92 gallon future seahorse tank progress

eating a lot better today I think it was all the pods. I also learned that if I put a few mysis in and let those get their attention and then add more they seem to do a better job. It seems to take them a bit but once they start they're eating better.

I also noticed their color is changing to a darker grey. I am kind of bummed about that I was hoping they would keep their nice yellow color.
 
Did you end up buying from seahorse source...

Dan is great and they're horses are top notch. I was doing a breeding project for school a few years back and he helped supply some ponies :) can't wait to get some more from them soon.
 
yes I did, and I agree. communication with Dan and Abbie is very good. The seahorses are doing fine. I will get some new photos up maybe this weekend. Everyday it is a hunt through the tank to account for all 6 seahorses, there is so much macro in there they can be hard to spot. But so far so good. The new system of adding just a few mysis until I have their attention and then adding more is really working well for me.
 
I don't know if this is a good thing or not but it worked really well with the Kuda and Erectus my old boss owned and I took care of and I used to breed. I got them trained really well to frozen food by just dropping a frozen mysid cube into the tank and letting it float and melt in the tank. As it slowly melted the shrimp would start to fall off 1 at a time. Within a couple weeks as soon as they saw the cube go in all 8 of them would follow the cube around and fight over the shrimp as they came off, grabbing onto each other in an attempt to be the closest one. 1 of the male erectus even decided he didn't like waiting and he would eat the shrimp right off the cube as soon as they started to come loose, he was a pig tho.... Lol Never seemed to bother them and it made feeding them a lot easier than having to target feed every one. They started breeding and for a couple months I was getting sea ponies every couple weeks from both breeds so it must not have bothered them to much that dinner was cold ;)
 
Personally, I don't want the fluids from the cube to get into my tank as it provides even more nutrients for the nuisance algae and nasty bacteria.
I rinse all foods before adding to the tank.
 
I used to also throw frozen mysis cubes into my mixed reef. The convenience of it outweighed the possibility of extra nutrients that may or may not come in the frozen water.

Didnt have any algae problems. Skimmer and cheato took care of that.
 
Well feeding the seahorses has been a scary thing to say the least. first they did not want to eat because they were more interested in eating the pods in the tank than the food I was adding. And now just making sure I get enough in there that they'll all eat. I did some google searching on feeder stations. I came across this

ATB-Seahorse-Feeder.jpg


But no amount of searching actually shows where you could buy one :( It looks like a great idea it just does not seem as though it ever made it to the market. so I drew this up:



Here is how it actually came out. The glue is still drying we'll see how it works this weekend and how long it takes to train them to use it. The idea is I will use the tube to get the food in the feeder hopefully the clear tube they will see the mysis dropping down and figure out it is time to eat. once the food is in place I can take the tube back out.





 
I made it from a clear PVC pipe fitting. the posts are acrylic rods glued together with weldon 16 acrylic glue. the tray is just a cheap plastic dish I found. and I then used the acrylic glue to glue the posts to the tray. Several layers of it .
 
Seahorses are so smart lol. I had to give it a go and the glass tube works awesome. I only got two of them to use it tonight but I think with a little refinement to my feeding routine I can get more to start using it.







 
Great job with the feeding station. It doesn't take them long to get accustomed and trained to the dish. I have found over time, that they don't need anything to hitch to when eating from the dish. They have a tendency to just get into the dish. Not very nautical, reefish or fancy but a cereal bowl works great too.

Dan
 
DanU said:
Great job with the feeding station. It doesn't take them long to get accustomed and trained to the dish. I have found over time, that they don't need anything to hitch to when eating from the dish. They have a tendency to just get into the dish. Not very nautical, reefish or fancy but a cereal bowl works great too.

Dan
Click to expand...

Dan you're right I went overboard with the station. After a couple days with the feeder. The glass tube worked a little too good. the seahorses see the food but they cannot figure out that it is in a tube and they can't get to it, until it is in the dish so they try to nab the mysis on the way down only to smack their faces into the tube. The tube is no more. The tube attachment at the bottom was removed since it really is not needed if there is no tube.

So basically my feeder station is a bowl with hitching posts that the seahorses do use sometimes or they just go inside the dish and eat. So far I have had as many as four horses in it so I have some work to do in getting them all trained. But this contraption is not needed a regular bowl would have worked just as well.

I now guide (round the horses up) with a pipette and squirt the food into the dish.
 
So the modified bowl is working pretty well, I emailed Dan about the extra food left behind. So I will be using a turkey baster to clean that out. I have had as many as 5 in the dish at a time sometime just 4 so I have to target feed the stragglers. One likes to hang in the back, I can't get him over to the dish. I think he thinks the pod hunting is better where he's at and is not interested in my attempts to round him up with the others.

I saw one eating a string of Cerith snail eggs I was worried about that. Dan tells me it should be OK, so if he likes them I guess it's OK. I think he may have mistaken it for a piece of mysis.

I saw two doing the mating dance, it pretty cool looking, although I am nowhere near setup for fry so I am not sure what I will do about that if they actually mate.

I will get some new picture up this weekend, they're looking pretty fat. One is real dark so I am bummed they went grey instead of staying yellow. I am guessing they feel they blend into the environment better this way. Anyhow so far so good :)
 
The horses are starting to hang out at the feeding station when they're hungry.

These were waiting as I was mixing food.

The dark horse (there are actually 3 horses in this picture).





I did not stop to take pictures after I started to feed but these two joined them pretty fast and I had 5 in the station. I still need to target feed the guy in the back. Once he joined the other 5 but it has only been that one time.
 
Great that you've got em trained for a feeding dish. I get mixed results by just squirting mysis on my gorgonians, which hold them in place for a little while until the seahorses find them.

Can't help but be reminded of my childhood when everyone's houses had ashtrays that looked alot like your dish. (No offense to your handiwork, mind you.)

Nice looking seahorses. Are hybrids inter-breedable?
 
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