aggressive lagoon

[hobogato]

here are a couple more pics from today - two more hatched last night

closer - sorry for the oof

 

[pilotguy]

thats amazing, following along

 

[Elysia]

You have some molly fry in w/ the cuttles now? I'm just guessing at what else I see in the hang-on net. That is awesome. Thanks for updating w/ new photos.

 

[hobogato]

yep, the biggest one is eating at least one a day. i feed them live baby brine every day.

 

[cabezon2469]

The tank is beautiful. Like someone else said, mine looks like a pile of rocks. I am waiting to see what a cuttle looks like.

 

[hobogato]

here is a link to google for cuttlefish - the ones i have are S. bandensis

http://images.google.com/images?q=c...lz=1I7ADSA_en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi

 

[Ddanaher]

Very very cool how long do you have to wait before you can introduce them into the main tank ?

 

[hobogato]

probably another two months or so.

first, they will live in the net breeders for a while. then, the net breeders will come out and they will live in the acrylic box for a while until big enough to go into the main tank.

 

[cabezon2469]

Thanks Hobogato. I saw a video someone posted earlier as well. interesting.

 

[hobogato]

up to six babies with four eggs left - one baby died right after hatching

i spent a couple of hours setting up the mysid shrimp tanks. the idea is to keep a constant slow flow going between the two tanks with different size filter screens so the adults are trapped in one tank and the juveniles are trapped in the other while the larvae can move between them freely. it involves and air lift tube and a siphon to return the water.

here are the two parts before installation

also, each tank has a home made air driven sponge filter. this pic shows one assembled (left) and the other in pieces (right)

to jump start the bio filter, i put the new sponge filters in the main tank and used the filters that have been in the main tank for these new tanks.

i also did a big water change and used old tank water in the new mysid setup.

here is the whole thing running

 

[andrewkw]

Where did you get the screens and what sizes are they?

Any closeup pics?

It's my understanding you need more then 2 tanks to successfully culture mysids, but good luck. It would be MUCH cheaper then constantly ordering them.

You don't want to know how much I've spent keeping my baby cuttles well fed.

 

[hobogato]

i have not added the screens yet, still looking for some. i got this idea reading thru the artical linked in the following post

Ah, here we go, I knew I had it somewhere:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/sept2003/breeder.htm

here is the quote from the article

if you are willing to set-up a separate tank just for the adults alongside the main culture tank. Keep the top of this isolation tank exactly even with the top of the culture tank, and position an air lift tube in a corner of the adult's tank so that it returns water to the main culture tank, while a siphon tube in the opposite corner maintains the water level (see diagram) between the tanks. The air-lift tube should be sheathed with plankton netting or nylon screen with a mesh size (800 microns) that will restrain the adults while allowing the larvae to pass through unimpeded. Likewise, the end of the siphon tube should be covered with 500 mM plankton netting that will allow newly-hatched brine shrimp to pass through but not the juvenile mysids. Adjusting the air lift so it produces a slow, gentle, steady flow of water will automatically deposit the juvenile shrimp in the main culture tank while keeping the adults isolated in the adjacent tank, thereby eliminating cannibalism.

right now, i have adults in both tanks because i got 1000 in today. i am also going to set up five tanks in my classroom, and that is where i want to actively culture them.

i also have saltwater acclimated mollies popping out babies like crazy - the larges baby cuttle i have is already eating those too

 

[hobogato]

well, the mysids have moved mostly into the 20 gallon over night, so i will harvest from the 10 gallon until those are mostly gone and then i will set up the screens. fed them freshly hatched brine last night and they went nuts! two days in shipping with no food, they were really hungry. soaked some more baby brine in live phyto overnight and fed those this morning.

also, we have a new cuttle hatchling this morning and the cuttlefish ate all of the mysids we put in with them last night - about 20. still have three eggs - two small ones and one big one that looks like it will hatch any day.

 

[footballdude2k3]

well done, i like the tank a lot

 

[hobogato]

thanks dude

baby #8 this morning - two unhatched remaining.

here is a pic of some of them - they were all in a line, but started moving when they noticed me above them with the camera

here is the tank this morning with the new mangroves that i got from a reefer friend

 

[NoobySWkeeper]

This is by far my favorite post/discussion or whatever it is yet!




At my birthday im setting up a 120 preadator tank (off topic much)

 

[hobogato]

thanks nooby

well, unfortunately the mysids did not do well. i think 1000 was too many for that 30 gallon setup that i threw together. the dead ones did not go to waste tho, all of my acans ate really well for a few days - as they died i siphoned them out and fed them to the acans in the tank.

i am gonna try again this week as i still need live mysids for at least another week. this time, i will put some in net breeders in the main tank, some in this setup and some in a couple of tanks at the school.

all 8 cuttles are doing well, the last two eggs were apparently infertile.

 

[cam191919]

awesome thread!

 

[j_wishbone]

what a great idea

 

[hobogato]

thanks cam and j

well, we am down to one baby cuttle fish. i dont think any of the other hatchlings ever ate, even though they were offered live mysis, live brine, live copepods and amphipods, live baby mollies, and frozen mysids.

the one survivor, whom we have dubbed uno, is at least twice as big as it was when it hatched. hopefully i can switch it over to live mollie babies and shore shrimp in the next couple of weeks. when it gets a little bigger, i will try to find a few more that are near the same size.