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View Full Version : Woke up to a suprise this morning!


Diana
04-11-2006, 05:14 PM
I knew there must have been something waking me up early.... I got up... looked in my seahorse tank and saw....

BABIES!

I didn't even know my male was pregnant! You can imagine my suprise... I've only had my ponies a few weeks and they are already breeding. So I set up an emergency fry tank and started decapsulating some baby brine shrimp. EEEEK I hope some survive!

These are TINY buggers. I mean, less than 1 cm in length from head to tail.

Some pictures!

After removing them from the parent's tank:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v234/dinostar00/babies1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v234/dinostar00/babies2.jpg

The fry tank:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v234/dinostar00/babytank.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v234/dinostar00/babies3.jpg

And the little buggers:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v234/dinostar00/babies4.jpg



:D
-Diana

christyf5
04-11-2006, 05:27 PM
OMG! That is so awesome :cool:

Good luck raising them! :biggrin:

OCDP
04-11-2006, 05:28 PM
Very cool.. Good luck

sumpfinfishe
04-11-2006, 05:45 PM
Congrats! there sooooo cute :biggrin:

:new-bday:

SeaHorse_Fanatic
04-11-2006, 06:34 PM
Diana,

PMed you back some info. Cool pix. Congrats on the baby ponies & good luck with their care.

Anthony

Chad
04-11-2006, 06:40 PM
Just wondering if anyone has used the baby seahorses as live feed for their reef tank? assuming you are not capable of breeding the necessary foods for them to live.

andestang
04-11-2006, 06:41 PM
that is awesome :mrgreen: Good luck & keep us posted

muck
04-11-2006, 06:42 PM
wow.. those little ponies sure are small.
Good luck raising them!! :biggrin:

Beverly
04-11-2006, 08:58 PM
What species are they? I'm thinking they are too small to eat newly hatched brine shrimp until they get a bit bigger. For the next few weeks, they will probably only eat rotifers. Hope I am wrong, though. Good luck with them :)

Funky_Fish14
04-11-2006, 10:22 PM
Congrats on the little babies! I wish you the best of luck in raising them!

Chad, I know that corals will eat them if they manage to land on a sticky part of a brain or such, and I know people who's fish in the same tank as the horses have eaten them. Not quite sure how good a food it is though?

Chris

Diana
04-12-2006, 12:45 AM
Thanks guys! I'm excited and going to do my best to raise them (and if I cant, I'll try again next time ;) ).

What species are they? I'm thinking they are too small to eat newly hatched brine shrimp until they get a bit bigger. For the next few weeks, they will probably only eat rotifers. Hope I am wrong, though. Good luck with them :)

They are reidi, which are pretty small when born. I've read they do best on roties when they are young, but numerous people on seahorse.org are raising thiers on bbs and having a fairly good succsess rate. A lady on the site also noted that my fry seem to be fairly large, and might do okay on bbs right off the bat.

I'm crossing my fingers. :D

-Diana

pc604
04-12-2006, 12:57 AM
now that's cool! :p i've never seen baby ones before. good luck raising them

Beverly
04-12-2006, 01:39 AM
A lady on the site also noted that my fry seem to be fairly large, and might do okay on bbs right off the bat.

I'm crossing my fingers. :D

I'm crossing mine, too :biggrin:

Next to feeding them, ammonia build up is their tank is the second biggest hurdle to overcome. Make sure you have plenty of change water on hand. When I tried raising our H. whitei, I often did two 50% water changes a day, siphoning crud from the bottom as I did so.

Good luck!!!

SeaHorse_Fanatic
04-12-2006, 01:48 AM
Also test the change water to be exactly the same as the baby growout tank's (pH, salinity & temp. mainly). At this stage, they're very sensitive to changes in the water composition & being extra careful will hopefully pay off.

Not to be a downer, but if it doesn't work out, don't be too discouraged because most breeders (whether for seahorses or other species) are unsuccessful with their first batch of young. Good luck with this "new pile of extra work you weren't expecting" :)

Anthony

Diana
04-12-2006, 03:22 AM
Haha! To quote it perfectly anthony! LOL

I devised a good little water change strategy. I mixed a large bucket of salt water when I added the fry (part of the water they are in now is from this bucket). And there is also water in the tank around the glass bowl that is airated and the same temp as the water in the bowl. So, when doing a water change, I will remove water from in the bowl, replace that water with water from in the tank, and then replace the tank water with the bucket water.

Follow? hehe. Its a little confusing.... but that way the water going into the fry bowl will be exactly the same temp as the water in the bowl.

:)
-Diana

Diana
04-12-2006, 04:21 AM
It looks like they've snicked in air... I see a teeny weeny little bubble in thier throats, although they are not floating or swimming funny.

It might be because there were some little bubbles trapped along the inside of the bowl...

We'll see how many are left in the morning. So far though, none have died in the bowl.

-Diana

G1GY
04-12-2006, 07:07 AM
Very :cool:

Beverly
04-12-2006, 01:36 PM
It might be because there were some little bubbles trapped along the inside of the bowl...

Diana,

Gently turkey baste those bubbles on the sides of the bowl to get rid of them.

Also, rest a low wattage light on the counter so it shines into the very bottom of the tank. The fry will stay low where the light is so they don't snick water from the surface.

Raf
04-12-2006, 03:05 PM
Yeah I got rid of the bubbles once I noticed them and have a light attracting the fry to the bottom of the bowl. If these guys dont work out, at least I'll be prepared for the next batch!

I think my pair mated again yesterday, the female was SO FULL of eggs she dropped some on the ground.

Its very exciting nonetheless!

;)
-Diana

Diana
04-13-2006, 05:11 AM
Well they are all still alive, but only about 5 or 6 have bellies full of brine shrimp. A lot of them just follow the shrimp around but never snick at it, I guess its only the largest of the fry that are able to eat the brine. I enriched the brine with Selcon, hopefully this will provide the fatty acids.

-Diana

SeaHorse_Fanatic
04-13-2006, 06:55 AM
Good luck Diana. Crossing fingers & toes in Burnaby.

Skimmerking
04-13-2006, 01:34 PM
and people say that Reef keeping is expensive ,Not when you encounter this. Money doesnt matter

well done Mommy:mrgreen:

Beverly
04-13-2006, 05:18 PM
I enriched the brine with Selcon, hopefully this will provide the fatty acids.

Diana,

Newly hatched brine shrimp obtain their nutrition from egg yolk sacs. They cannot eat until they are 36 hours old, or something like that, so feeding the BBS anything is useless.

The egg yolk sacs are what make BBS nutritious, so it is important to have the BS hatch just before feeding them to the fry.

Once the fry get a lot bigger, you can keep your BS longer and gutload them with Selco or Selcon. Doing so any earlier is a waste, ime.

Good luck with the remaining fry :)

christyf5
04-13-2006, 05:30 PM
Diana,

Newly hatched brine shrimp obtain their nutrition from egg yolk sacs. They cannot eat until they are 36 hours old, or something like that, so feeding the BBS anything is useless.

The egg yolk sacs are what make BBS nutritious, so it is important to have the BS hatch just before feeding them to the fry.

Once the fry get a lot bigger, you can keep your BS longer and gutload them with Selco or Selcon. Doing so any earlier is a waste, ime.

Good luck with the remaining fry :)


IMO, the selcon does coat the BBS even though they don't eat it, so the baby horsies are getting some of the selcon into their systems. Its not the greatest system but not a complete loss and any extra you can get into the babies definitely benefits them down the road. :biggrin:

Beverly
04-13-2006, 05:38 PM
IMO, the selcon does coat the BBS even though they don't eat it, so the baby horsies are getting some of the selcon into their systems. Its not the greatest system but not a complete loss and any extra you can get into the babies definitely benefits them down the road. :biggrin:

I think coating the bbs with oily Selco/Selcon is likely going to foul the fry's tank, since the oil will probably rise to the water's surface. Could be wrong though.

christyf5
04-13-2006, 05:52 PM
good point, it is messy stuff.

Brandoser
04-13-2006, 09:20 PM
Wow!!! those are so cute!!!! keep us updated, I want to see how they do.

Diana
04-13-2006, 09:38 PM
Ah I've been doing several water changes a day for these little buggers. I'm feeding brine that are a few hours old.... and I added selcon to the older ones (about a day old) and will try to feed those. Hopefully they will transfer some of it to the fry.

It still looks like only a few are eating the brine... but I guess its better than none!

-Diana