60 Gallon Reidi Cube- gazillions more! (new pic and vid)

[BSJF]

So what do he kids think about this little project?

[Europhyllia]

They think it's very cool but since I know I will most likely lose them all I try to not get them too involved in this so they won't ask where all the babies went too much...
Seahorses with tiny fry like that are tough. People way, way, way more experienced (well actually that would be just about anybody lol) have struggled with Reidi and similar so I am not crazy enough to think I'll succeed with this any time soon...

[Europhyllia]

I am loving my fry set up even more now! The stand is 36" and the tub is quite tall so I am able to be almost eye to eye with the babies!
They have beautiful shiny itsy bitsy golden eyes! I'll enjoy them as long as they last. They are absolutely magical. The size of an short-ish eyelash. Quite remarkable that they manage to move their tiny weightless bodies to where they want to go!
I have a lot of floaters right now :( Those are pretty much already doomed

[funkyseamonkey]

Ya Congrats on the babies! Sorry about the floaters

[BSJF]

I guess you need to prepare your speech about Seahorse heaven. Sorry bout the floaters. What makes them float anyway?

[Europhyllia]

I think in my case they are just weak and dying. There's also a problem with their swim bladder that's believed to be caused by a protozoan or bacterial infection (could have already happened during pregnancy) but I am not seeing that enlarged swim bladder.

Since so much of this happens before the seahorses are even born I am going to focus on the parents. Daily adding of Sanolife to the DT and FT (while there are still fry in there), live shrimp for the adult seahorses and keeping the cultures going for next time.
Our of the initial 50 fry I have about 25. Only 3 of them seem to be really strong and doing well though.

[Europhyllia]

I still have a few survivors but it's not looking promising.
On a positive note though. They've been doing their mating dance for the past couple of days and egg transfer seems to have occurred now. He's big again.
So the next batch will be due Dec 26th to Dec 28th

[Europhyllia]

I got some delicious aquacultured saltwater feeder shrimp from F&S today (Thanks to Lorraine). Paul and Patches enjoyed them very much.

[BSJF]

Yeah!

[BSJF]

Are you feeding the shrimp anything to enrich them?

[leliataylor]

Hi Karin, you are right that conditioning the adults makes a huge difference in the quality of fry they produce. This is why commercial breeders don't even try to raise any of the fry in the first 2-3 broods a pair produces. Another problem is fry are very susceptible to ciliates. With larger fry, that don't require rotifers, you can treated the nursery on days 1,3 and 5 after they are born which goes a long way in eliminating this problem. Unfortunately formalin will also kill the rots. One thing you can do to reduce this problem is net them, place them in a small bowl and give them a short term formalin bath, I have done this with comes. Another thought would be to increase your dosage of Sanolife. Dan has been experimenting this and he is averaging about 90% survival with kuda fry. Finally, you might want to start a couple of pod cultures. Parvocalanus are only slightly larger than rots and would make a great first food for reidi.

[Europhyllia]

Thanks. Hm. Not sure how to attack that. I read around a bit on seahorse.org and fond this:
http://forum.seahorse.org/index.php?showtopic=39952&st=20&p=485006&#entry485006
Does that mean as long as I add phyto the rots can overcome the formalin?

[leliataylor]

I did that trial with tetraselmis and the rots seemed to do fine. More recently I tired it with nanno and rots were dead within 1 hour. I am not sure if it was the difference in the phyto or the roti culture. I am following Dan's instructions and experimenting with increasing the dosage of Sanolife rather than using formalin. Unlike formalin, the Sanolife seems to enhance pod and rotifer reproduction. I have also treated two seahorses with Sanolife, one that came to me with large tail bubbles and the tip started to turn white, another that developed a white tail tip a couple of days after arrival. Both are fine now, without antibiotics. Tail bubbles appear when there is a excess of dissolved organics which is what ciliates feed on. A white tail tip is believed to be bacterial in nature. I have lost seahorses in the past to this condition and have found antibiotics essentially useless. In theory, reduce the dissolved organics and your ciliates population will disappear. It also enhances GI absorption of nutrients which is what the fry need due to the rudimentary stomach of a seahorse.

[Europhyllia]

http://www.dominopads.com/round2.jpg

getting a little bigger this time around than last time!
I've also been able to get live shrimp for him again. Polly's has them in stock again :)

Due Dec 26th... :)

[Europhyllia]

STILL very pregnant and still no fry!

[Europhyllia]

nevermind.
gazillions of fry now :what_smile:

http://www.dominopads.com/fry1229.jpg

http://www.dominopads.com/fry1229_2.jpg

[BSJF]

wow! what is that green stuff you got in there with them? Fake or real?

[Europhyllia]

fake -it's for paul to hitch to while he's in there (easier for me to get the fry in the fry tub and not lose them in the big tank ;) ) and the fake stuff is easy to sterilize

[BSJF]

Figured as much, but I also figured if anyone would try and use live in their fry tank you would.

[hobogato]

nice! will keep my fingers crossed for ya

[allan]

Nice.

Karin, how long before those little guys start looking like sea horses?

Looks like you have a few hundred... how many are expected to survive?

[BSJF]

Expect = 0
Hope = 200

:)

[Europhyllia]

Thanks. If you ever want to try Reidi fry just let me know. He gave birth this morning and they're already doing their mating dance again...

[Europhyllia]

Nice.

Karin, how long before those little guys start looking like sea horses?

Looks like you have a few hundred... how many are expected to survive?

Actually they do look like tiny real seahorses - complete with the shiny golden eyes and teeny tiny tails!

Reidi have pelagic fry and are really tough to raise. Erectus would have been way easier but of course I wasn't planning on breeding when I got the Reidi from another MAAST member last year.

Even experienced people have trouble raising them. GC Reef tried for awhile and gave up. Even seahorsesource the main seahorse seller in the US has been importing theirs from asia.

So yes. Expected to survive: a big fat ZERO. Hoping to survive: 1 or 2 for me to keep. :)

[BSJF]

So are you going to document your entire process for us? Midnight feedings, diaper changes, and such?

[alton]

Congrats and enjoy Karin

[Europhyllia]

Maybe. Depends how fast it's going south. lol
right now I have a small supply of pods and a big supply of rots. I will try to fee every couple of hours. The rots and pods are grown in isochrysis and nanno. I also enrich them now with roti-food before feeding them out.
I lowered the water level on the fry tub to increase food density. I added my sanolife probiotics to the fry tub and culture vessels and I am spraying everything down with peroxide to keep it clean

[Europhyllia]

I'm tired. I've been feeding them every 2 hours all day long. Worse than humans!!!
The cleaning and sterilizing everything after each feeding is kicking my butt.
My own kids were breastfed so the whole sterilizing everything after each feeding is new to me and I am not enjoying it. lol
I have no idea if they are even eating!
I am anxious about what shape they'll be in tomorrow. Probably tons of dead ones and floaters :(
I still have so many I have a hard time cleaning the tub walls without accidently cleaning away baby seahorses.

I have no idea how breeders with multiple fry tubs manage all this or people with outside jobs.
Cheryl do you call in sick for 3 days at a time?

[BSJF]

I hear you on the hard work! Just think you get to do it again in 2 weeks.

What do you spray with peroxide? Equipment, or the fry tub and culture vessels?

[edshas2]

Wow that is alot of work, are you doing it for the satisfaction of knowing you can? How many times are you planning on trying? i thought of trying raising black clowns but from everything i read it gets expensive and alot of work also. Guess good things arent easy. Good luck wish you lots of success..

[Europhyllia]

Lost lots of them overnight. :(

I'll try until I wear out I guess...

[Europhyllia]

Lorraine the items I spray down with peroxide are the ones not covered in water ;)
the rotifer sieves and collection vessels after each feeding, the little cleaning brush/siphon thing, any bowls or containers I use, the measuring spoon for the probiotics, etc.

[BSJF]

fun!

I used a coffee filter draped over a big gulp cup to filter the rotifers so they were disposable. Not sure if that would be something you could do or not with the horsies. It was easier than the sieves. I still used the sieves periodically for other stuff.

[Europhyllia]

I use a set of 3 sieves. the first two are to trap debris. Since the horsies are so very prone to bacterial stuff I can't risk dumping debris from the rotifer bucket in with the rots. So the water is filtered through a 250 micron sieve and 120 micron sieve first before the rots are collected in the 53 micron sieve.

even if I used a coffee filter to replace the 53 micron sieve I'd still have to clean the bigger sieves.

And when I say I LOST the babies I mean literally. I found a couple hundred in the filter sock this morning. Ugh. Guess my protective sleeve wasn't sitting flush on the ground and most of my seahorses got sucked out. Argh

[Europhyllia]

Day 2. I know, I know... only day 2. lol
But the ones that were doing well yesterday are still doing well today and even appear bigger than the 'control group' -which is obviously not doing so well.
So I have maybe a dozen that are actively eating and growing.
I am hatching BBS now and will be enriching them so I can try feeding the first BBS tomorrow -day 3.

Fingers crossed that I will still have any in the tank tomorrow morning that can eat the BBS!

[BSJF]

Yeah. Hope they make it to see the new year!

[Europhyllia]

Paul is pregnant again. Getting bigger every time!
The remaining 16 babies are still doing well.
First BBS meal tomorrow.

Next due date January 14-16th

[LuckySingh]

nice karin

[Europhyllia]

My babies woke up to a New Year. Still alive and neither floating nor laying on the bottom. Yay!

[LuckySingh]

hard work pays off karin.....gud job

[hobogato]

hooray! how about some update pics?

[Europhyllia]

I tried! But they are still so small. And the best pics show that I still need to clean the bottom this morning :o

[Kristy]

Oh wow, that's great news Karin! Good luck to you. And keep your head up!

[Europhyllia]

Thanks, here's a video of the cuties :)

http://youtu.be/mCAxHu3fxOE

[Europhyllia]

It's day 5 and according to the seahorse people day 5-7 is usually major die off day if the ponies haven't been eating. Which to be honest I really can't tell if they are. They look bigger than when they were born but could have just survived and grown on the reserves they were born with.
If they survive the next couple of days I can assume they are eating something.
A couple of them are now changing colors and getting lighter!

[allan]

They do look like sea horses!

Why don't you have a grass thing for them to hold onto? They look bored :)

[Europhyllia]

They do look bored! That's why I am wondering if they even eating... They grew a little but that could have been from reserves they were born with.

And they are pelagic fry and not hitching yet. But the grass thing is already in there for when/if they get to that stage ;)

(pelagic means they just swim around in the water column. Some types of seahorses with easier to raise fry have benthic fry which means they hitch from the start)

[allan]

:)

[BSJF]

Update please.

[Kristy]

Update please.
Yep, I was just thinking the same thing. How many adorable little ponies today?

[Europhyllia]

18 babies swimming and munching. Now I can finally actually see them snick food. I love it. :)

[Kristy]

WOO HOO!!! :)

[BSJF]

We love it too! I'm ready for another video already!

[Europhyllia]

ugh I just killed one of the biggest ones as part of a freak cleaning accident :*(

[BSJF]

been there, done that. sorry for your loss.

[Europhyllia]

There are now bigger size differences than before. I am wondering if the smaller ones still have a chance or if mentally I should already write them off...
I left the airline off last night and had 3 floaters this morning. Grr...
Down to 15 babies now but some of them are getting long and thick now. Very fun.
I am anxious to see how long I can keep them alive.
If they make it to Friday of next week they will be old enough to start hitching and get some rest. ;)

[BSJF]

It's still early enough I would hold off. I started seeing a big size difference on the clowns. I think some of them I think caught up, but others never did and needed to be culled.

[Europhyllia]

http://www.dominopads.com/firsthitch.jpg

I expected the first ones to start hitching Wednesday on their 2 week birthday but one of them got an early start. At first I thought he was stuck and tried to shake him loose but he held on for dear life with his tiny tail and wouldn't let go. :o

Ace drilled a 20H tank for me today.
I can no longer take up space in the playroom for this. It's going to take up more room than I had anticipated so the fry set up and the new grow out stuff will have to move into my office. I already took some furniture out today to make it work...

[hobogato]

congrats! your hard work is paying off :)

[Europhyllia]

Thanks! They are 13 days old today and I see more of them hitching now.
13539
I also spiffied up my phyto rack. I had an assortment of soda bottle and cones but found the cones were so much easier to clean I simply went all cones now
13540

[LuckySingh]

Nice quick setup Karin !!!gudjob


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[CoryDude]

Looks like a fancy bar setup at some exclusive club. Congratulations on the babies.

[Europhyllia]

Thanks, come by and have some ;)

The tank is almost a year old and I finally feel like I can post pics again without cringing.
The crabs got the hair algae on the rocks under control but the mangrove roots always had some left. Manuarl removal from there seemed to result in root damage.

So as a last resort I borrowed Sherita's peroxide treatment. And so far so good. The mangroves appear unaffected and the hair algae is gone...

http://www.dominopads.com/shtank011312.jpg

[hobogato]

so the peroxide didnt affect the macro-algae? i would like to do it on my tanks to get rid of the last bit of hair algae in them.

[hobogato]

oh, tank looks awesome too. that yellow macro is very cool

[Europhyllia]

clarification:
The only place I had hair algae left was the mangrove roots. The rocks and other algae didn't have any on it.
So I simply removed the mangroves and placed them in a bucket with peroxide solution, let the hair algae fall off and put the mangroves back into the display tank. I didn't pour peroxide into the display or anything

[hobogato]

oh, ok. i thought you tried the in tank method. regardless, the tank looks great!

[Europhyllia]

moved the babies to the grow out tank so I can put Paul back in the fry tank. Whew. what an ordeal.

http://www.dominopads.com/shfry1.jpg

http://www.dominopads.com/shfry2.jpg

http://www.dominopads.com/shfr3.jpg

http://www.dominopads.com/shfry4.jpg

http://www.dominopads.com/shfry5.jpg

http://www.dominopads.com/shfry6.jpg

[Kristy]

Ohmygosh!! Those are the cutest little things I've ever seen! Karin, you have SO much to be proud of!

[Europhyllia]

Thanks. :) They are quite miraculous. When you stare at them every day for a couple of weeks you don't realize how much they have grown until... now.
The new babies are being born right now and WOW -they are so TINY.

How could they have ever been so tiny. Smaller than mosquitos!

[BSJF]

I'll bet you don't get much of anything else done over the next few weeks. Stare, clean, feed, stare, clean, feed...

[Scutterborn]

I'm absolutely in awe of how dedicated and persistent you are!! Absolutely amazing!

[Europhyllia]

Thanks. For me it might be more of a case of 'in too deep to get back out' than true dedication. lol

I am feeling pretty fortunate though to glance over and see my tiny ponies hitched to the plastic plants. They are pretty adorable. If they actually survive I might at some point be overrun with Reidis!

[CoryDude]

I've got to say that this is one of the coolest things going on here. Thanks for letting us "ride" along (pun intended).

[Europhyllia]

Thanks. Official birthday of the new batch: January 17 at 7:54AM - I got to watch.
It was still dark so no pics of it but here's a picture and video of this morning after lights on. Don't know if it can convey the huge amount of fry...
http://www.dominopads.com/Jan17babies.jpg


http://youtu.be/q-bSjZ4z1UA

[alton]

Thats a bunch

[txg8gxp]

wow....that is awesome

[edshas2]

How many are still alive from your last batch?

[Europhyllia]

I think I have about a dozen that will be 3 weeks old tomorrow :)
(I know that sounds puny considering how big of a batch you start out with but I am actually pleasantly surprised they made it this far! lol)

[Kristy]

Holy cow Karin - that really IS a gazillion new babies!!! I'm overwhelmed for you!

[Europhyllia]

Thanks. I really am already getting dizzy when I think of how I am going to clean that tub twice a day without sucking up hundreds of fry each time.

And I need two more buckets of rotifers!

[BSJF]

Just beautiful

[edshas2]

Any updates on your seahorse raising?

[Europhyllia]

I am focusing on pod raising right now since with pelagic fry nutrition seems key and it's just to provide the same kind of nutrition with rotifers and BBS.

On a positive note: the seahorses are doing well and still breeding.
Also: with the tear down of the tank I was tempted to replace my DIY LED fixture with an AI module (more power and controller) but when I put it over the tank I realized how much I like the colors from my custom LED fixture. I had ordered warm whites from a supplier in Australia and it seemed a little nit picky at times. But in a side by side comparison I absolutely love the macro algae under the mix of warm, neutral and royal. No regrets. And so grateful to Stephen for making that fixture for me. I gladly sent the snazzier AI lights on to serve over another reef tank (I liked them over my reef tank but I really prefer the golden glow over my macro tank)

[Europhyllia]

at last... some progress on my pod cultures.
I've crashed so many Acartia cultures I don't even want to add up how much I spent on starter cultures. Acartia was supposed to be easier to breed and maintain than other copepods but that wasn't the case for me.

Many of the experienced breeders said that for pelagic fry pods would be almost a requirement for success (mine always did well until the hit the 4 week mark and then stopped growing)
So for the past weeks/months I haven't even tried to get the fry.
Instead I've been culturing Parvocalanus and am happy to say I got several culture vessels full of them now!

I'll try and get the parents back into breeding condition (really they breed no matter what but fry survival is best with parents that are getting a lot of live foods) and give the fry rearing another shot with pods in the near future :)

[hobogato]

that is great news! i look forward to baby seahorse pics :)

[SoLiD]

I wish there was some way I could collect and send you some grass shrimp. Now is the time that their populations are booming. I love adding pregnant grass and sargassum shrimp to my tank. They feed my tank baby shrimp often. I bet that would help with the nutrition of your Sea Horses.


at last... some progress on my pod cultures.
I've crashed so many Acartia cultures I don't even want to add up how much I spent on starter cultures. Acartia was supposed to be easier to breed and maintain than other copepods but that wasn't the case for me.

Many of the experienced breeders said that for pelagic fry pods would be almost a requirement for success (mine always did well until the hit the 4 week mark and then stopped growing)
So for the past weeks/months I haven't even tried to get the fry.
Instead I've been culturing Parvocalanus and am happy to say I got several culture vessels full of them now!

I'll try and get the parents back into breeding condition (really they breed no matter what but fry survival is best with parents that are getting a lot of live foods) and give the fry rearing another shot with pods in the near future :)

[Europhyllia]

Argh. I am coming down to Corpus tomorrow! But probably won't have enough time to catch grass shrimp. What a bummer.

[SoLiD]

I might be able to catch them and meet you somewhere to do a bucket transfer. What do you think? Text me if you'd like... 361-774-Seven 8 Six 5

[Europhyllia]

Thanks so much for the shrimp, David! My stupid Azoo Air Pump didn't come on but they still made it

[SoLiD]

No problem. I'm Glad they made it. You might have to take a video of them being hunted by some hungry Sea Horses. I bet that would look cool.

[Europhyllia]

I have here! you go ;):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyX5HxR6MvQ

[hobogato]

very cool! great music choice too :)

[SoLiD]

I liked the video too. :)

[Mr Cob]

as my son JoJo would say... awwwkum

[ErikH]

Karin, looks like you have been a busy bee. Great stuff!

[Europhyllia]

Well... ironically now that I finally am able to culture pods efficiently my second female unexpectedly passed away.
No signs of illness. Just recently I got grass shrimp from the coast and she was very agile and very interested in hunting her food.
So her passing was as unexpected as Poppy's earlier this year.
That leaves me with the male who seems happy and healthy and I am at this point not thinking of getting any more females.
My breeding efforts are coming to an end with this. But I'll still enjoy my seahorse boy in the cube by himself...

[CoryDude]

Ah that bites! How about getting another male and going Burt and Ernie style?

[Europhyllia]

the way I understand it is that other than breeding they don't really have too much interest in each other. So one by itself shouldn't be 'lonely'. As long as there's food coming he'll be happy enough I think :)

[Scutterborn]

I'm so sorry to hear about your female.


-Ben-

[Europhyllia]

The frag swap got me all excited about coral again but I really don't want to increase the lighting so I picked up this little cutie at Polly's this week:

17191
Orange and Yellow goes pretty nicely together, don't you think? ;)

[KING]

Nice..now i want one..lol

[CoryDude]

Nice find! I thought you were just to cut the cake!

[Europhyllia]

I got 3 hybrids! They look very much like Reidis to me. But with more ciri and stripes which obviously come from the Erectus side. The one in front is the prettiest but so hard to take pics of since the golden color is so reflective... http://www.dominopads.com/hybs.jpg

[CoryDude]

She's baaaack! Very nice!

[Paul28]

Very nice !!! one of these days I need to do a sea horse tank for my kids they love them so mutch

[leliataylor]

Glad to see your new seahorses, they are so pretty. They have the silver saddle markings of erectus which I have always loved.

[Europhyllia]

Thanks. :) The best part is that the older female and the little girls all seem to enjoy each other. :) Filtration has never been this hardcore. lol. I am running the 180g rated UV sterilizer on the 60g tank, the external Fluval, the sump with the oversized skimmer. I hope everybody stays as happy and healthy as they are now. The little hybrids scare me sometimes. What's up with the hanging upside down or even swimming upside down to get to food. Is it a juvenile thing? Or an Erectus thing? The Reidis always stayed upright.

[1seahorse]

Where has this thread been all my life? Lol. I love the dedication to your babies. Sounds like me with my ponies. Lol. I have CB Erectus. The newbies that you got, are they the ones offered on LiveAquaria? They are very nice!

[Europhyllia]

All of the seahorses I ever had have come from Seahorsesource.org. You just can't beat their service. Thanks!

[leliataylor]

Thanks. :) The little hybrids scare me sometimes. What's up with the hanging upside down or even swimming upside down to get to food. Is it a juvenile thing? Or an Erectus thing? The Reidis always stayed upright.

Yes and no. Young seahorses do some of the dumbest things. Just wait until you see one of them laying motionless on the bottom, snout under a piece of rock and barely breathing. Time to panic, not. If you watch them long enough you will see the seahorse finally make a quick snick and the amphipod is gone. Even funnier is watching a young seahorse target prey, sometimes they get to moving so fast (for a seahorse) that when they try to stop to snick the prey they end up doing cartwheels. Then there are the youngsters that swim has hard as they can into the flow, get blasted across the tank out of control and turn around and do it again.

[Europhyllia]

I wasn't going to admit it but I already panicked on day 3 thinking OMG she is DEAD! Dead! She was hanging upside down from some macro algea and even when I tried scoop her out carefully to remove her dead body it took her awhile to wake up. And then she was perfectly fine. It was like: hey, what are you waking me up for?

[leliataylor]

They will do that. Sometimes I will pull out a filter sleeve and have 3-4 youngster still hitching on it and I have to carefully remove them so I can clean it. I actually took a sleeve into the kitchen and got ready to rinse it, only to find one youngster still holding onto its hitch. They can be tenacious when they decide to hitch and will not let go if they are well fed. The best way to remove them is to gently touch the tip of their tail. Sometimes first thing in the morning, they will hang on so tight that I can begin to clean a tank that they will be out of the water and I have to gently remove them back into the water. Young seahorses are a whole different world. They remind me of starfish which will tenaciously cling to rock at low tide with only a leg still in the water. As the tide moves back in they release their hold and begin to feed. I have a young female that likes to hitch at the top of the tank, she will hang upside down with her head in the water when I cut the filter. Eventually, she will release her tail and swim down lower in the tank.

[Europhyllia]

oh good grief Cheryl I think you were right about the sex change. UGH. My favorite of the new hybrids -a golden cream colored one named 'Blanca' that has almost no Erectus marking no longer has that defined belly of a female and my old Reidi and the mysterious Blanca are doing the dance right now...

[1seahorse]

that's so cool! would love to see pics or a vid of that!

[Europhyllia]

I am so hoping it was just an off day for them and I don't really have a male. I don't really want babies again. On a more positive note I got gorgos today and the ponies love it! I missed having gorgos. I know the tank is a crammed mess but the ponies seem to love all their new hitching gorgos. 21529

[hobogato]

that looks great!

[leliataylor]

oh good grief Cheryl I think you were right about the sex change. UGH. My favorite of the new hybrids -a golden cream colored one named 'Blanca' that has almost no Erectus marking no longer has that defined belly of a female and my old Reidi and the mysterious Blanca are doing the dance right now...

Uh oh! Sometimes I hate being right. Look at the bright side, if BlancO develops a pouch the fry should be easier to raise than pure reidi. Once you are sure you have a male let Dan know, he will be very interested. Better yet, just tell him you will be shipping all the fry to him. LOL "Chaos Theory" My Birman kitten did the same thing, developed the cat version of a seahorse pouch.

Love your tank by the way.

[Europhyllia]

Well I am fairly certain it's a boy now. He can scrunch the pouch and you can see the opening. I can't send him back... my old Reidi girl is in love. He's only half her size but his presence has definitely perked her up. I am really glad I got the 3 hybrids. Everybody seem happy :)

[1seahorse]

I have here! you go ;):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyX5HxR6MvQ

Just gorgeous!

[Europhyllia]

still in love/lust/whatever. Don't you agree, Cheryl: this is not a girl (anymore) ... Blanco and the older Reidi female 21708

[leliataylor]

No Karin he is no longer a she. Blanco is definitely developing a pouch, not a very big one yet, but give him time. After all he just became a male. She is working on teaching him the right moves for a egg transfer and he has yet to figure how to really inflate his pouch. I guess he figured there was no future for his species if stayed female with 3 other females. LOL I just hope one of your other females doesn't decide to do the same thing. Dan describes young seahorses or first time pairs as "a couple of teenagers in the backseat of a Chevy, at a drive in movie". The pair of comes I put together yesterday still will not leave each other. At feeding time this morning she refused to leave the left side of the tank, however she did finally move about 4" away from him to feed. Seahorses are definitely not Salmon.

[Europhyllia]

TWO boys. I have two boys and two girls = 2 pairs -NOT 4 girls. These seahorses just do whatever they want to do! Boogers. I guess giving away the fry stuff is a little bit like giving away baby clothes...

[hobogato]

...I guess giving away the fry stuff is a little bit like giving away baby clothes...

not at all, i would love to try again in my classroom...

[Europhyllia]

okay. the little boys need to grow a bit. After that one pair will be 3/4 Reidi: 1/4 Erectus; the other pair is 50:50 hybrid.

[leliataylor]

Oh no! Karin I did set up your nursery tub, however it is plumbed into one of my existing filter systems so I haven't set up any of the plumbing or stand I received from you. I also bought 3 more tubs. You are welcome to come and get your stuff along with a new nursery tub if you decide to try raising fry again. I did manage to crack the drilled 20, my bad, so I can get you another and the other 20 has been sterilized.

You do realize none of this would have happened if you hadn't gotten rid of your fry stuff. The "Great Seahorse" was watching. LOL

P.S. Time to bring your pod production back on line.

[Europhyllia]

No worries. It's yours. :) If there is fry I will let Ace have a go at it. No telling what the protocol for the hybrid babies would be anyway (more like Reidi or more like Erectus, etc.)

[leliataylor]

They will probably be tiny like reidi and change gender like erectus. Murphy's Law.

Any word on how your new males are coming along.