4 week anniversary - H. erectus fry

[andythorntonjr]

My very first batch (for both me and the proud daddy seahorse) just hit the 4 week old mark. One milestone down! Out of an initial batch of around 50, I have about 17 left. Not TOO bad for so many firsts involved (I hope?!). The babies are eating very well on (initially) fresh hatched brine shrimp and now a mix of enriched (phyto & vitachem alternatively) brine shrimp and frozen cyclops. From what I understand, soon I'll be upgrading them to more enriched BBS, continuing frozen cyclops and even trying (soonish?) to begin shaved frozen mysis. Gonna have to experiment with that this weekend since I use the cube mysis for the parents, but, we'll see how it goes. (Tips welcome there, hehe). So, without further delay, picture time!









And of course a picture of two of the adults in the main tank (the two females). The black one hiding in the gorgonian is the mother of the fry this time.

 

[Peka]

good job...

 

[craigshup]

Congrats, you are doing a lot better then my attempts!

Tell us how you have it set up if you don't mind.
I am jealous of the adults, that is some of the best looking I have seen
Where did ya get them?

 

[andythorntonjr]

Got the adults from Seahorsesource.com and couldn't be happier. First seahorses I've owned, though have wanted them since I got into the hobby about ten years ago with my first saltwater tank. Right now the adults are in a 50 gallon display (20 gallon sump) with some soft coral and the gorgonians (just added those recently). Lots of macro in the display and in the sump (HOB Remora skimmer + BRS reactor running GFO/Carbon). ATO going into the sump with a drop-in model 1/4 HP chiller keeping the tank at 72-73F.

As for the babies, right now they're in the QT I had originally (12 gallon JBJ cube) also with a chiller (72-73F). Initially they were just in there and I had a sponge filter on the overflow part, but even without the pumps running the flow rate (for the chiller pump back in the chambers) was so strong I lost about 15-20 babies on day 1-2 out of around 50. I added more filtering and shifted things then to decrease the flow rate and managed to save about 20-30 of them early on. Lost some (the runts/etc) feeding only fresh hatched BBS for the first few weeks. Moved on to enriched (overnight in the fridge) BBS using Vitachem & now Phyto, also adding a little frozen Cyclops now and then which at least a few are eating. About a week ago I finally built a kreisel tank out of a plastic 2.5 gallon bowl which is what they're in now. Easier to keep track of them in there, plus I can remove the excessive filtering on the cube's overflow now and restart the main pump for circulation. That's helped a lot getting things turned over in there.

Have a second bowl I think I'm going to do the same to and try to fit them both in there for 'future' batches. I also have a 20 gallon Petco tank in the basement I might have to break out to use for a grow-out tank at some point, once I find some room in the house for it. XD I'm surprised I managed to get this many as far as I have considering its my first fry ever as well as some of the mistakes I made early on.

 

[Peka]

With the next batch, start feeding them 1 to 3 day old enriched brine. The horses will be able to eat that size brine and you will start giving them really good nutrition from day one.

 

[andythorntonjr]

Sounds good. I'll definitely try that! Hopefully that'll help out some of the "runts" more too. Right now I have about 90% of those left growing pretty good with just a few 'runty' ones. They've made it this far, so they've been eating at least up til this point.

 

[reefstew]

For a first timer you are doing really good.

 

[craigshup]

Thanks for all the info, keep us updated please.
I don't think I have ever seen a kreisel tank before!
Where can I find pics. of that kind of tank?

 

[andythorntonjr]

Best DIY I found for the tank would be:
http://www.ventralfins.com/diy_kreisel.html

I used that as a base template and modified it to make something to fit in my 12 gallon nanocube: I got two 2.5gal plastic fishbowls. I cut the back out of that for siliconing in the mesh screen and put in an air wand (the flexible types) in a U shape for the cycling effect. Total cost of the whole thing was probably around $20 (air wand + tank + mesh). As long as you have an air pump already that's it.