2 questions?

[crazedpuffer]

Hi guys. Today I went to my LFS and they had a couple little seahorses. I picked up 3. Right now they are in my 5 gallon that is fully cycled since I was planning on using it for dwarves. I should have my 20 X-High complete in about 2 days (I'll cycle it with bio spira and old filter media) But my questions are..
What kind of seahorses are these?
How many tims a day should I feed them?(They are eating frozen mysis)
Thanks in advance.

 

[crazedpuffer]

Sorry theres kind of a lot of pics and some are bad quality but there the best I got.

 

[ann83]

Erectus. They are skinny, feed them 3 times a day for a while with frozen mysis, and then after a month or two, you can drop down to 2 times a day. Get them a 30 gallon or larger aquarium, the 20 will not be large enough for 3 erectus seahorses. 30 would be bare minimum, IMO you will still have water quality issues with that size, unless you have a sump and a good skimmer. Ask your LFS who they got the seahorses from. If they are wild caught or TR, you will want to put them in a bare bottom QT first and treat them for internal and external parasites before you move them to their new tank.
IMO, you can't cycle a tank in two days with bio-spira. All bio-spira does is seed your tank with nitrifying bacteria, you still have to feed them and let them reproduce to large enough numbers. You add the biospira, and then you feed the tank, and you gradually increase the feedings until you are feeding as much as you would for the erectus (approx. 1.5 cubes of mysis a day) and test the water to make sure that 4 hours after you feed, you have zero ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate.

 

[crazedpuffer]

I had a feeling they were erectus. What kind of medicine would you reccomend for IPs and EPs? I believe they were wild caught, since the guy said that would probablly be there last batch since they are seasonal. Also how many could go in a 30 gallon tank?

Thank you for your help

 

[ann83]

I would only recommend 2 in a 30, but I think you could squeeze in 3 with a large sump and a good skimmer. If you want more than 3, you are looking at about 40 gallons for 4 seahorses, 55 gallons minimum for 6.

For external parasites, I would do freshwater dips (pH & temp matched) once a week while in QT and/or formalin dips (in SW) with a vigorously bubbling airline. For internal parasites, I recommend praziquanital, fenbendizole, and metrodizanole. You will gutload these into live foods and feed them out over a six week period. This must be done in quarantine, because the meds can kill invertibrates and can be absorbed by live rock and leach out later to kill invertibrates long after the treatment. This forum http://forum.seahorse.org/index.php?showforum=32 is all about wild caught seahorses and has several threads about how to treat them. The pinned threads are all good reads.

 

[crazedpuffer]

Thanks for all your help ann. At what age are they old enough to mate?

 

[ann83]

looks like they're old enough now, because you have some males with pouches and they look to be decent sized. Do you have any females?

 

[crazedpuffer]

The guy said that they were 2 males and 1 female. 2 of them constantly are holding tails.

 

[ann83]

If you post a side-view pic of the female, we can tell you if she's a she or not. If there's a pouch then she's for sure not female, but if there's not a pouch then she could be female or she could be an immature male.

 

[crazedpuffer]

Sorry my comp was down for a few days. I'll try to upload pics later but 2 of them have been spawning for the past 2 days. Doubt any babys will come this time (there still in quratantine) Is the kreisler system ok for rearing erectus fry or should I do a bare bottom 5 gallon?

 

[crazedpuffer]

So I just moved them into the 29 gallon last night. All is good, but what should I keep the temp? Right now its 72 is that ok?

 

[ann83]

Yes, 72 is okay. Don't let the temp rise above 74.

 

[crazedpuffer]

Ok thanks for all your help.