Raising Cuttlefish (Sepia bandensis)

[Sharkbait5603]

Anyone on here have any experience with Sepia bandensis? I have 5 little babies in a breeder net in my 220 reef tank (very lightly stocked and heavy on Pods) They have been living off of pods that I suck out of he pump and put into their breeder new. I have seen a few of them eat but I highly doubt it's enough. I give them frozen mysis and it disappears, but i think the cleaner shrimp have been eating the mysis through the net. even though they are 2 weeks old and growing, I decided to play it safe and order live mysis. Man that was expensive. I have a ton of live mysis left and set up 2 tanks for them to reproduce in but the seller warned me they will most likely not reproduce just because their summer supply tends not to. I don't want to buy anymore live mysis unless I build an appropriate breeding system. I'm considering also breeding shore shrimp to feed the cuttles.

1. Anyone have cuttlefish? I'd love to see pictures. I will post some later.

2. Anyone breed any marine shrimp? what kind?

3. Also curious about how much interest you all would have in buying captive bred cuttlefish. With their short lifespan, I would like a self sustaining population but they lay a lot of eggs and if my group matures and breeds, I want to have plans for the babies.

Pics will be posted later. thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[Sharkbait5603]

 

[Gazog2]

look up a guy named Anthony DeSena on Facebook, he has 2 he's raised from babies. You might also look into Tonmo.com

 

[Bryan47]

I've researched it a lot and even built a 40G Breeder setup. Laura Birenbaum at Reefgen does all the raising and studying of cuttlefish and is a GREAT resource. I have her cell but I think you can email her. She does a great video that BRS posted.

They mainly only eat LIVE mysis shrimp from what I've read. I also read they're easy to go collect at the beach but have never tried.

I would definitely be interested in purchasing them. I was going to buy a sexed male $100 and female $200 so I could ensure breeding because 1 year avg is way too short of a lifespan sadly

 

[Tokyo Viking]

I got my cuttle about a month ago. Really enjoying it. Much less drama than I expected. I worried a great deal about inking events but now think you’d really have to scare them a lot to get force them to ink.

 

[zachj]

how difficult are they to care for? are they more tolerant of a dirty tank or are you trying to perfect your parameters?

 

[Tokyo Viking]

how difficult are they to care for? are they more tolerant of a dirty tank or are you trying to perfect your parameters?

I have this tank near the window so it gets natural light. This of course increases macro algae growth in the hang-on refugium. It’s not a super dirty tank, nor is it perfect. I have a lot of live-rock for him to hide on and in. I would say that the biggest difficulty is making sure that they have live food available to them all the time. They love eating marine shrimp so they are good to populate the tank with as cleaners. I have found that he only eats when he is hungry so no big problem with rotting half eaten food round. I do have a hermit crab (might become dinner some night) and a few snails in the aquarium for clean up just in case. I’ve had saltwater pico / nano tanks for a few years now so I just keep his tank like I do with my corals.

 

[Tokyo Viking]

My bandensis feeding

 

[Tokyo Viking]

 

[Tokyo Viking]

how difficult are they to care for? are they more tolerant of a dirty tank or are you trying to perfect your parameters?

I’m sure that some would say you need a 100-200 gallon tank, perfect water, only premium live marine shrimp and a beautiful looking female to cuttle with. LOL. I’m not to sure as to the science and research behind many of these inflated optimal specs for various marine livestock. Some I think are on the mark, others are total bs. Give me a break you don’t need a 50 gallon tank for a few damsels. I like to experiment and try to create a healthy natural environment but I don’t always follow the rules. From my experience if you only have one Sepia bandensis a nano-tank is fine. I think having some liverock and maybe some macroalgae for them to hide in is much more important than a super huge area to swim in. I do water changes and carbon dose my tank. I’ve had him for a month now and he doesn’t exhibit any stressed behavior.

 

[HerpN]

I've been wanting to get them for 15 years. I've read up on them but I appreciate all these posts. Great topic!

 

[Tokyo Viking]

This is Kosh (of the Vorlon Empire) . It's summertime and I'm only about 1hr from the ocean so I check the tide and then collect small crabs on the reef for my sepia bandensis. Even though his tank is well stocked with these crabs he still likes freshwater killifish (medaka) sushi. I have also been feeding him damsels this winter because they are super cheap, bite-size, and since they are saltwater fish I can add them and he can snack on them as he wishes.

 

[Tokyo Viking]

I have had my Sepia bandensis for about 5 months now. I live only an hour from the ocean so during low tide I catch small crabs for him but I also feed Kosh damsels and freshwater killifish (in the video).

https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=rvaEZ2rbS3M

 

[Thomashtom]

I have this tank near the window so it gets natural light. This of course increases macro algae growth in the hang-on refugium. It’s not a super dirty tank, nor is it perfect. I have a lot of live-rock for him to hide on and in. I would say that the biggest difficulty is making sure that they have live food available to them all the time. They love eating marine shrimp so they are good to populate the tank with as cleaners. I have found that he only eats when he is hungry so no big problem with rotting half eaten food round. I do have a hermit crab (might become dinner some night) and a few snails in the aquarium for clean up just in case. I’ve had saltwater pico / nano tanks for a few years now so I just keep his tank like I do with my corals.

How big and what kind are they? Very nice i have a 2 Flamboyants.

 

[Thomashtom]

Anyone on here have any experience with Sepia bandensis? I have 5 little babies in a breeder net in my 220 reef tank (very lightly stocked and heavy on Pods) They have been living off of pods that I suck out of he pump and put into their breeder new. I have seen a few of them eat but I highly doubt it's enough. I give them frozen mysis and it disappears, but i think the cleaner shrimp have been eating the mysis through the net. even though they are 2 weeks old and growing, I decided to play it safe and order live mysis. Man that was expensive. I have a ton of live mysis left and set up 2 tanks for them to reproduce in but the seller warned me they will most likely not reproduce just because their summer supply tends not to. I don't want to buy anymore live mysis unless I build an appropriate breeding system. I'm considering also breeding shore shrimp to feed the cuttles.

1. Anyone have cuttlefish? I'd love to see pictures. I will post some later.

2. Anyone breed any marine shrimp? what kind?

3. Also curious about how much interest you all would have in buying captive bred cuttlefish. With their short lifespan, I would like a self sustaining population but they lay a lot of eggs and if my group matures and breeds, I want to have plans for the babies.

Pics will be posted later. thanks in advance for any advice.

Hi you could try gut loaded ghost shrimp(grass shrimp). You should be able to catch them. In the future keep me in mind to purchase some. Here is a pic of my Flamboyants. Thanks Tom

 

[Sallstrom]

We're keeping and breeding Sepia bandensis at work(small public aquarium). I think we started about 4 years ago.
We feed the newly hatched cuttlefish with live gammarus or small mysis. Adult S. bandensis eats almost everything that moves It's also possible to train them to take dead food, but it might take some time and patience.

Let me know if you want more info on our husbandry.

/ David

 

[Sallstrom]

I got a question on PM about our feeding regime and husbandry, so I'll post here to get the information out to everybody.

It says in some article that the newly hatched Sepia bandensis needs small mysis shrimps to feed on. Sure small mysis shrimps works very well and the cuttlefish loves them. But in case you can't get hold of any mysis(the winter for us for example), you can try Gammarus instead. A group of small amphipod crustacean that probably occurs in most marine tanks. Some species are smaller, some larger. There are some Gammarus oceanicus to buy in Europe for example, they are a bit bigger and work well for a starter food for S. bandensis. We've also used smaller ones that we catch in our aquariums, both cold water and tropical species.

They would probably eat really small crabs or shrimps as well.

When they grow the Gammarus will be too small as food. It's possible to train them to eat frozen food(but it takes a lot of time and patience). We do that if we can't get hold of live ghost shrimps.