cuttle pics from LFS - who can ID?

[jacksonpt]

LFS cuttle pics

This is the cuttle that I'm planning on purchasing tomorrow evening. Can anyone ID it? My primary concerns are adult size and diet (I know about feeding life shrimp and crabs, but I was hoping to be able to supplement live food with frozen/fresh supermarket seafood that I feed my anemone... just a little cheaper than live food).

Anyone know which cuttle this is?

 

[cephalopoder]

I am prety sure you have Sepia.bandensis the stumpy spined cuttlefish. It is the only cuttlefish being imported in to the USA on a large scale. Most don't survive more than a week. This is a pygmy cuttlefish with the body reaching 3" at the adult stage. It uses two arms on front to walk along the bottom of the tank to hunt. It is a nocturnal species from the philipines and will only eat live food that I know of. I had 4 of them and they did not fair well for any length of time. I think this is due to shipping stress and collection methods.
I talked to a CA wholesaler who imports them and to date... No one he knows has had any luck keeping them alive. This may be one of the few that made it. Mike out here, also went though quite a few before he had one live for any length of time.
You can tell this species from the row of blue spots that line the flap of skin along its body.
In back posts I posted a few pics of the ones I had. It looks just like the ones I had.

 

[OctoMonkey]

I'll second that opinion and also state that it takes some time getting a cuttle used to live food onto dead food, from memory it took me about 2 months or so and I dont beleive that Mike had much luck getting his onto dead food.... is that right Mike?

nice pictures tho!

oh, and that species only gets to about a couple of inches long so that one may be already an adult with not so long left in this life.....

colin

 

[schmunkel98]

Yeah, my octo would go after anything dead or alive. I could beat the dead shrimp upside the cuttle head and he wouldn't budge.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

 

[jacksonpt]

Thanks for the help guys. From what you told me, and the research I have done... this is not the cuttle for me. I told my guy at the LFS that I wasn't interested, and I explained what I had learned about the cuttle. I gave him quite an education, and he was grateful... so my LFS thanks you too.

So for now, the cephs will have to wait. I've started thinking about a small octo tank for my office at work, but that will be a ways off.

Thanks again guys... as usual, the board comes through with flying colors.