Hi lefkonj, did you keep feeding it every day? I found that some juveniles did lose interest in food if I missed a day or two. It seems that they have to keep eating like us humans to survive.
I put them in a breeder box for easier feeding. The problem of feeding in the main tank is that about 1/3 of the shore shrimps thrown in the tank will get into the overflow. So it's less efficient to feed this way given the difficulty and cost in sourcing shore shrimps.
Thank you EMeyer. So nice! You must have been putting lots of time and efforts on your cuttles! Do you think the two cuttles at 1:20-1:55 were engaged in puppy love thing or something else?Great videos!
It was around this age when my cuttles reached reproductive maturity. Which added some real drama to the tank, as one male killed the other male, then the remaining male and female mated and laid several clutches of eggs.
Cuttlefish mating is quite entertaining... clasp your hands together and wiggle all your fingers... thats what it looked like
That part of the video certainly looks like communication. I recognize the head bobbing behavior, that was a common thing I saw in my cuttles too. The tentacle play behaviors of the one on the right look like some of the courtship behaviors, but in this case it looks like maybe unrequited love.
"Unrequited love", so hilarious!That part of the video certainly looks like communication. I recognize the head bobbing behavior, that was a common thing I saw in my cuttles too. The tentacle play behaviors of the one on the right look like some of the courtship behaviors, but in this case it looks like maybe unrequited love.
I wish I knew how to prevent male male aggression or to sex the animal prior to that point.
By this stage, I had my cuttles occupying the full volume of a 29 gal tank. So the death wasnt instant, they chased each other and fought for a day or two before I decided it was going too far. By that point it was too late, the weaker had been injured and died of his injuries after I removed him.
So my only thought is next time, to remove any cuttlefish that start getting picked on at the first sign of aggression. Which means setting up yet another cuttlefish tank, as if the first one wasnt enough work
From my experience, dwarf cuttlefish are less interested in fish than in crustaceans. And an adult dwarf cuttlefish impose no risk on any adult fish, but may be a threat to some juveniles. I have a bangai cardinal with a dwarf cuttlefish in my sea horse tank and they quite get along. Make sure that you have sufficient live shrimps in the tank. They can easily starve to deaths.
