Seahorse ?

[CHEAPREEF]

I'm debating putting seahorses in my new setup. They would go in a seperate tank, under the main tank. The volume will be around 14 gal, what species would be good for that size tank? And what type of fish would be ok to have as tank mates. I was thinking Percs but i'm not sure if they are too aggresive or not. Thanks for any help.

Clinton

[BCOrchidGuy]

I'm no expert on Seahorses but I have been doing alot of reading on them, as for tank mates, there isn't much that will go with them. Everything will get along with them, it's what they will get along with.

Seahorses are slow feeders and slow movers, Percs are too active and there wouldn't be much food left over for them. In my opinion Seahorses should only be kept in either a species tank or with something like pipefish, which feed the same way as Seahorses. My understanding of the pipefish though is that they are very hard to keep.

As for which species, thats a hard call, I've read that dwarf seahorses will do really well in a 2.5 - 5 gallon tank, a 5 gallon tank should hold 3 pair easy. A 2.5 will hold 2 pair and some offspring. The larger ones need more vertical room, a taller tank is better than a long tank for them. The Hex aquariums would be really good for them in my opinion.

See my post about Seahorses local, Emily gave me a link to a breeder in Calgary, she may be able to steer you in the right direction.

[naesco]

Under no circumstances should you consider buying a wild caught seahorse.
All it does is encourage the irresponsible LFS and online stores who bring them in to bring more of them in.

[CHEAPREEF]

Under no circumstances should you consider buying a wild caught seahorse.
All it does is encourage the irresponsible LFS and online stores who bring them in to bring more of them in.

Hadn't gotten that far yet, but i was going to try and buy tank raised they should be way easier to keep and feed. Tank dimentions are going to be 14LX12WX19H, does this sound like a good size, i could make it higher if it need to be. I think i might just stick with just seahorses and a few branching corals (gargonia ect) for them to hitch too.

Clinton

[BCOrchidGuy]

Seahorses are appendix 2 now, meaning the import of wild caught ones will be or is illegal. Although some may not agree with me on that, I've heard it from TWO reputable fish stores and it was published in FAMA Feb 2003.

The tank height should be fine unless you go with the larger Seahorses, if you go with dwarfs the tank will be massive for them, and they may have trouble finding food. The medium sizes should do fine in that, the hitching post idea is great, if they don't have adequate places to hitch they will hitch to each other, this can irritate them. They don't seem to mind another hitching tails but they seem to get cranky if another horse hitches on their snout or belly.... actually anything above the tail seems to annoy them.

[Beverly]

the hitching post idea is great, if they don't have adequate places to hitch they will hitch to each other, this can irritate them. They don't seem to mind another hitching tails but they seem to get cranky if another horse hitches on their snout or belly.... actually anything above the tail seems to annoy them.

For our 2.5 gal, I'm now half-considering mini horses, if available locally, that is, along with a few other factors.

What makes good hitching posts? I've got Tonga branch rock and a chunk of halimeda in the 2.5. Would these be suitable? Here are some photos of the tank. Suitable, do you think?

http://www.lostmymarblz.com/2.5galreef.htm

I would have to remove the aggressive feeding clear peppermint shrimp, though, if seahorses were to be added.

[BCOrchidGuy]

I've got 3 peppermint shrimp in with 8 Black Kuda's the Kuda's get plenty of food. Locally for you try http://www.aquaparadice.com/ EmilyB gave me the link, they are in Calgary I think.
I think your tonga rock is to thick for the smaller horses but it is really hard to tell. Some things you could use are (cough) artificial or dead coral (cough) can't believe I just said that. Mine are all hitching on LR and Calupera so you have lots of options.

[EmilyB]

Be sure to spend some time on seahorse.org, where you will be able to talk to people who have kept horses for years. :biggrin:

[Beverly]

Thanks for all the tips and suggestions.

I don't think dwarfs are available locally, and might pass on keeping horses altogether. That is, unless I convert our 7gal bowfront into a horse tank. Doing so would take time to set up the proper environment, and I'm not sure I want to dismantle the current well-established setup to keep animals I'm not at all experienced with.

I'll do lots more reading, check the lfs for current stock to see how healthy the horses are and what they're being fed, then try to make the right decision.

Thanks again.

[BCOrchidGuy]

Beverly, one thing I can tell you is that Seahorses are very charming but they aren't all together exciting. They appear delicate and almost helpless, but they have a look of regalness to them... (is that a word?)

I'm happy with mine, and I may also get into the dwarfs, the idea of a 1inch long adult seahorse just tickles my fancy.

[Beverly]

Beverly, one thing I can tell you is that Seahorses are very charming but they aren't all together exciting. They appear delicate and almost helpless, but they have a look of regalness to them... (is that a word?)

Yes, they are soooo charming :smile: I think that's why people like them so much and why they're on the CITES list.

I have to admit that before going to the lfs this morning, I had already planned how I'd rearrange all the rock and corals in our three reefs to comfortably accomodate some horses. I also had plans in place to modify the AC Mini to reduce the out flow trough by 2/3 so they wouldn't be fighting strong current all the time. However, it was not to be as the ones at the lfs will become too big for our 7 gal bowfront :frown:

But .... one of the staff who was off today might know of a local breeder of dwarfs. I'll check into it later this week.

I'm happy with mine, and I may also get into the dwarfs, the idea of a 1inch long adult seahorse just tickles my fancy.

Quite honestly, such little creatures kind of scare me. The smaller they are the faster their metabolism and shorter their digestive systems, right? They'd need more frequent feedings than just twice a day, wouldn't they?

On the one hand, I'm far from making any firm decisions on the matter. On the other hand, I've got the new arrangements ready to go in the event seahorses are in our future :biggrin: :biggrin:

But we shall see .....

[EmilyB]

I'm curious about the pouch squeezing which I was shown, apparently it is required ?? :eek:

[StirCrazy]

I'm curious about the pouch squeezing :eek:

arn't we all :eek: :wink: :evil:

Steve

[Beverly]

I'm curious about the pouch squeezing which I was shown, apparently it is required ?? :eek:

Look under Seahorse Problems at the following webpage for the answer to why it might have to be done:

http://www.saseahorse.com/stable.htm

[BCOrchidGuy]

It isn't actually squeezing, more like massaging.

The dwarfs do fine on newly hatched brine shrimp so thats great, you hatch some out and then add them to the tank, the dwarfs eat when ever they want, I'm working on a system right now of hatching the shrimp then feeding them selcon for 2 days before feeding them to the Aquarium, basically, hatch the BBS out, and at 24 hours remove them from the hatching cone and put them in clean newly mixed water, add a bit of selcon, a bit of Kent Zoe Marine and do the same thing after 24 hours again, so I have my hatching cone, one container (rubbermaid 1 liter) with BBS that just came out of the cone and the second container that has the BBS that is almost ready to feed to the aqaurium. My Black Kuda's didn't seem interested in the newly hatched bbs but they seem to like it when it is a couple days old, I've been contemplating adding a drop or two of garlic extreme to the 2nd container so the BBS get good and garlicy... yummy

[Beverly]

I'm working on a system right now of hatching the shrimp then feeding them selcon for 2 days before feeding them to the Aquarium, basically, hatch the BBS out,

Hatch them in what? Does the container have a heater and/or filtration? What temp is the water they're hatched in? What salinity? Is the container aerated or filtered in any way?

and at 24 hours remove them from the hatching cone and put them in clean newly mixed water, add a bit of selcon, a bit of Kent Zoe Marine and do the same thing after 24 hours again,

Same questions as above for the Selcon container.

so I have my hatching cone, one container (rubbermaid 1 liter) with BBS that just came out of the cone and the second container that has the BBS that is almost ready to feed to the aqaurium.

Before committing myself to actually buying any mini horses, available sometimes as Seanic, I'm going to try my hand at culturing the food first to see how much of a PITA it is. If I can handle culturing BBS, I'd feel better about converting the 7 gal for some H. zostrae. What's the name of the company who makes the brine shrimp eggs that you use?

Sorry for all the questions, but inquiring minds want to know :cool:

TIA, BCOG :smile:

[Samw]

Before committing myself to actually buying any mini horses, available sometimes as Seanic, I'm going to try my hand at culturing the food first to see how much of a PITA it is. If I can handle culturing BBS, I'd feel better about converting the 7 gal for some H. zostrae. What's the name of the company who makes the brine shrimp eggs that you use?

Sorry for all the questions, but inquiring minds want to know :cool:

TIA, BCOG :smile:

Fortunately for me, my seahorse does eat newly hatched baby brine shrimp and I considered getting some sort of low maintenance hatchery to provide continuous food for it before it was trained to take frozen mysis shrimp.

I was considering to try this:

http://www.jlaquatics.com/cgi-bin/shopping/jalstore.cgi?user_action=detail&catalogno=fd-tbsfeed

Now that my seahorse does eat frozen mysis, I don't need to try this. You may want to try it and see if its hassle free. I previously used San Francisco Bay hatchery but since the water isn't aerated, the shrimp don't last very long after they hatch unless you dump them to another aerated container.

http://www.jlaquatics.com/cgi-bin/shopping/jalstore.cgi?user_action=detail&catalogno=fd-shat

[BCOrchidGuy]

Samw, your seahorse may be eating the bbs but it isn't really an adequate diet in the long run for it. And please don't consider buying that hatching thing, the water your bbs hatches in gets really nasty really quick and I'm sure it will get into your tank. Mysis shrimp etc would be much better... mine seem to take some in when it still has the eyes and is moving, but being frozen it doesn't move much .. unless... I have a small powerhead that keeps the water moving through the area the horses hang out (the corral) The mysis or plankton in my case tumble very slowly through and a few of them get eaten. Adult horses will only eat about 5 mysis shrimp a day so you don't need alot of food for them.

Beverly, brine shrimp are really easy to hatch out with a few very very simple tools... Two, two litre coke bottles that have been cleaned really well and still have the cap work great for hatching cones. Invert them so the cap is down, drill a hole in the center of the bottom (top now) large enough so a small funnel with fit in it. Rig a way so you can stand these two bottles side by side, I used an old plastic milk box you see at the grocery stores etc... Fill one 7/8ths or so of the way with fresh water and add 1 Tablespoon of your salt mix to the water. Now, take a length of rigid airline tube and cut it so it will rest on the cap when placed in the filler hole.... so its like a straw... use some airline to supply air from a small pump. NO AIRSTONES. Just use the smallest pump you can find, you don't want the water boiling just enough air to keep the eggs in suspension. Now the final thing to do is add some light, a 40 or a 60 watt bulb will supply the heat you need, you run the light 24/7 close enough to the cones so the water temp stays around 80 degrees.

The reason for two coke bottles is, one can be used to hatch out the newest eggs the other will be used to move the hatched bbs out of the first and into a container that they can be enriched in. You can use three coke bottles if you want to keep your shrimp for a longer period but I'm thinking you don't need to do that. I'm going to cut back to a double bottle set up again.

So to summerize, two coke bottles inverted with a small airpump work as your hatching cones, a single desk light will work as your heater and light source (brine shrimp eggs need the long photoperiod to hatch). Add a small amount of brine shrimp eggs (I use 1/4 of a tsp and get tons of bbs) add 1 table spoon of your salt mix and aerate for 24 hours. Remove the airline and let the hatched egg shells float to the top and the unhatched sink. The bbs will be visible swimming around, if you can set the light so it is near the bottom of the hatching cone the bbs will concentrate there, if they still hang out near the top simply siphon off some of the mix and then add fresh unsalted water, the lower salinity will encourage them to go deeper in the water.

This is the part I haven't mentioned yet, now you need one more peice of rigid airline tube with some airline hose. You should have this peice cut a bit shorter than the others... what I do is cut it so if I catch the airline where it joins the tubing against the edge of the hole I drilled in the bottom of the coke bottle... I cut the rigid airline tube so it will sit about 1/4 of an inch away from the bottom of the hatching cone. The reason I rest the tube like this is so I can start the siphon and then watch the bbs go into the bbs net. Resting it like this also helps to keep from stiring up the hatched egg shells. Once you have siphoned about 3/4 of the water/bbs out of the cone simply cover the end of the siphon hose and drain it back into the cone... rinse the cone out completely and it is ready to go for the next batch.... You should feed about 50% of the newly hatched bbs to your horses or your reef and then move the other 50% into the second container that was set up exactly the same way as the first, add 5 drops of selcon and 5 drops of Zoe liquid vitamins and aerate for 12-24 hours. To get them out do exactly the same thing you did with the newly hatched stuff and you can feed them to your fish or store them in the fridge at 4degrees C for upto 48 hours.. but I recommend using them asap.... hope this helps.... its alot easier to do it than describe it.

[Samw]

Samw, your seahorse may be eating the bbs but it isn't really an adequate diet in the long run for it. And please don't consider buying that hatching thing, the water your bbs hatches in gets really nasty really quick and I'm sure it will get into your tank.

Baby brine shrimp actually are suppose to be nutritious when they are newly hatched as they still have the yolk sacs. It is only after 24-48 hours that enriching them with selcon is possible. In this article they only document baby brine shrimp as the main diet for dwarf horses.

http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/dwarfKeeping.shtml

I fed my seahorse newly hatched brine shrimp only when it wasn't trained to eat mysis shrimp, and now only on weekends when I'm not at the office to feed them frozen mysis. I wouldn't try to feed it exclusively on new hatched brine shrimp.

[BCOrchidGuy]

Glad you have them trained to eat mysis, I'm sending you a PM.

[Beverly]

Beverly, brine shrimp are really easy to hatch out with a few very very simple tools...

Wow, BCOG, thank you very much for the detailed information :smile: :smile: :smile:

Dwarf horses, H. zostrae, would only eat newly hatched bs, so I'd only have to have one hatching cone going, don't you think?

Could I use water from one of my tanks, say from the 42 gal, instead of using new water each day? Then I could sort of do a mini water change and replenish the 42 a little bit every day.

Thanks again for taking the time to write those extensive instructions. Very much appreciated. DH also understood them, which is even better, cuz he's the main DIY-er here :smile:

[BCOrchidGuy]

I really don't think using tank water would be ideal... why?? I'm not sure... If you keep the two cones going you can feed a portion of newly hatched shrimp and feed a portion of the instar II (fancy talk for moulted bbs)...

No problems on the description of how to do it, I wish I could have taken a pic so you could see what my mess looks like. Glad you understood it though..... One day I will try to tell you how to decapsulate brine shrimp....

OH BTW... get good brine shrimp eggs if you are going to get the dwarf horses... I strongly recommend Brine Shrimp Direct.. the prices may seem a bit high but you really get an excellent quality egg. I've used the OSI brand at $60/4 oz and had less than 50% hatch rate, and I've used Brineshrimp Directs at $55US for 12oz and I get nearly 90% hatch rate so I use half the eggs to get as many brine shrimp (not that I've actually counted them)... The good stuff is a heck of a deal in the long run.

Doug.

[Beverly]

I really don't think using tank water would be ideal... why?? I'm not sure... If you keep the two cones going you can feed a portion of newly hatched shrimp and feed a portion of the instar II (fancy talk for moulted bbs)...

No problems on the description of how to do it, I wish I could have taken a pic so you could see what my mess looks like. Glad you understood it though..... One day I will try to tell you how to decapsulate brine shrimp....

Doug.

From http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/dwarfKeeping.shtml:

"Please see my instructions on brine decapsulation. Basically you soak brine cysts in aerating (using an air pump and allow to aerate during the whole process) tap water for an hour or so. Add some bleach about 1/3 of the amount of water they have soaked in and in about 7 minutes when they are a yellowish orange you rinse until the bleach odor is absent. Use of dechlor or Sodium Thiosulfate if you have may be used to speed up the rinsing process. After completion you may hatch the eggs right away in whole or in part. Leftover eggs may be stored in the refrigerator for about a week in a small amount of salt water. Try using your water change water to hatch brine. "

Yeah, I'd love to see a photo of your mess. I'm trying to figure out how to do this with as little mess as possible, being the anal clean freak that I am :rolleyes:

The author of the article does suggest using tank water to hatch them, as you can see.

Is the above decapsulating method similar to yours? So what happens during the rinsing process? Sounds like the eggs are encapsulated with a shell that comes off due to the bleaching and rinsing?

Geez, this sounds like so much work and is quite expensive, too :eek:

More thinking must be done .... :confused:

[BCOrchidGuy]

Yep thats the way I de capsulate them... it isn't all that difficult or expensive, decapsulation is an excellent thing for fish that don't need the feeding stimulus of live prey. Decapsulated brine shrimp are much more nutritious but they are not hatched so they don't swim around.

I know what you mean about being anal, frankly I want to get organized... its just hard to do with so much crap around....

The rinsing process is just to stop the bleach from dissolving the egg and to rinse it off so you aren't adding it to your system. Sodium Thiosulphate is just declorinator. You get a fair amount of foaming when you decapsulate, sometimes the jar you are using gets hot as well. If I buy my eggs from Brine shrimp direct I don't bother decapsulating them but if I am using OSI I decapsulate them before hatching them, you get a much higher hatch rate.

[Beverly]

Yep thats the way I de capsulate them... it isn't all that difficult or expensive,

I meant that buying the eggs was expensive. Heck, even buying the horses will be a killer, too. But the whole brine shrimp decapsulating, hatching, then enriching procedure seems like a LOT of freakin' work :exclaim: :exclaim:

Here's what Brine Shrimp Direct has to say about the procedure:

http://www.sfbb.com/technical_info/Growingbrineshrimp.htm

They suggest a variety of feeding methods, which seem much more complex than just adding Selcon and Zoe to the second cone of water. But if I only want baby, baby brine shrimp, maybe that's all I'll need to do.

I know what you mean about being anal, frankly I want to get organized... its just hard to do with so much crap around....

ROTFLMAO !!

We moved twice over the past 8 months, so I know crap from crap laying around :eek: Before the first move, we got into the "crap be gone" mode of packing and got rid of all kinds of stuff. After the second move just six weeks ago to our brand new condo, we did another "crap be gone" stint, this time unpacking. Geez, maybe you should just move :biggrin:

[BCOrchidGuy]

Planning on moving hopefully in the fall, to our own house, YEAH no more being the tenant.

Moving also means buying a larger tank so I can move everything out of my 90 with out much trauma... Hmm.. 90 would make a real nice Seahorse tank..... Hmmmm...

[Beverly]

Planning on moving hopefully in the fall, to our own house,
Moving also means buying a larger tank so I can move everything out of my 90 with out much trauma... Hmm.. 90 would make a real nice Seahorse tank..... Hmmmm...

:eek: A house of your own sounds like the perfect set up for accumulating a BIG load of crap :eek: :lol:

[BCOrchidGuy]

I'm starting to believe there are two types of crap, useful stuff you may use in the next 10 years if everything changes... and stuff you can't do with out just incase something else changes.....

Not to long ago I took a ton of stuff the the LFS and got a credit for most of it... stuff I hadn't used in a while, now I'm going back and replacing it all... so in my frame of mind, why through stuff out, I will eventually find a use for it.

[Beverly]

I'm starting to believe there are two types of crap, useful stuff you may use in the next 10 years if everything changes... and stuff you can't do with out just incase something else changes.....

Geez, you gotta post some photos :exclaim: