Can cuttlefish get mouldy?

[Bumblebee]

Just came to a thought...can cuttlefish get mouldy? Since ive been thinking of buying several cuttlefish at once for my four snailies when i get them, so i have some lying around at home when i need new, but how long do an unopened cuttle last?

[Dusk]

They last ages and ages in dry conditions. It's really only when they enter the high humidity of the tank that they sometimes go off. I buy cuttle in vast sacks that take even my crew a few months to chomp their way through, and I've never had any go off.

[Bumblebee]

okay nice to know =D gonna buy a big bundle of cuttle then xD

[crossless]

I bought 10 cuttlefish bones on January, I still have 9left (10th one is currently in use). My adults eat bone only before hatching (not growing anymore) and babies start to grown, but no hurry to buy more and the "leftovers" r easy to safe for wild caught snails.

[snailysnail]

if the one that it is the tank gets mouldy, bumblebee, you can give it a good wash and take off the, often brown, mouldy bits and then leave it to dry out thoroughly (on a radiator is quickest). it might take a few days, so you should pop in another cuttlefish while this one is drying out. this should make the cuttlefish last longer as well.

[Rachel]

i just chuck any cuttle that goes soggy/mouldy/smelly from the tanks, usually bury it in some soil to decompose then spread where plants/wild snails that need calcium are.

[lucyjames]

I have founds breaking it up into small chunks rather than putting the whole cuttle bone in in one piece is better, then I just chuck in a few chunks and change them every week or so, when they start looking off... this makes them last longer...

I go into the pet shop and get big bags of mishapen cuttle - its cheaper and the snails dont care ;D

[Rachel]

i get mine for 20p for a huge piece anyway, or something like £1.50 for loads of it. I tried oyster shell recently as well as they had it dirt cheap and very fine, but no joy there. The hemp seed was popular though.

[crossless]

I brush my snails cuttlebone always when it get's dirty. and they r good to go back in tank.

[Bumblebee]

Well this cuttle i got in the tank now have been doing very good tbh Dosnt even smell much xD
Usually I just brush off some peat, and once in a while i rinse the bone and let it dry pretty much directly under the lamp above the tank (just a normal ''reading lamp'' lol), and its dry enough within a few hours
The snails are sleeping anyways when I rinse it, since they dont get active till maybe after 1500 when I decide to shower them and clean the tank a bit xD

Gonna try a new idea instead of just tossing this cuttlefish away when its closing in on a exchange, and that is to grind it down into a powder that could be sprinkled on food, just puzzled for about how long the powder could last if kept dry and dark

[Dusk]

The powder lasts almost indefinitely too It's very, very light and fine - spill it and it's not so much a pile on the carpet as a cloud. (You find these things out by trial and error, mostly error )

[Rachel]

yeah, and if that cat tips the big pot of it over with his fat furry rear end while hes lolling around everywhere the powder goes everywhere and is often very difficult to get rid of (I to have experience from the error side of things)

[Bumblebee]

haha ok ill be carefull not to spill anything then xD

[lucyjames]

Lol Rachel, I can see your cat running around madly with a white powder-coated butt!!!!!

[glittersniffer]

My cuttle fish goes off INSTANTLY, or within two days anyway.

It goes dark brown through. When i put it on the moss it seems to do better. It wasnt cheap cheap stuff and it doesnt really smell.

I might just buy more and see if it was only that one. Maybe i have a very humid tank?

[coyote]

I've never had cuttle go moldy, but then I have trouble keeping the humidity up here in hot, dry California (although it's pouring rain as I type, with thunder and lightning too; so much for warm, sunny Cali). I do notice that the coir will stain the cuttle brownish, but it isn't mold, just a stain from being in contact with the substrate.

[crossless]

Cuttle won't get mouldy it just suck maybe little bit color from peat nothing to worry about. If you are always changing it 'cos it's not nice and white I think it's waste of time. I think most portant is snail to have calsium and cuttle is not the thing you usually look, it's more about the snails.

If you want to keep cuttle little bit cleaner, just rinse with water or brush it little bit when it gets buried with poop and soil.

[danikat]

My cuttlefish would go a bit brown/yellow but I think it was just taking in colour from the coir.

What seems to work well for me is to have 2 of them and alternate. Each week when I clean the tank out I take the cuttlefish out, rinse it off and leave it to dry in the airing cupboard and put the other one in instead. So each piece has a week of being clean and dry for every week of being in the tank.

Just putting in a small peice and getting rid of it when it starts to go manky might work as well but my guys tended to sleep on it so I had to make sure what was in there was bigger than a snail.

[Deleted]

Hiya i bought my snail shes very tiny smaller than a pea, i bought her some cuttle fish for 14p and its quite big:)

[erminea]

I put the cuttle fish in the tank in smaller pieces, too. I don't mind them getting discolored but I really can't take the smell! Sometimes they start to smell real bad, so I replace them with new pieces. I have tried washing them but it doesn't help with the smell issue.

Usually my snails have eaten quite a lot of the piece by the time it needs to be thrown away.

* Tread is locked, because there's too many same named treads around here about calsium. Let's write here next time we have some question or something else to say.. -> petsnails.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=feeding&action=display&thread=8421 - CroSSLeSS *