Baby seahorses

gflat65

gflat65

New member
Trying once again... Transferred 168 babies into the kreisel this morning. Already have a few hitchers. Need to get some Dan's artemia enrichment to see how much that helps keeping these guys alive.



This was the best close up I could get. If they aren't hitched, it's hard to get a macro.
baby-h-erectus-hitched.jpg


baby-h-erectus-hitched-cu.jpg
 
Just ordered a bunch of stuff from seahorsesource, so hopefully I'll at least have some of the tools others that are reporting success are using. These are much more active than any of the other broods. Dropped in some frozen BBS and they went nuts (at 12 hours old). I'll have some freshly hatched for them tomorrow morning and some enrichment (and nanno and roti's) on their way Thursday. They've been consistent at 15 day intervals, and the other female has been more social lately, so hopefully, I'll start getting two batches every two weeks soon:). Sounds like a lot of people are having success with these guys, so hopefully I don't ruin the curve.
 
Didn't realize how cute they are, it looks like a baby dragon I imagine would look. Good luck and let us know how you do with this brood.
Sandy Lynn
 
:).

The kreisel started life as an ASM G5. The one I ahd had been broken a few times and epoxied back together, so I figured it would make a great project tube. Cut it into two 9" sections (can make one more for a spare), then outlined it on some acrylic sheet and cut it out on a scroll. I cut the skimmer body up on a band saw at work (nice clean edges when I was finished). A little heat/flame to clean up the edges and some silicone and viola. Drilled the holes in the acrylic for 1/2" PVC to hang it over the tank. Dremeled out a few openings for water flow and used the piece cut off of the length of the tube (where I now gain access to the fry) as a door to mount the pantyhose screen over the Dremeled holes. An aqualifter pump pulls water in from the overflow of the parents tank and an airline gives me the motion. So far, they are all still swimming around. I've not had a brood yet where I didn't lose the majority of them in the first day (due to some hair brained idea of my own creation on filtration ideas). I'm a lot more optimistic of this attempt.
 
Cool! What type of seahorse are they? I raised several erectus to several months old once and then the filter I had on their tank decided to lock up and they all died before I noticed. I started them out in the old fishbowl inside the 10 gal tank kreisel. Worked very well. I found the best food was copepods. I raised some in a 10 gal. tank feeding them microalgae and a little flake food every once and a while. I might be interested in some if you have good luck with them.
 
My wife is having a fit for me to set up a seahorse tank but I am afraid I would kill them and I don't want to do that. Looks great, Good Luck!!!!
 
These are erectus. Still looking pretty good, so far (only 14 hours into day 2-the pessimist feels the tingle of optimism?). Lots of pink bellies. I'm using baby brine right now. I will start enriching them with Dan's artemia enrichment when it gets here to give them a little more nutrition. I've got the kreisel in the main system (~800 gallons), so I shouldn't have to worry too much about water quality (though, I think it's probably best to have babies in cleaner conditions than the system). When I get a nanno culture, I may try some fry in some of that, in addition to the kreisel.

There of the four I have (and likely the fourth) are ORA, so they are pretty easy. The killer is the amount I feed (and the breeding male is looking thin) and the effect on water quality. I've got a large system, so as long as I do regular maintenance, it isn't too bad, but on a smaller system, it'd be difficult. I haven't had them during a summer season yet, so we'll see how it all goes when the temp starts getting over 78. Part of my push for LED's;).
 
The ones I had were from a lady in California who bred them. She was on Syngnathid.org when it was still up. They were huge and the best colors I had seen. The male was actually green. They did great when I had temps down in the low 70s. If I did it again I would have them in a tank started with base rock. The male died when he tried to eat a bristle worm and it got stuck in his snout. I found him laying on the bottom very stressed and figured it was a water quality issue and started franticly testing everything. Then I saw the tip of the worm poke out. Tried everything to get it out but it was a lost cause. I have heard of others having that happen as well a few times. I made a little feeder out of a plastic container with about a 1" tube that went down to it suction cupped to the side of the tank. I could drop mysis down the tube and they would all come and eat out of it and it wouldn't make a big mess. When I just dumped mysis in the tank there was always a lot that didn't get eaten and would make a big mess.
 
Update on the fry. We are cleaning the kreisel now, so we'll get a new count when we transfer back. Had a mishap (kreisel fell into tank, but I think I got most of them back in it). I've got several that are not looking well and hanging out on the bottom (as many as 20?). Most are still up and eating or hitching. Time for more food.
 
Cool:).

Well, it's been a rocky road... We've got at least 20 remaining, but had a lot of them develop swim bladder issues (and others just didn't seem to be eating). Those that are eating seem to be little pigs. I just got some Dan's enrichment, so I'm going to work on that tonight. Got a rotifer and nanno culture, so this weekend, I need to get a set up to get that going. Had a full day of OT sprung on me late this afternoon (I don't get paid for OT...), so I'm not sure how much I'm going to actually get done this weekend...

Does anyone have any 2.5-10 gallon tanks just laying around collecting dust? Those will make perfect roti and phyto tanks (5 gal would be best, I think). I'll eventually need 5 or 6, I think.
 
I've got an acrylic 15g you can borrow for as long as you need if you are going to be up towards Huntsville.

For rotifers, I actually preferred kitty litter buckets. They're square... so take up less floor space. 5g buckets also work great. Either way, the handles make it easier to dump the top half in a new bucket for cleaning.

(And I have lots of empty kitty littler buckets.)
 
Ahhh. Now that's good use of repurposing... We have lots of kittie litter buckets, too, so I'll give that a shot. Makes it easy to move things around, too.
 
In addition to the kittie litter buckets, you might try a sponge filter with large pores.

I recall a clownfish breeder, Kathy's Clowns (http://kathysclowns.com/default.aspx), is using a large pore sponge filter in the bucket with rotifers with a great success - no more crashes.

If you have a sponge with very large pores, you should give it a try. Just stick a rigid air line into it. You may need to glue the sponge to something heavy to sink it, though.

While I have no problem growing rotifers in 1 gallon jars using live phyto, I recall that she was raising a massive number of rotifers with the cleopaste of nannochloropsis (maybe in addition to live phyto) and having crashes periodically before trying the sponge filter.
 
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