Jestersix

Ray's 125G Cuttle Rearing System

Coming up on 17 weeks post hatch this Saturday. I still have 8 cuttles. They are feeding on frozen saltwater "grass" shrimp (Crangon sp.) from Mike's Bait and the last of the live P. vulgaris from Sachs Aquaculture Systems. The frozen are much cheaper. For $5 I get about 10 days worth. I have not seen any aggressive behavior, but I did notice some mating behavior tonight. For now, there seems to be enough space that each cuttle get's their own rock/hiding space and they leave each other alone. I imagine this will change. During the day they rarely come out, but at lights out most of them swim around. It's hard to get a count of all eight and i need to count them as I feed shrimp with my feeding stick. Last night, however, was the first time in a while I could actually count all 8 because they were all out.
 
Some recent pics:

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Seeing Aggression

18.5 Weeks and I am seeing some aggression between some of the cuttles. As a result, I had to remove a cuttle tonight and put it back into the 20G long rearing tank.

Yesterday, I noticed that one of the cuttles had a white mark on the end of its mantle and it was covered in circles made by thin white outlines on its skin (see pic below -- it's the best I could do for now). I will call him "Chafe" and assume he is a male although I don't know that. Chafe was also reluctant to feed yesterday. Today, Chafe ate OK, but I woke up in the middle of the night in order to observe what was going on when the cuttles were active at night.

Tonight, Chafe was solo floating around in the tank near the top of the water column. As he made his was down towards another cuttle burried in the sand (the burried cuttle was displaying mainly white colors to blend into the substrate so I will call her - another assumption - "Milky"). As Chafe got close to Milky, a large cuttle (aka "Brutus") came quickly from a nearby rock, displaying very dark (looked black under the red lights) colors and flashed spots and stripes. He then proceeded to attack Chafe and would not let go. Brutus dragged Chafed around the tank and while Chafed broke away a couple of times, Brutus came back at him.

Fortunately, it was not difficult to remove Chafe. He was too nervous to go down, so I was able to scoop him into a plastic container and move him to the 20G Long in the fish room (this tank is plumped into the same system as the display tank). My hope is that he will heal and be OK in this smaller tank until I can find him a home, but I don't know what type of healing cuttles do.

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That is major agression. Those circles are bite marks that presumably occur during male 'negotiation'. I have actually rarely seen so many on one cuttle. How much have you been feeding them? The actual wound is concerning, and though it prolly won't heal, but cuttle may do just fine. How may males do you have?
 
I have been feeding two medium to large size frozen grass shrimp from Mike's Bait each day to each cuttle: one in the morning and one at night. I don't think I am underfeeding because there are times when some of the cuttles are not interested in one of the two meals. I have a feeding rod with 80lb test that I can use to move the shrimp right in front of them and sometimes they just ignore it or swim away from it. Other times it is clear that all eight get one of the shrimp.

I think I have 3 males and 5 females, but it is hard to be certain. I definitely have 4 larger cuttles with no bite marks that I presume are females. I have three that have bite marks including "Chafe" above, but Chafe as a lot and the other two have only a few. One of these two is larger but Chafe and the other one are smaller. I am not sure about the last one. It is the smallest of all of the cuttles but it has no bite marks. That could mean 4 and 4. So in the DT, I either have 3 males and 4 females or 2 males and 5 females.

I have only seen actual aggression that once last night, so most of the time -- (6-7 am and 6-10 pm) when I am occasionally observing them -- they are all chill with each other.
 
I got up last night again to observe the cuttles and there was more aggression between Brutus and one of the other males, so I removed the smaller male and put him in with Chafe. So fat that's working out, but if anyone is interested in a cuttle, let em know (I will post to the general forums so everyone can see it).
 
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