Baby Seahorse and Bangaii Cardinal Pics

[buffalobunch]

Well, it's been quite a long process, but I finally figured out how to keep them babies alive
My seahorses started having babies in late August. Every 16 days he would give me 30 babies or so. At about 3-4 days they would almost all be gone and I would have 1 or 2 left. By day 5 none left. With a little help from Bajabum, lots of reading and some help from Andy at Pets Inc., I am finally successful. I have 3 that are 4 months old eating frozen mysis and in the big tank with mom and dad , 8-10 that are 1 month old, 20 or so that are 2weeks old and am due to have babies again on Saturday. I also have a breeding pair of bangaii cardinals in the reef tank. With a little help from my Dad the week before xmas , we were able to snag 7 babies out. I kept 5 and gave 2 to bajabum. I put them in the nursery with the seahorses to help with food consumption. Papa has babies in his mouth again, so hopefully I'll be able to get more babies out. Thought I'd share some pics.
Seahorse nursery:

Seahorses with bangaii's:

Bangaii babies:

1 of the 4 month old babies:

 

[FOSELONE]

thats awesome...

 

[gman107]

wow thats great!!! soon your going to have to get more tanks to keep everyone in. yay more tanks!!!

 

[buffalobunch]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11612024#post11612024 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by gman107
wow thats great!!! soon your going to have to get more tanks to keep everyone in. yay more tanks!!!

:lol: As a matter of fact I am going to pick up 2 more tanks from a friend!!! I called the LFS yesterday to ask if they bought anemones and he said the community college here in town has baby reidi's and wanted to know if I wanted to help raise them. I looked at my husband and said "where can I put another tank?" Looks like the girls need bunk beds he said so you can take over one of their rooms!!! :lol:

 

[buffalobunch]

Update on the babies
The Seahorse babies are from 3 different broods. Their ages are 10 weeks, 8 weeks and 6 weeks.
The bangaii cardinal babies are from 2 different broods. The first brood is 10 weeks old today and the second is 6 weeks old
They are all eating frozen cyclopeeze and shaved mysis plus bbs. This week I started skipping a feeding of bbs and only gave frozen cyclopeeze and shaved mysis. This really helped the seahorses accept the frozen mysis. They've accepted the cyclopeeze quite well but were unsure of the mysis. I have about 30 seahorses and about 30 bangaii babies. 5 of the 30 bangaiis are 10 weeks and the rest are 6 weeks. Here are some updated pics:
Seahorse Babies

Bangaii Babies

 

[krazeekiddie]

That is awesome!!! Congrats on lots of hard work! It is very rewarding as I am sure you know!!! =)

 

[gman107]

wow thats really neat thats alot of babies now what do you do with all of them?

 

[buffalobunch]

Thanks krazee and gman!!
Hopefully people in town will buy them. There has been a lot of interest for both in my local forum. So I am hoping to find them all homes once they are only eating frozen.

 

[clownFish1313]

good luck GO BUCKS do you live in ohio to? what lfs sold you the sea horses

 

[buffalobunch]

I live in Phoenix. A lfs in south phoenix sold them to me. They originally came from Draco Marine but that company has since went out of business. GO BUCKS!!!

 

[xUnicornx]

neat pics

 

[xUnicornx]

are they hard to raise

 

[buffalobunch]

It takes some work. They need fed about 5 times a day. Live brine shrimp, after the brine are 24 hrs old they need to be moved to a different tank to be enriched and a new batched started. Water changes everyday. Like krazeekiddie said though it is so rewarding. Especially when I come to the side of the tank. They all know I am the one with the food and they get so excited. It's quite fun to watch them grow. I have 3 kids that are 2,5 and 7 that have also had a great time watching them grow and change.

 

[Seanewb]

How long before they are ready for a big kids meal? hehe Do you run a filter or just an air stone to the tank?

 

[buffalobunch]

Just an airstone. They are starting to eat mysis and cyclopeeze. I am still giving bbs but am slowly weening them off.

 

[Seanewb]

That's awesome and they look great!!

 

[Lightsluvr]

Feeding seahorse babies

Feeding seahorse babies

Can you share what feeding regimen you follow for the new fry?

We have a new herd of seahorse babies (h. reidi) and we have started them on rotifers. So far they are doing well in their nursery tank. We have only lost one that we know of.

I have started a batch of bbs and will start introducing them... how soon?

How did you progress from bbs to cyclopeeze to mysis?

Thanks for your wisdom.

LL

 

[CCall]

H. Reidi have a different path to tank. If they are big enough to take BBS. Just start introducing a little BBS before the first feeding of the day. Feed both til you see them all eating the BBS. When they are eating BBS. then you culd introduce frozen cyclopeze before one of their feedings in the morning. Just be patient and watch. H.Erectus are much bigger than H. Reidi.

How old are your h.reidi babies?
A good place to go for a lot more reading and help is www.Seahorse.org. They have a great article in the rearing section on raising h.reidi.

 

[Lightsluvr]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12151630#post12151630 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by CCall
H. Reidi have a different path to tank. If they are big enough to take BBS. Just start introducing a little BBS before the first feeding of the day. Feed both til you see them all eating the BBS. When they are eating BBS. then you culd introduce frozen cyclopeze before one of their feedings in the morning. Just be patient and watch. H.Erectus are much bigger than H. Reidi.

How old are your h.reidi babies?
A good place to go for a lot more reading and help is www.Seahorse.org. They have a great article in the rearing section on raising h.reidi.

They are four days old. Still feeding rotifers, but introduced new hatch bbs today. Thanks for the tip on frozen cyclopeeze. That sounds like the introdcution to frozen food when they are larger.

Like everything in this hobby, patience is the key.

LL

 

[pinkpony]

you must be sooooo proud, well done you.

do you cull your babies? i am going to be setting up my seahorse tank in a month (after many months of reading) and on seahorse.org and other sites they say to cull the very small fry which are too small to take bbs so you have better sucess rates.

i dont want to/wont cull perfectly healthy animals, so i will be culturing photo and zoo plankton to sustain the smaller fry aswell as bbs

Also i have read you can over feed bbs to the effect that although the babies are surrounded by food, they can starve to death as they dont properly digest the bbs and pass them back out whole.

how many feeds do you do a day and at what rates?

i really want my babies to survive