collecting live food from white rock safe?

[nanoreefer]

i hopeing to get afew baby cuttelfish in a week or too and sence they need small live food like mysis shrimp scuds crabs ect i was thinking of just going down to white rock and collecting afew weeks supply and keeping it in an extra tank or in the fridge but ive heard a lot about it being pretty poluted so would the shrimp/crabs be ok to feed? or is there some other source for live mysis? or something eles i could feed them?

[theredben]

I got some cuttles about a week ago. I am collecting live food from White Rock, first of all I can't find any shrimp, and all I can find at white rock are crabs and some kind of goby. These will be good in a couple weeks but until then they need something easier to eat. I found a lot of copepods out by Blackie's Spit. Just go out to the point grab a shallow bowl full of water, set the bowl on the ground and start digging beside the bowl, the copepods will start jumping out of the disturbed sand, but once they jump into the water they will feel safe and stop moving. Empty the bowl into a pail and repeat. I can only seem to get the copepods to stay alive for a couple of days once I get them home so be ready to go to the beach 3 times a week.

As for the pollution some people were raising them on food from the SF bay area with no serious side effects other than a reduced lifetime of a couple months that could be attributed to many things.

PM me if you want any other information on Cuttlefish.

[nanoreefer]

thank you theredben that was more info than i thought i would get, but if i have to go to the beach three times a week iam not sure if i can do it(its one and a half hours away:cry: )but iam going to try, how are your cuttles doing and what size tank do you have them in? i was going to raise them in a net breeder in my 9g tank but iam worried that the stuff i get from the beach might give my fish & shrimps a disease or something so iam going to start up a 10g for them wile there small with a couple pounds LR from my other tank and some base rock i just have to get it set up before i go away for a week and hope theres still some cuttles left at petzoo when i come back:mrgreen:

[theredben]

My cuttle is still only like the size of my fingernail, but he/she is growing. I am planning to have 3 cuttles in my 55 gallon, the recommendation is a minimum of 30 gallons to house 1 cuttle. If you can use a tall tank that is better they seem to like the water height.

Depending on how much you want cuttles, I would at least try to check out some local streams around you to see if you can find some shrimp. You should keep in mind that after 2-3 weeks you can start to try feeding dead food on a stick. Lastly, you can always order some live mysid shrimp from an online vendor but it is a little pricey, expect to pay ~100$ per week to keep a culture going.

Hope this helps.