Paradox's 150 Cuttle Farm Army Reef

[Paradox]

Ive got a couple journals on other sites that are lacking the attention in regards to updates, so instead of starting another one from scratch, Ill link to my RC one from here.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1245638

Here are some recent coral pics.

Left

Left/Center

Right

Side View

 

[FinalPhaze987]

Sweet tank...I like the rockwork...Did you use acrylic rods to hold them up? How do you keep your scallop alive...ive wanted one for the longest time but hear its almost imposible to keep them fed.

 

[LeviT]

Nice tank, definitely digging the rock work.

 

[Paradox]

Thanks for the kind words!

I tried a few methods to make the rock towers. I found the easiest was to use a combination of Aquamend epoxy and gorrilla glue. For pieces that fit together well, I just used gorrilla glue. It will cure in about an hour. I would put a couple layers on every 20 minutes and then sprinkle sand on it. The sand makes it look just like live rock. With rocks that did not fit together easily, I would use the epoxy to fill in gaps and then use gorilla glue + sand to seal it all together.

Some of the rockwork may not be typical of a reef for some structures shade rocks on the bottom, reducing the amount of spots you can place corals, but I did this so there is open swiming areas for the cuttlefish since they rarely go above the middle of the tank. Plus I really like the open look that includes caves and caverns.

Choosing corals can be difficult though for I am very picky with SPS since I want to keep it open. Resisting the temptation to buy or acquire from the DBTC is challenging when you still have a 150 gallon tank of frags =)

 

[Ibn]

Where be the cuttles?

 

[Paradox]

"Where be the cuttles?"

Theres a lot more pictures and explanations in the Reefcentral thread linked in the first post.

heres a few...

Only one adult in the main display right now.

The rest are still juveniles and are in a nursery in the cabinet.

4 weeks



3 months


Juveniles are about 3.5 months old now and are 1-.175 inches long and eat like pigs!
They have been trained to eat frozen shrimps which is good for my wallet.

 

[Ibn]

Awesome! I love how efficient these little guys are and didn't know that they can eat something that large as in the last video.

 

[Raddogz]

Nice Vids!

 

[Paradox]

Thanks Eileen! Ive got hours and hours of footage, but not the patience to go through them all and edit them into a super nice video like Rich does =)

 

[Paradox]

"Awesome! I love how efficient these little guys are and didn't know that they can eat something that large as in the last video."

Once they are confident enough, they go for prey 2-3 times larger then them. Those grass shrimp are pretty docile though. I think mysid actually give more of a fight.

 

[Paradox]

I just dug through years of photos Ive taken of my cuttlefish and out of the 1000s, I found about 30-40 that I like heh.

I thought Id share a few....



Bandensis:

 

[Paradox]

Here are some older ones I found:

 

[Paradox]

Heres a couple of a young Officinalis:

Mimicing a flounder?

Notice the feeding tentacle out and wrapped around a leg.

Crab in mouth

 

[LeviT]

Very cool Daniel!

 

[Paradox]

Thanks! Its frustrating to shoot with a crappy point and shoot. I literally take a 1000 photos to get one i like heh.

 

[Gomer]

Those are awesome! Makes me want to have some cuttle fish, but I bet the requirements and care are steep.

 

[Thales]

Nope. If you can keep a reef, you can keep cuttles.

http://www.stickycricket.com/cuttle/article_bandensis1/index.html

Feeding them is the hard part...unless you get them on frozen which is easier than we used to think...now if only someone in your area had some for sale....Oh, I do!

 

[sfsuphysics]

Not that I want to keep cuttles (the g/f just barely tolerates my tanks downstairs as long as they stay downstairs... my house too funny how that works! ).. but does the flow of a reef tank affect them much/at all?

 

[Paradox]

[quote author=sfsuphysics link=topic=2920.msg36201#msg36201 date=1204662954]
Not that I want to keep cuttles (the g/f just barely tolerates my tanks downstairs as long as they stay downstairs... my house too funny how that works! ).. but does the flow of a reef tank affect them much/at all?
[/quote]


Two Vortechs on full blast on reef crest or lagoon mode and no problems yet. Im not using the foam guards either. I see them play in the area a lot. The suction is definetely strong and the cuttle are swimming full force to escape it. But they sometimes seem to like doing this over and over

 

[Ibn]

I need a dwarf one!