Baby Weedies

[melsteve]

Few more

Few more

The oldest are now at 60 mm and eating full size Mysis (Photo with ruler is a week old)
We have 96of them at that stage quite a few others from 2 weeks to 2 days.
Also blurry photo of one of the adults we collected 3 males and one female and plan to set up a 2 metre plus deep by 2.5 metre round to see if this can help in the courtship and hopefully successful transfer of eggs but this wont be until later in the year.
Thanks for looking
Regards Steve

 

[bluekoi]

This is going to show my ignorance of the breeding aspect, but what does everyone mean by "close the cycle"?
thx!

 

[bluekoi]

Those little guys are terribly cute!

 

[JLynn]

This is going to show my ignorance of the breeding aspect, but what does everyone mean by "close the cycle"?
thx!

"Closing the cycle" refers to the life cycle - from birth to reproduction to death. In the case of captive breeding efforts, to "close the cycle" would be for a pair of fish in captivity to successfully spawn and for at least one of their offspring to be raised from egg-hood to juvenile-hood. I know that for seahorses and pipefish, survival at 60 days post-hatch is generally considered "a success"; I am not sure about sea dragons. Anyways, the point is for them to complete their life cycle in captivity, and the larval stages are the most difficult ones to see them through.

 

[Mo2]

"Closing the cycle" refers to the life cycle - from birth to reproduction to death. In the case of captive breeding efforts, to "close the cycle" would be for a pair of fish in captivity to successfully spawn and for at least one of their offspring to be raised from egg-hood to juvenile-hood. I know that for seahorses and pipefish, survival at 60 days post-hatch is generally considered "a success"; I am not sure about sea dragons. Anyways, the point is for them to complete their life cycle in captivity, and the larval stages are the most difficult ones to see them through.

I believe close the cycle actually means getting a pair of wild caught fish to breed and then raising the babies to adulthood and having their offspring breed.

 

[DanU]

60 days post hatch for seahorses is too short! I know it is accepted by many but still too short. They just aren't stable enough at this age! Should be 120 days post hatch or when they begin to reach sexual maturity. A large part of the problem with the retail market is that they are sold too early based on what is considered a success!

Dan

 

[melsteve]

Hi from the broods we had we will keep some and in time hope these will breed in captivity and also use the adults taken as brood stock for breeding program.

All animals are doing well and oldest are about 4 inch (10 cm) long

Regards Steve

 

[JLynn]

...getting a pair of wild caught fish to breed and then raising the babies to adulthood and having their offspring breed.

I don't think having their offspring breed is a necessary requirement; if a pair of fish of the species has already bred to produce the fry that were raised to adulthood, then the first pair counts as a sort of 'proof of concept.' At least, that is what I have gathered from the media's use of the term. For example, when Waikiki Aquarium succeeded in rearing the first generation of CB Hippocampus fisheri, that was considered "closing the cycle." But either way, the general idea remains the same.

60 days post hatch for seahorses is too short!... A large part of the problem with the retail market is that they are sold too early based on what is considered a success!

I was just going by MBI's definition. If what you say about that being the cause of too-young seahorses being in the retail market is true, that is very interesting. I wouldn't have thought that they would go by those definitions. I always figured it was a matter of wanting to turn over their metaphorical crop ASAP.

...we will keep some and in time hope these will breed in captivity... All animals are doing well and the oldest are about 4 inch (10 cm) long

Well, of course; raising the second generation should be a little easier, too, since you will know what to do.

I'm glad to hear that the fry remain in good shape! 10 cm is about a quarter of their adult length, isn't it? Clearly, you are making good progress here.

 

[melsteve]

Hi been a while an update most of them are creeping towards 15cm mark or 6 inch some bit more some less. Over all to date we have lost about 30 animals not due to disease when autopsy was carried out found animals may have been out competed for food so we divided them up more than what they were and it has dropped a lot may be get 1 death a week at the moment but still have over 200 animals with around 20 already on display in South Korea and Hong Kong. So over all I think we did ok as I am a one man band and also work fulltime as a fire fighter and I have one runt who we thought would die but he has proved us wrong he/she live by them self and gets food delivered live daily and his going along ok and he's one I will keep as have bit of history. Within a few months quite a few will be on display in US aquariums to.

Regards Steve

 

[melsteve]

Couple photos excuse dirty tank has been cleaned

Steve

 

[JLynn]

Wow - they are getting so big! Good job!

If there are ~200 left, how many were there to start with?

 

[Jasanden]

So awesome!

 

[reefwiser]

Great Job Hope this turns into an effort to have these available to hobbyist

 

[snorvich]

Great Job Hope this turns into an effort to have these available to hobbyist

The conditions to keep them would make that difficult; and the price would be "non-trivial". When I was photographing them, the temperature was 60 F; not many hobbyists can replicate that.

 

[ThRoewer]

Yep, they are cold water fish and should get large tanks. The Birch Aquarium in San Diego had some and also leafys and wanted to breed them but they all died from a disease. I felt their tank was way too small.
Not sure if they replaced them or moved on.

The first weedy I saw in person was at DeJong. But that one had the front of its snout broken off during shipping and handling and was a gonner.
At later times they had more but the prices were way out of my ballpark.

 

[melsteve]

Hi there is a lot of speculation about Sea Dragon's and tank size etc In the past I think a few that were available were WC how ever these ones seem to travel and generally do better. Food is maybe the hardest one and having excess to live mysis.
Scripps had them there last year when I visited.
Steve

 

[Jasanden]

I believe I read somewhere that a minimum 4 foot tall tank was required for Leafys.

 

[snorvich]

When we were photographing the sea dragons we had to keep a safety diver above them so they would not suffer decompression sickness. I would think that wild caught would be difficult to decompress properly.

 

[genetao]

Whoa this is just amazing! What would be awesome is if you and others were able to get enough of these animals to breed so that they're no longer a threatened species. Maybe so that it would no longer require a special permit to own one. But having an uber cold water large tank would require an over sized chiller all year long.

 

[melsteve]

Just a follow up from this last year we ended up getting 198 Dragons out to Public aquariums in Europe USA Asia and Middle East and here in Australia and 4 to one private collector in the US and he has done well.
Our success rate ran at about 84%

We kept a couple of females for ourselves and hope to breed in captivity this year with any luck.

We are hopeful of this and some other endeavours this year

Cheers Steve