AN UPDATE Sept 10 2004 : My seahorses

[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....

[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]

Originally Posted by 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 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...

[ltay]

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

[muck]

Originally Posted by ltay

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.

[Invigor]

Originally Posted by ltay

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.