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Ray's 125G Cuttle Rearing System

Hmmm I'll go looking for the MBL plans... they are on my old PC that needs some work done, but I know they are on both MBI and MOFIB. Heck, I think they are also on Project DIBS as well.

If you need a little micron mesh, I have tons of scraps of various sizes.
 
Eating in the Flow

I added the frozen mysids along with the live ones. Here is a video showing how the mysids either move around in the flow (middle of video) or at least flop around in the lower flow eddies on the corner (bottom left side of video).

Rich, too much flow?

[youtube]FwmUaNd_Adw[/youtube]
 
It's been a little over 6 weeks and all eight cuttles seem to be doing OK in the higher flow container. At 6 weeks, I moved the cuttles off of mysids and onto common shore shrimp (Palaemonetes Vulgaris). I had a couple of them eating frozen mysids, but the majority wanted live mysids. Earlier, at five weeks, I had tried some smaller freshwater ghost shrimp I got at the local Pet Club. Despite the fact these ghost shrimp were at least the same size as the cuttles, all of the cuttles ate them vigorously. I therefore ordered 250 shore shrimp from www.livebrineshrimp.com. They are in a 20G Long with a thin aragonite base and a sponge filter, heater, and whisper hang-on-the-back overflow with a biobag with carbon. I am feeding them a quality reef flake fish food. I am not sure how many of these large prey I should be feeding the cuttles at this point. Anyone have any tips? I have been feeding one smaller shrimp one day and two shrimp the next day and then starting over with one the day after that, continuing the pattern.

[youtube]lWPMtRfP-ZY[/youtube]
 
The more you feed the faster they will grow. There is some evidence that if you are to feed them multiples per day, do it 6-8 hours apart. IME, one a day works just fine though. :D
You can way up the flow if you like, though it looks like soon they will be too big for mysis. Soon they will be doing this which is so way fun:
[vimeo]37150050[/vimeo]
Meh - I can't remember how to post vimeo video here! :D
https://vimeo.com/37150050
 
That's a great video! I had not seen that before.

I am thinking about letting them go from the smaller container to 20G Long for the next 5 weeks and then moving them to my 120G display when they get to 3 months old (they are 7 weeks today). Sound OK?

Sorry to hear about your flu. Our bug concern now is this highly contagious stomach bug that they have seen at the school.
 
Thales said:
The more you feed the faster they will grow. There is some evidence that if you are to feed them multiples per day, do it 6-8 hours apart. IME, one a day works just fine though. :D
You can way up the flow if you like, though it looks like soon they will be too big for mysis. Soon they will be doing this which is so way fun:
[vimeo]37150050[/vimeo]
Meh - I can't remember how to post vimeo video here! :D
https://vimeo.com/37150050
Click to expand...

Epic video!
Love the sound track! :bigsmile:
 
The cuttles are 9 weeks old today. I still have the original 8. They seem to be about twice as big that they were when they were born. Last week, at 8 weeks, I removed them from their small critter keeper and moved them to a 20G Long that is plumped into my larger system. They seem to be doing fine and a few of them are coming up to the glass to be fed when I walk into the room. The others hid in the back. At night, however, they are much more active and using the whole tank and swimming around.

[youtube]-DRdA4VzVnk[/youtube]
 
11 Week Update: Pics & Feeding Video

I still have all 8 of the original hatch 11 weeks ago. They are getting much larger now that they are eating larger feed. They spend the day very well embedded in my Red Grape Algae (at the right in the first picture below). At night, they are more active (I have a red LED light that illuminates part of the tank at night so I can observe their behavior). There is one that seems to be about 2x larger than the others. I have been feeding 8-10 Palaemonetes Vulgaris once per day at night after the lights go out. Most of them are waiting by the front of tank, but one or two do not seem to come out, but they all must be eating. Once or twice a week I feed in the morning as well.

I bought my most recent batch of 200 P. Vulgaris from Sachs Systems Aquaculture and was very happy with their customer service and the quality of the shipment.

Here are some pics and video:

Their current tank (20G Long plumpbed into my larger system with a glass-holes.com overflow):

f3c63fe8-3d88-4495-934d-bfe079bbc78c_zpsc7ce6590.jpg


Blending in with the Substrate:
f5e801d6-8e5b-42a4-847b-a6f766868590_zpsf0f2dcfd.jpg



Feeding Video
[youtube]H-la9-2Q3BU[/youtube]
 
gimmito said:
Ray...can we get a vid of the cuttles in their new digs ?
Click to expand...

Working on that. They stay hidden in the rock all day and active/out of the rock at night under the red LEDs. I should be able to get some video when I feed them.
 
lattehiatus said:
Congratulations on a successful first attempt with cuttles! You make it look so easy and fun. ;)

Any idea when you might expect new eggs?
Click to expand...

Thanks!

Richard says in this article that he did not see eggs until 20 weeks, but that they saw mating behavior for a few weeks before they saw any eggs. So it looks like I can expect mating behavior in the next few weeks and eggs in 6-8 weeks.
 
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