help for a cuttle newbie

[jacksonpt]

I've been in this hobby for about 3 years now keeping reef tanks. Once I stopped cutting corners to save money, I've been extremely successful. Approximately 8 months ago, I tore down my old 75g reef, and started preparing it to become an aggressive FOWLR. I had thought about keeping an octo or cuttle (I've always been facinated with cephs in general), but decided against it as I couldn't find any information about cephs that seemed at all reliable.

Well, my tank has been running now for a good 7 months... 6 of those post-cycle. It currently has a small clown and a wrasse in it to keep the tank active, and I'm ready to start stocking it. I don't think I want to go the octo route, simply because I don't want to dedicate a 75g tank to a single octo that (from what I've heard) will spend a good portion of its time hanging out in the pile of LR. So that leads to me to cuttles.

Where can I find some good info on cuttles? My LFS has been getting cuttles in over the last month or so, and currently has a beautiful one... looks very healthy, swims and eats well (I believe he said it came from Hawaii). Unfortunately, my LFS doesn't know much about them. I would first want to know what species it is. Is there a site that list pics with common and scientifc names for a variety of cuttles? Hopefully I can get this thing IDed.

Assuming I can ID it, where can I find out about it, i.e. dietary habbits, water temps, size, etc.?

I really want to turn my 75 into a reef tank with 2 cuttles and a few corals (mostly hardy leathers... nothing too aggressive), but I want to make sure I'm smart about it. I'm not going to half-@ss this, and if I can't provide an environment that the cuttles will be happy in, I don't want to do it.

Thanks for the help.

 

[goodman770]

Jacksonpt,

This page should be a good start for you. Also, read through the past posts on here and you should have a good starting point. It's unusual to see Cuttles in the stores, and most will tell you to start with Octo's, particularly a Bimac. Unlike some species of Octo's, the bimac is active, intelligent, and will not try to escape. I'm not positive about keeping several of them in a big tank, but would imagine you could given you had a 75.

Copy this link into a browser...

http://is.dal.ca/~ceph/TCP/

Good luck...
Bill

 

[cephalopoder]

The cuttles commonly available in the USA are a imported species called Sepia.bandensis. They come from the philapines. They do not do well in shipping or captivity and eat only live food. I am not aware of any cuttle species that come from Hawaii. I would go with a octo if you have never kept a ceph before, they are far from boring.
With captive breed bimacs available, they are the perfect choice for the ceph beginner.