Seahorses

[DeletedAccount]

I know that a few folks on here got some baby Mustangs at the meeting at my house. How are they doing? Any tips on how to keep them alive? I have 6 babies that I am going to attempt to raise. They were born yesterday morning. (Sunday am)

Thanks!

Misti

[AlienAnchovies]

good luck dude, baby sea horses are the hardest thing to rear imo, a while back i got a couple hundred baby sea horses and out of all of them 3 made it, they were the only three to eat Cyclop-eeze funny thing is that all the others pretty much decimated my pod population and these guys were smart enough to eat the frozen stuff. newly hatched brine didnt work for me, all i ended up with was a tank filled with sea monkeys

[kaiser]

Even though I set up a 10 gallon tank with little flow they did not make it. I still would like to have a pair of seahorses for my fuge. Anybody know a good place to get them?

[DeletedAccount]

Let's see if I can get these to survive. I doubt I will be ablt to, but...

[malofish]

While working at AQSS we had a pair of black dwarf seahorses who would litterally kick out hundreds and I managed to keep two horses outta about 3 "litters". Now there was a girl, cant remember her name, but she managed to keep about 16 outta close to fifty pony's. She had them in a 16gal. hex and spend everyday with them :confused: her dedication seemed to do the trick?

[brewercm]

I had the ones I got in my fuge also and I was never really able to see them after the first day or so. They grabbed hold of the caulerpa in there and the flow is fairly slow but apparently none of them made it, or I would think by now they would have gotten big enough to see easily.
I think it would be easiest in a tank that they were easy to see and try to take care of them that way.
Good luck with them and keep us posted if they make it.

[DeletedAccount]

Right now they are in a small 2 gallon tank so that they can be given extra TLC. They do not seem to be eating the newly hatched baby brine. Just bought some rotifers. They are being delivered tomorrow.

[Instar]

What species of Sea Horses are these?

[DeletedAccount]

I have beent rying to figure that out. They are the Ocean Rider Mustangs sold on www.oceanrider.com, but I cannot find a species name anywhere.

[Instar]

The babies must be large then?
The tank you keep them in must be totally free of medusa and hydroids of all sizes. Even microscopic ones. It must be a pure cultured tank. Any hydra or medusa no matter how small will sting their mouth. Once that happens, they will not eat and will die. They also seem to have an allergic reaction to some kinds of slime algaes if present in any amount that is visible. I worked on a culture system for seahorses and finally got it to work. Gave it up due to the amount of equipment and tanks it took to accomplish. I still have the cultures though and I'd like to try it again if the babies are large and you want to donate some to the attempt test this out.

[DeletedAccount]

I really want to try this out. They are about 1/2 inch long. Cute little buggers. Maybe the next time they have babies we can get you to try to raise some. Should be about 4-6 weeks if we are reading the seahorses schedule of previous attempts correctly.

[DeletedAccount]

I really want to try this out. They are about 1/2 inch long. Cute little buggers. Maybe the next time they have babies we can get you to try to raise some. Should be about 4-6 weeks if we are reading the seahorses schedule of previous attempts correctly.

[dan]

sounds like a lot of work and time to keeping these guys alive.

[Instar]

I hope you can raise them, really. Good luck! Meanwhile I'll ramp things up to get ready for the attempt in a month or so. How many babies are they having? Just 6? How tall is the tank you have them in and how much of that is vertical swimming distance?

[DeletedAccount]

Currently they are in a little bitty tank with NO room. The survivors will go into the 24 or 30 inch high tank that I have. Both are ready for inhabitants. I am just waiting to see who survives.

[Instar]

I mean the breeding pair of seahorses. How tall is that tank?

[DeletedAccount]

I think that they are in a 24 inch tank - not sure....

[DeletedAccount]

My babies are eating the rotifers I got in today and newly hatched brine shrimp! Looks like the are three that are swimming and navigating well, 1 that is being successful at hunting but cannot fight the current well, and I cannot find the other two or the bodies. They are either hiding or dead in the macro. I will go investigate after they are done with the meal.

I am sooo excited!!! I know that I have a long way to go, but just getting them to eat is exciting! Now if I can keep the food coming....

[GaryP]

Misti,

Where did you get the rotifers from? I have been thinking about setting up a rotifer and green water farm but just haven't been able to figure out how to control the temp. The farm would be in a green house on my patio.

Gary

[DeletedAccount]

I got them from www.aquaculturestore.com They were nice and got them to me very quickly. Just ordered another set so that I can culture them (the first set will just be for feeding) as well as some other things that I want to try to grow. We will see how it goes....

[GaryP]

Misti,

You'll need to start culturing green water to feed the rotifers.

Check this out for a pretty good system to do this.

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

Gary

[DeletedAccount]

Actually I am buying green water to start with.

[GaryP]

The trick, as I understand it, is to keep the green water from being contaminated with rotifers. They'll wipe out your green water starter cultures. I have a 4 stage culture system in mind.

Green water >>> rotifers >>> brine shrimp >>> mysids

[DeletedAccount]

My seahorses are a little over two weeks old and doing great! They are vorcious eaters and mighty darn cute!!!!! Had the same three around for about 1 1/2 weeks now!