AN UPDATE Sept 10 2004 : My seahorses

[ltay]

Hello Reefers

It's been quite some time I have not post pictures. Here are some taken tonight. Food : thawed PE mysis with selcon, cylopees and live mysis found in tank. Still have to catch more live mysis tonight from the overflow tank.
Enjoy!!!

http://members.shaw.ca/larrytay/tankpics/Dsc02846.jpg
http://members.shaw.ca/larrytay/tankpics/Dsc02858.jpg
http://members.shaw.ca/larrytay/tankpics/Dsc02863.jpg
http://members.shaw.ca/larrytay/tankpics/Dsc02870.jpg
http://members.shaw.ca/larrytay/tankpics/Dsc02878.jpg
http://members.shaw.ca/larrytay/tankpics/Dsc02882.jpg
http://members.shaw.ca/larrytay/tankpics/Dsc02887.jpg

[Samw]

That's truly beautiful!

[LostMind]

I have to agree with samw... amazing seahorses!

[Canadian Man]

Very Nice!
Can you tell us more about the tank they are in? :cool:

[ltay]

My tank is at
http://www.canreef.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7264&highlight=

It's a 30g tank piped together with 175 g main display tank. I have since remove lots of caulerpa from the seahorse tank. too invasive and covered everything. Only kept the slow growing ones.. seagrass.

[DOO-E]

Wow where di you buy these animals they are amazing.

[sumpfinfishe]

Wow :eek:
That first pic is a 9.5 :cool:
You have something special-nice work :biggrin:
A very colorful selection of horses too!

[Delphinus]

What species are they?

[ltay]

Thanks for compliments.

I understand that they are from Brazil. But not sure of the species.
Got them from BigAl. Understand that they have a new supplier now , that's why they could get nice species.

[Delphinus]

From Brazil? I wonder if they could be H. reidi then. Bev, you out there? What does our resident seahorse-whisperer think?

Whatever they are, they are amazingly pretty. :cool:

[EmilyB]

Wild caught seahorses are now under cites.

The last orders were placed a short while back. I got a notice from saltwaterfantasies.com.

Long overdue.

[Delphinus]

I thought they were already? Wow. Or do you mean they've gone Appendix II.

[EmilyB]

Yah, I figured I didn't quite word that correctly. I was looking for the message he sent, but perhaps that is what was meant.

[Beverly]

From Brazil? I wonder if they could be H. reidi then. Bev, you out there? What does our resident seahorse-whisperer think?

I don't know my SH species very well, but I'm sure they are not all the same species. The black one looks completely different from the others. The ones with all the spots on their faces are probably H. reidi, but I cannot say for certain what the others are. Here's a page for IDing the most commonly kept SHs:

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

[monza]

Very cool how long have you had them? Curious on that because I've heard wild caught can be a real challenge. All the cool ones I see are always wild caught so I have yet to take on the challenge of sea horses.

Dave

[christyf5]

Wow those are some great colors. :cool: Love the hitching post :biggrin:

Christy :)

[Beverly]

Dave,

By far, it is easier to keep captive bred SHs. Wild caught may not catch on to eating anything but live food such as mysids. One of the best ways to train WC to eat frozen foods, PE mysis being the best overall frozen, is to train them to eat from a feeding bowl. Go to my website and click on Seahorses. There will be a feeding station section there. That is not to say that you should go out and buy WC SHs, though. CB are still waaaaaaaay easier to keep, imho.

[ltay]

They have been eating mysis. live and frozen...
It's hard to catch live ones in the overflow tank....
Surprisingly, they love cylopeez. I soaked them over night in Selcon.

Still, I would love to feed more live food. I have trained 3 of them eating frozen ones... but the deep red one is hard to train. I will try harder.

[DOO-E]

Are seahorses really that hard to keep. In the url address you place in a reply there is a sea horse that comes in gogarians so all reefers with one might have a dwarf sea horse in their tank. Unlikly but still there is a chance.

[Beverly]

DOO-E,

Here are some research pages for you to read to help determine how difficult SHs are to care for:

The Library page from http://www.syngnathid.org/ :

http://www.syngnathid.org/ubbthreads/showarticles.php

Information pages from http://www.seahorse.org/index.shtml :

FAQ page:

http://www.seahorse.org/cgi-bin/faq/smartfaq.cgi

Beginner's Guide/Care Sheet:

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

Advice You Might Be Given By Your LFS About Seahorses:

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

[DOO-E]

Wow thanks i think i might convert my 25 gallon i have sitting around into a seahorse tank but i will wait until i get more experience.

[ltay]

Just an update that all the seahorses are now trained to eat mysis and particularly one of the yellow ones will follow my tong all over and nipping at the tip of it trying to get a message across that he wants some more. :biggrin:

[Ken]

It is such an inspiration to read that you are able to keep seahorses. This is such a great example of dedication in keeping animals that are difficult to rear. With such success as you have, it would inspire me to one day set up an aquarium for these delicate creatures. Regards Ken

[ltay]

Update : All the four adult seahorses now would follow my tong with the thawed mysis and they are making a competition there to fight over the tong... weird. Two of them, the red and yellow one would curl up the tong and hitch hiked everytime..... the yellow one still follows my tong like an obedient dog even with the tong has no mysis.
Seeing it is believing.. wonder anyone interested to have a peek at my tank in action (bring some free caulerpa if you want to get rid off.. My tang has depleted them) I can't believe it myself. I wonder if only these particular species would be so easily trained.

As for the two black kudas, they are hard to train and only eat cyclopees and brines.

I have a baby red seahorse, still need to train her. She eats whatever small that is crawling in the tank. I believe the refugium helps..

[Beverly]

Itay,

Sounds like you spend a great amount of time daily with your seahorses. Glad to hear that you are so dedicated :smile: I'm glad you posted your update to share with us your success.

I have a question for you - how much time do you spend on a daily basis feeding and caring for your seahorses? I ask so that people thinking how cool it will be to their own will understand all the work they require. Knowing the details of your daily care regime might help people decide if SH keeping is for them or not.

[ltay]

Hello Bev

After work at 4:30pm , reach home 4:35pm. I work close to office... lucky.

5pm-5:30pm: Water the large rooftop garden and the kitchen deck garden. Lots of flowers blooming now....
Feeding seahorse daily : around 2 hours or so... I did enjoy looking at the those beauties during the feeding sessions. Waited until 8pm-8:30pm, another round of final feeding before light goes off at 9:30 pm.
During this hour, I also need to care for the 175 g tank and the refugium.

Easy Preparation:Quick rinse in clean seawater to remove soaking solution of selcon and vitamins. The mysis would have already been soaked right through with selcon+vit during the previous night before sleep. This way, I would prevent too much excess organics introduce into the water. I noticed if I do this, the water quality is better.

Mysis are dropped into tank or using tong -one by one (to doggie train them) or into the feeding station at the last serving to see the frenzy. They all now love to gather around the feeding station the moment I am near. Cute.

Larry.

[Beverly]

Larry,

Yup, that sounds like the amount of work I put into my SHs :smile: At first I didn't mind the special care they needed, but after several months, it wore thin for me :confused: I hope you are able to sustain your interest over the long term :smile:

[DOO-E]

Ya know everytime i look at those picture i am amazed of the amount of technology change the marine hobby as has had. Back when it first started people could bairly keep clowns alive for 3 weeks. Now look at us we are breeding clowns successfuly, keeping seahhorses and SPS corals wow. Round of aplause :biggrin:

[ltay]

I NEED HELP/ADVICE. My two male seahorses are so pregnant. I witness the mating ritual.
The 1st batch two weeks ago all died. Got up too late in the weekend morning and left only a few in the tank. I have just bought a breeder tank (acrylic) to put into the seahorse tank to share with the same water now and to await for the 2nd wave of babies. Anytime now..this week.

Larry.

[Beverly]

Two places that are dedicated to SHs:

http://www.syngnathid.org/

http://www.seahorse.org

Each has a forum for rearing fry. Good luck!

Oh, and depending on what species you have, you will have to either get a brine shrimp hatchery going or a rotifer set up going. The larger the SH, the smaller the fry and the smaller the fry food. I can't tell what species you have, but if they are H. kuda or similaryly sized SHs, you will need rotifers for the first 1-3 weeks. After that, they will need newly hatched bs for a few weeks.

[monza]

Larry
Check this site out, good simple explanation and pics how to raise your own live food. Click on navigation once you are at the site.

http://www.sjwilson.net/reef/

Makes it all look simple. Hope it helps not even sure if thats the right food?

Good luck, sounds pretty cool sea daddy!

Dave

[ltay]

Thanks Bev and Dave(Monza).

I have also found this site. http://www.worldofseahorses.com/raisingfry.htm

[ltay]

The babies came and I missed it again. Managed to rescue 4 but looks like they are not doing well.... :cry:

[Beverly]

Babies will usually be born in the morning, sometime between 6 am and 10 am. I used to have a special hanging thing in the tank where I'd put the pregnant male when I thought he was due. The hanging thing was made of window screen with a rigid frame. I clipped it high up in the tank so none of the babies could escape.

Once your male and female get going, only illness or death will stop them from reproducing every 14 to 20 days, depending on the lag time between giving birth and getting pregnant again. Pregnancies last ~14 days for almost all species.

The biggest problems to overcome with fry is providing the right sized food for their size and keeping ammonia levels low to non-existent.

Good luck over the next few weeks.

[ltay]

3rd time the charm, this time round. I stayed up Sunday (Aug 29 2004) morning from 4 am (lucky that it was a weekend) and the babies were streaming out from the male seahorse pouch. I immediately shut off the valve and the pumps. Almost 100 babies, tranferred into the breeder tank with a small airline tube.
Some dead due to surface tension that caught them in the breeder tank and some were gulping air from the surface. I am thinking of redoing my breeder tank so that it could be submerged into the main sh tank. This way, the babies would not get gulps of air bubbles into their breathing tracks. If anyone has any idea of how to setup a submerge breeder tank, it would be greatly appreciated.

This time I am more prepared with rotifers live food as h. reidi are too small for brine. Maybe switching them later. I have started phytoplankton cultures (3 weeks prior) and growing the rotifers two weeks prior in two Instant Ocean salt buckets. The rotifers are multiplying like crazy. I have also purchased a microscope to check the phytoplankton and rotifers. Very cool to watch.

You are right, Bev. The lapse time is exactly 2 weeks for the incubation.
I will post some pics later this week.

[Beverly]

3rd time the charm, this time round. I stayed up Sunday (Aug 29 2004) morning from 4 am (lucky that it was a weekend) and the babies were streaming out from the male seahorse pouch. I immediately shut off the valve and the pumps. Almost 100 babies, tranferred into the breeder tank with a small airline tube.
Some dead due to surface tension that caught them in the breeder tank and some were gulping air from the surface.

I think if the male is in a separate container inside the tank and the top lip of the container is above the water line, keeping the pumps going would aerate the water so the fry wouldn't be gulping air at the surface. This is just my guess. When my males gave birth, I did not shut off anything. The fry would not be sucked into the pumps because they were in the screen container, but they would still have aerated water to breath from.

[muck]

ltay,
Any update on the baby seahorses??
Would love to see some pics if you got any... :biggrin:

[ltay]

Unfortunately all the babies died except one survived.. I have a 4th batch coming this weekend... probably tonight/morning.

[muck]

Unfortunately all the babies died except one survived.. I have a 4th batch coming this weekend... probably tonight/morning.
Sorry to hear that about the babies...
Hopefully the next batch will be better. :smile:

[Invigor]

Thank you reefers for all your compliments. It really helps to boost confidence level and prolong our patience.
The tank was covered with red slime all over 1 week before the shots. We've bought the 'red slime remover' by Ultralife and it was gone like magic within 2 days. Did a 20% water change and now all inverts are so happy and extended.
We have also cut down fish feeding to 2 days interval. More pics to come soon.

I like that ultralife stuff, Worked exteremely well for me.

$36 from big als incase anyone wants to know.

[ltay]

As I am typing now, I am delivering seahorse babies.. the 4th batch... boy, can't the pair stop ?

And guess what ? Today is my birthday Sept 10 2004.... guessed it's my birthday present.

Funny, how come the babies come out at this time ? 11 pm.

[muck]

As I am typing now, I am delivering seahorse babies.. the 4th batch... boy, can't the pair stop ?

And Guess what ? Today is my birthday Sept 10 2004.... guessed it's my birthday present.

Funny, how come the babies come out at this time ? 11 pm.
What size are the "newborns" ??

and

Happy Birthday ltay!! :bday:

[ltay]

About 2-3mm..

The only one that survived from the 3rd batch is around 5 mm already..(around 1.5 weeks old).

[muck]

About 2-3mm..
:eek: I didn't realize they would be that small.

[cc_bruno]

Congrats on the batch. How are they holding up after the first night?

[ltay]

This batch is stronger... about 20 this time... lesser than the first.