starfish and the two sea cucumbers. I took advantage of the rocks being out of there and scraped all the algae that I could in those hard to reach spots. I will offer him some more ghost shrimp tomorrow to see if he will come out to eat them. I'm worried about dead ones piling up in the tank though. I guess I will have to gather them up if I see them dead the day after. I took some pictures with a real camera, so I will scan them and post them when I get them developed this next week. I'm glad I got these guys in, but I have no idea how the companies I got them form shipped them. They might have been barely alive when I got them and stressed to the max. I think it is a minor miracle that any of them survived at all. I'm sure the super-aggressive damsels didn't help any either. I wish someone would tell people not to get those fish for a starter. Yeah, they are hardy, but they are a royal pain after you first get going. I'll keep you guys posted.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[OctoMonkey]

Mike, I have to feed my cuttles twice a day now to keep them "happy". They eat more than an octopus by far. Try feeding the cuttle by tying shrimp to a thread.
I sometimes feed them by hand if one is getting chased from the food area, but they are relaxed with me, its ages since one inked.

If you have adults of a small species, what are the chances that the lone survivor killed the others? They could all be males or a species that is very territorial.

The Sepia o's that i have are only just tolerating each other because they grew up together. Adding two mature animals together is WWIII apparantly.

Just an idea????????

[schmunkel98]

Colin,

I tried putting the shrimp on a thread thing, and the cuttle didn't go for it. He only seems to go for live moving shrimp. I will post the pictures I have of this new guy when I get them developed this week. He blends in very well and is often hard to find cause he looks like a little rock. He has even made his body spiked a little to blend in better! I'm hoping to reach the point where he feels free to roam the tank without any fear. That way I can offer food in the open without having to coax the shrimp in his direction without scaring him in the process. I don't think this guy was an adult cause he is very small. Maybe the others guys stressed out or did have some fighting. I still find it odd that the smallest guy of the bunch is still here. Do you think I should try to order some more cuttles through the local stores again or stick with this one guy? I really like the idea of have at least two in my tank, and mating these guys would be fun too.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[OctoMonkey]

I would stick with just this one for the time being and learn how to care for it. I was kinda overwhelmed for a bit with seven to feed and care for at once! And anyway, if you order more, what are the chances of them even being the same species? or size? and i still reckon from what i know and what Richard told me, that if you put two together that are not used to company you've got a fight.

Make sure you test your water, having three die in the tank will have affected something, maybe that's why it wont feed.

Try not to disturb it too much when feeding, can you get crabs? (obviously i mean the sea dwelling crabs! :D ) that si by far their favourite!

This cuttle may have survived because it is the smallest. The others, being bigger produced more waste in their bags????

Colin

[cephalopoder]

Mike
Just wondering what your temp is?

[schmunkel98]

Chris,

My temp is at 72 during the day. It drops down to about 71 or 70 during the night though.

Colin,

My last cuttle has been eating every day. I have only had success putting live food near him though. He has yet to come out of the rocks and hunt for food. I basically end up dumping a bag of about 10 live ghost shrimp in his direction and he eats a few of them right away. Sometimes I have to coax them in his direction again if he misses on the first shot. I went ahead and ordered two more from the closest pet store. In the meantime I will keep fattening up this guy. I'm still waiting on the pictures from the real camera, but I will try to take some digital ones tonight. They won't be as good of quality though. I need to get a camera that has a manual focus.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[cephalopoder]

You might want to try bumping the temp up a little. With the exception of Sepia.O most cuttles come from tropical waters. Their normal temp would be between 78-84. My mimic tank is kept at 82. A lot of tropical species are also nocturnal so you might want to try dimming bright light if you have any on.

[schmunkel98]

Chris,

I'll try bumping it up to about 74 or so. I'll take off the DIY Chiller and that should do it. If this little guy is a Sepia officinalis, is the warmer temp going to hurt him? I wouldn't think so. Anyway, I watched him eat 6 ghost shrimp yesterday that were about 1/2 inch long each. I would put one near him, let him chew on it a while, then drop another near him. He should grow pretty fast if he keeps eating like this!

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[OctoMonkey]

Mike,

I think getting another two will be a bad idea! I have read that cuttles will fight and Richard told me the same about S o's he had too.

A rigid piece of airline cut into a point is good for spearing food and waggling it in their faces! That worked for me!

I'll check for your pics tonight
C

[schmunkel98]

Here is the first of two good close up pictures of my cuttle. He has made himself dark and bumpy to blend in with my live rock. It makes him very hard to spot.

[schmunkel98]

Here is the second shot showing a side view of the cuttlefish.

[cephalopoder]

What do you think Colin... Sepia.bandensis ...the stumpy spined cuttlefish?

[schmunkel98]

I'm not sure how else to identify this guy. I'm unlikely to get a good analysis of the suckers on the tentacles. If the spikes are a temporary blending disguise, then would this rule it out as a Sepia bandensis? I will post more pictures as I get better scans.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[OctoMonkey]

Not sure either..... I have had a scan over norman's book again but there are no real clues here. Bandensis may be the most likely but i suppose time will tell
bandensis apparantly doesnt swim much and has a pair of flaps under its body for walking.....??????? and doesnt always have those spikes evident.

The more pics you can post the better, Mike.

The best way for identifying it may be to remove its cuttlebone, but mike probably wouldnt like us to do that! lol :)

Time will tell is suppose, you never know, we might end up with Sepia scmunklensis or something????? :D

[schmunkel98]

Here is one of four new cuttle pics I took with my web cam close up.

[schmunkel98]

Number 2.

[schmunkel98]

Number 3.

[schmunkel98]

Number 4.

[OctoMonkey]

whatdayathink now chris??????

i met mike on msn messenger tonight and watched him feed the cuttlefish on the web cam. it is really spikey, a lot like a stumpy-spined cuttlefish i think, but Mike says it swims not walks.

The most obvious feature apart from the skin is its huge eyes..... any other ideas?

look at the pic on top of page 90 in CAWG. it did that pose! Do you think he may have gotten one of them??? It did look quite similar!

C

[cephalopoder]

Hmmmmmmm well this could for we know be a species not even in CAWG. And if it is a baby Sepia.apama... mikes going to need a bigger tank lol. Mike do you have yahoo messenger? I would love to see it in feeding some time.I still think it looks like Sepia.bandensis(the pic on page 58) But the no crawling thing? It is nocturnal though mike said. Any ones guess at this point.

[schmunkel98]

Hey Chris,

My last cuttlefish live broadcast did not go as planned. I couldn't get the little guy to eat, and I think I freaked him out. He actually inked a little for the first time yesterday when I was putting a rock formation back together and he got scared. I am on yahoo messenger with schmunkel98@yahoo.com as my e-mail. I can not run this one at work, but I can run microsift messenger. My e-mail for messenger is schmunkel98@hotmail.com if you want to get that program. I would be more than happy to host another cuttlefish session to try and identify what I have in my tank. I'm kinda worried about him right now. I don't think he has eaten for two days. He let the shrimp I tried to feed him even walk over him yesterday. Hopefully he has been getting them at night. I hope we can figure out what I have in my tank one of these days!

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[davelin315]

Sorry to join in late, no experience with cuttlefish, but limited octopus experience. I think the death may have been caused by either fighting or more likely, the high nitrites. If I remember correctly, they are sensitive to water quality, and nitrites can have a bad affect on them. My guess is the smallest survived because the smaller they are, the better they tend to ship. The larger ones were "roughed up" by shipping and weren't able to battle back from the water quality. Just a guess, though.

[Iwantacephalopod]

ok what in the HEK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? NOTHING DIED DUDE.

[Rudiger]

yo, iwant, read earlier posts, 3 outs 4 died.

[schmunkel98]

Just to clarify, I have one cuttlefish out of the original 4 left alive. I think he is a Sepia bandensis because I have seen him using two arms to walk around lately. I have also seen him swim, but that is mainly when he is frightened. I guess I'll figure this guy out one of these days!

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[OctoMonkey]

Hi Mike

This book by Norman suggests that bandensis will have flaps of skin under its body too; may sit on them like a tripod?????

C

[schmunkel98]

Umm, that is a definite no on the flaps Colin. He has the same thin membrane around his body that the Sepia officinalis do. Maybe he is just a Sepia O. that likes to walk sometimes?

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[OctoMonkey]

The big NO, for Sepia O' (hey that rhymes, badly though!)
is that O's come from UK, Med and West African areas. Yours came from Indonesia (is that right?)

Plus, I still think that the eyes on your Sepia look different from mine......... lol this argument is gonna go on and on lol :)

[cephalopoder]

I still think it looks like sepia. bandensis on page 235 lol. Mike how is your new bimaculoides doing?

[schmunkel98]

Hehe, that was supposed to be a surprise Chris! I ordered two medium sized bimacs. One arrived alive and the other was dead. They are going to send me another bimac to replace the dead one since I have connections :). The one left is about double the size of the other guys I had, and is hiding under some liverock right now. I put some ghost shrimp near it, and I think it ate one or two at night. It has stayed a gray color ever since I have had it. The other two octos I had stayed orange most of the time. I did see the spots on the new guy, so I am sure it is a bimac. Hopefully it and the future octopus will gain my trust soon and start to venture out from the rocks. The cuttle met the octopus last night and amazingly enough nothing happened until I took a closer peek(accidently scaring it) and the cuttle inked 3 times and zoomed away! The cuttle is slightly bigger than the octo in mantle length, but the octos arms make it bigger overall. I plan on keeping everyone well fed to insure no fighting. I know you guys must think I'm insane for keeping this many cephs in a 135 gallon tank, but I think it will work out just fine. If territory issues crop up later, I will get another aquarium or two to house them separately.

I will get some pictures soon,

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[cephalopoder]

Mike we don't think your crazy:rolleyes: Your aaaa just breaking new ground;) Jack told me today what happend. He will take good care of you.
Bimacs are grey mostly. Put a pvc elbow in your tank with a end cap. It will be its home.

[schmunkel98]

Put the PVC in even though I have the live rock? The bimac has a good amount of spots to hide in. The cuttle has been venturing out a little more, but still prefers to hide in the rocks and sometimes go out for food.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[OctoMonkey]

OMG, My brain tells me this might end in tears......

However, I am also very interested to see what happens, or should that read "who eats who?" LOL

Mike, yeah you're crazy :) LOL

(suppose all of us on this forum are except me because I am duck)

C

[cephalopoder]

I fear for the cuttle. My bimac would go nuts when I would swim a plastic cuttle by the tank on the end of a stick. If the bimac can catch it ... it will eat it. My bimac even caught a domino damsel. Now thats a feat! Mike you need to set up a few more tanks for your addiction lol. And I thought I was bad:D

[schmunkel98]

I was actually more worried about the bimac. The cuttle seems much more aggressive and active, but maybe that will change in the near future. I'll watch and see what happens.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[OctoMonkey]

Put me down for £10 on the octopus... :)

[cephalopoder]

Mike
Octos are way stronger than a cuttle. IF The octo grabs the cuttle, it will be over quick.
I think you need to throw in a nice 6" smasher mantis shrimp to make this really interesting. Perhaps a peacock mantis. The one I have will smash a turbo snail the size of a golf ball to bits! Check out this link and see why I got hooked on them. http://www.blueboard.com/mantis/

[schmunkel98]

I forgot about the octo stength thing. That web page was pretty cool. I really don't need another expensive exotic pet in addition to the ones I already have though!

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[OctoMonkey]

yeah, ye know guys, i think that a nice moray eel or maybe a volitans would liven things up a bit too

[schmunkel98]

Ok, here's the tally so far:

I still have only one octo alive in the tank. I came home to one dead octo in the tank and one alive in a package. Looks like the cuttle may be the only ceph in the tank after all if this keeps up! Maybe he is poisioning the octos or something. I took some pictures of the new guy, but they were too dark. I'll try again this weekend. I did manage to get the new octo to eat a ghost shrimp and a frozen shrimp stabbed by a rod of stiff airline tubing! I tried the tubing thing with the cuttle with no dice. He only seems to go for live food actually swimming on it's own, go figure. I also had a few small guppies in my bag of ghost shrimp, but the cuttle never pursued them. He let them swim right in front of him, but never attacked.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[OctoMonkey]

Perhaps octo1 died of shipping stress and maybe wasnt connected to the cuttlefish. So the rigid airline worked then? I think it is maybe because it is see-through that it never seems to stress out an octo or cuttle, they usually always spot the food on the end though!

The cuttle wouldnt poison the octo unless it bit the octo, but you would never see that happeing unless you happened to be standing there at the time.

did you ever try black mollies with the cuttle, remember they can live in full sea water no probs if you give them a couple of hours to acclimitise.

C

[schmunkel98]

I just don't think black mollies would be small enough for the cuttle to eat right now. He is only about twice the size of an adult molly. Eve the biggest ghost shrimp is only about half the size of an adult molly. I guess I could leave some of them in there and see. Will they spawn in seawater too? That would be a good way to get some extra food for freee if they did.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[cephalopoder]

Mike
Did both of the octos you orderd arrive alive? Did one only die after it had been in the tank?

[schmunkel98]

Chris,

On the first order of two octos, one arrived alive and the other arrived dead. The one that arrived alive from that order is now dead. The one on the second order arrived alive and is currently in my tank. Hopefully he will be alive when I go check on him at lunch. I did a water test after the first guy died, and I saw no major spikes in the levels and the salinity was right at 1.025. The octo that died in the tank was probably dead in the first 24 hours. I just didn't notice until I got home from work the next day when it was out in th open and not moving.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[OctoMonkey]

Hi Mike

On a size scale thing....... When my cuttles were the same size as mollies they could snag them no probs. I think yours would manage them, wortha try......

Hope octo2 is okay
C

[cephalopoder]

Are you asking Jack for credit for the ones that died in your tank? Seems to be alot of strees in your tank right now or some hideen water quality issue. Jack is a excellent shipper.

[schmunkel98]

Well, they were nice enough to replace the first guy that died on arrival, so I didn't bug them about the other one dieing. Should I? I don't see what could be wrong with my tank since the cuttle is doing just fine in it and they are supposed to be much more sensitive than the octos.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[cephalopoder]

If it was alive when you put it in the tank, I wouldn't ask Jack to pay for a replacement.

[schmunkel98]

Yeah, as long as it gets to me alive then it's fine. Here is a picture of the bimac from lunch today. Sorry it is so blurry, but my digital camera isn't so hot. The eyeball in the center of the rock opening is the octo's eye. He was looking out for something to eat, and I gave him a piece of live shrimp with the tubing again. No sign of the cuttle at lunch. Who knows.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[OctoMonkey]

glad to hear that this octo seems to be doing okay, feeding can only be a good sign...

[cephalopoder]

Mike
Whats going on with the cephs in the 135? The bimac and cuttle still alive? I saw you were thinkng about putting sea horses in it too now?
chris

[schmunkel98]

Well,

Everything is going great so far. The cuttle is in one rock formation on the left side of the tank and the bimac is in another rock formation on the right side of the tank. I have continued to feed using Colin's method of the food on the tip of the rigid airline tubing. The octo goes for it right away, and the cuttle sometimes goes for it. I have also successfully fed both animals frozen shrimp this way. The octo seemed to eat more of the shrimp than the cuttle did, however. I am really impressed with this octopus compared to the last guys I had. First off, he is much bigger than the others I had. Second, I have seen him more during the day than I have at night! I also have some mollies in the tank for extra food for the cephs. Two of them were eaten within the first few days, and I have two left in the tank. I'm not sure if the octo or the cuttle got them. They also might have died and been eaten later. Anyway, all is good so far, and I'll work on getting some better pictures soon!

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[OctoMonkey]

Good work Mike....... sounds like things are doing much better this time!
cant wait for those pics!

[schmunkel98]

My octo did a pose tonight like the one in the "Beast" photo! It even had those two lighter areas below it's eyes. I'll try to get a picture of it if it does it again.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[schmunkel98]

Since I have taken all of the crabs and snails out of my tank, the algae is out of control. Can I put more snails back in the tank now that the octo and the cuttle are used to live food or food from my stick?

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[Rudiger]

its worth a try. maybe just put in one or two snails and see if they get eaten. how expensive are cleaner snails?

[schmunkel98]

I caught my cuttlefish out in the open last night when I was about to go to bed. I had just turned on the light and he was in the middle of the tank hovering about 6 inches above the sand. He started to change color in a very odd pattern that rotated around his body from front to back. The pattern was a rotating series of light and dark colored stripes. It looked very cool, but he soon zoomed away behind some live rock again. Was he hunting for food? Was this a mating dance or was I a threat he was trying to confuse? Usually he just turns a very dark black when I get too close. I'm going to make an effort to get some movies of my octo and my cuttle sometime this week with my web cam. I know I can get shots of the octo when it is feeding, so it should be a good one.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[schmunkel98]

Ok folks, 2 new updates here:

1. I put in 4 giant sized turbo snails and they are all doing well. I may even get some more to cut down on the algae.

2. I got another cuttlfish in yesterday! It is from Bali and is about twice the size of the other one and is definitely a different species. It has been hovering near the surface ever since I put it in the tank, and it almost had a run in with the octopus at feeding time. The octopus was reaching for the shrimp I had when the cuttle came near and the octo's arm came close to it. Luckily it went for the shrimp though. Anyway, I hope the guy is still alive when I get back home today. I will take some pictures of it and try to get a movie or two with my webcam.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[Rudiger]

this is getting more interesting every day. So now you have one octopus, two cuttles, and four giant snails living together. Please do keep us updated :cool:

pat

[schmunkel98]

Well, the new cuttle didn't make it past the 24 hour barrier in my tank. It seems like the bigger cuttles don't handle shipping very well or the shipper doesn't know what he is doing. The cuttle seemed pretty out of it when I put him in the tank to begin with. He then started hanging out at the surface like in the picture I've attached. He looked very nice and I wish he would have made it. Even after he died, his skin was still turning colors a bit. Now I'm just down to one octopus and one cuttlefish. :(

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

[schmunkel98]

Dooh, here's the picture.