Dead seahorses, everyone else was happy

[rayjay]

Remember also that while some have succeeded with clowns in seahorse tanks, the majority of those trying it have had problems.
The normal personality of most clowns makes them a poor risk, but like humans, some have a different temperament and work out.
It also depends somewhat on the temperament of the seahorses as some are more disturbed than others by clowns and others.

 

[WallysWorld]

Bonnie,

I am located in Port Jefferson station. The green sea turtle was caught on the south shore of Long Island in my seine net. He was immediately released unharmed. I see it as a good sign that populations may be doing better as I have never caught one before.

Good luck, If you need anything feel free to PM me. However the people on this forum know just about everything there is to know about seahorses. I am sure many here will help you in a second. I have personally met and spoke with Dan(seahorsesource.com) he knowledge of seahorses is second to none.

I am sure you will do well now that you have found this forum.

 

[mswoodward73]

Hi Bonnie; I will put my two cents in since I have been raising seahorses for some time.

1st the comment about clowns I disagree with. I have a mated pair of clowns that have been with my seahorses for over a year. They stay in one part of the tank near the leather coral they are hosting and NEVER bother the seahorses much less care about them being there. I have 2 breeding pairs. My tank also sports a file fish, a mandarine dragon, and a blenny. They all live together very happily with no problems. I also want to point out that I have several people that have enjoyed my seahorse babies in tanks with clown fish of their own.

As for the comment about food. The way that you avoid feeding issues is to set up feeding stations in the tank. This is important for two reasons. It allows the seahorse to graze and it helps with the nitrate issue that you will eventually have. Yes nitrates are an issue in seahorse tanks. My seahorses feed out of a small glass dish at the bottom of the tank as well as a sun coral(helps feed the sun coral as well). There are some that use cup corals as feeding stations as well. The other good thing about feeding stations is that the ponies learn to eat in a specific area which makes it easier for them to get the food they need. My seahorses tend to ignore the mysis shrimp in favor of their own feed. While they may nip at one or two they have very little interest in the mysis.

As for losing your ponies, I agree it was just to early for them to be in that tank. Seahorse are easily poisoned by ammonia or nitrites, also how did your acclimation go with your ponies. It is very very important that they are acclimated. Here is why. More than likely there were nitrates in the tank that they came from, most fish stores are not nearly as clean as they lead people to be. Taking your ponies from a nitrate level to 0 nitrates can put your ponies in shock and they can unfortunately die from that. Wherever you get your ponies from it is very important to properly acclimate them.

I would recommend staying away from the local fish store and see if he will refund your money. One place I highly recommend for seahorses is Ocean Rider Seahorses. They are very healthy and very beautiful specimens. Another great thing is that before they sell you a seahorse they send you a seahorse training program that will teach you everything you need to know and then some about your ponies. It is an invaluable program. And as an added bonus, any ponies your purchase from them will help to conserve sea horses in the wild, so it is a win win situation!.

I wish you luck with your ponies and want to recommend that you make sure your tank is fully cycled before bringing home any more ponies If you have any other questions please let me know and I will be happy to help.

 

[kudagirl]

Hi Bonnie; I will put my two cents in since I have been raising seahorses for some time.

1st the comment about clowns I disagree with. I have a mated pair of clowns that have been with my seahorses for over a year. They stay in one part of the tank near the leather coral they are hosting and NEVER bother the seahorses much less care about them being there. I have 2 breeding pairs. My tank also sports a file fish, a mandarine dragon, and a blenny. They all live together very happily with no problems. I also want to point out that I have several people that have enjoyed my seahorse babies in tanks with clown fish of their own.

As for the comment about food. The way that you avoid feeding issues is to set up feeding stations in the tank. This is important for two reasons. It allows the seahorse to graze and it helps with the nitrate issue that you will eventually have. Yes nitrates are an issue in seahorse tanks. My seahorses feed out of a small glass dish at the bottom of the tank as well as a sun coral(helps feed the sun coral as well). There are some that use cup corals as feeding stations as well. The other good thing about feeding stations is that the ponies learn to eat in a specific area which makes it easier for them to get the food they need. My seahorses tend to ignore the mysis shrimp in favor of their own feed. While they may nip at one or two they have very little interest in the mysis.

As for losing your ponies, I agree it was just to early for them to be in that tank. Seahorse are easily poisoned by ammonia or nitrites, also how did your acclimation go with your ponies. It is very very important that they are acclimated. Here is why. More than likely there were nitrates in the tank that they came from, most fish stores are not nearly as clean as they lead people to be. Taking your ponies from a nitrate level to 0 nitrates can put your ponies in shock and they can unfortunately die from that. Wherever you get your ponies from it is very important to properly acclimate them.

I would recommend staying away from the local fish store and see if he will refund your money. One place I highly recommend for seahorses is Ocean Rider Seahorses. They are very healthy and very beautiful specimens. Another great thing is that before they sell you a seahorse they send you a seahorse training program that will teach you everything you need to know and then some about your ponies. It is an invaluable program. And as an added bonus, any ponies your purchase from them will help to conserve sea horses in the wild, so it is a win win situation!.

I wish you luck with your ponies and want to recommend that you make sure your tank is fully cycled before bringing home any more ponies If you have any other questions please let me know and I will be happy to help.

Hi Ms Woodard,
What do you feed your seahorses on if you use mysis??,mine are fed on mysis and bbs enriched with Dans feed and some krill.

Would just like to know as i may give it to mine just so they can have a change.

 

[rayjay]

Enriched bbs don't do much for adult seahorses. Even juveniles usually stop eating them.
Even if they are eating them, it would take an inordinate amount to be of any value.
Much better to grow out the brine to adult, or buy live adults and then enrich them with Dan's Feed.

 

[mswoodward73]

Hi Ms Woodard,
What do you feed your seahorses on if you use mysis??,mine are fed on mysis and bbs enriched with Dans feed and some krill.

Would just like to know as i may give it to mine just so they can have a change.

Hi Kudagirl; I feed my ponies mysis enriched with vibrance II. It is a supplement that comes from Ocean Rider Seahorses. They describe it like this "This NO fat formula is rich in pure, fresh Astaxanthin, and Water Soulable Vitamin C". Then as a treat 3 times a month I dump in a batch of live red shrimp in the tank for a treat. The ponies just love it and it gets them hunting and makes things less boring for them. I also maintain a large group of amphipods that the ponies like to snack on.

 

[pledosophy]

Bonnie,

IMO I would wait to add stock to the tank until you can feed the tank the amount of food you intend to feed the new stock, wait 12 hours, and get a zero reading of ammonia. If you can do this consistently for a few days your tank is ready for the bioload those fish will bring.

IME Clownfish and seahorses do not make good long term tankmates. It does vary a bit on the species of clown, some are less likely to cause problems then others, but IME no clown is a safe. You might have seen this already, but IMO this is a good link to seahorse tankmates. At the time it was considered very liberal but it has stood up over the last several years and people report success with it. The main complaint is the rating given the gorgonia's, but as I put it, successful keeping means good for both animals.

http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/tankmates/tankmates.shtml

I would also IMO add that a lower tank temperature will help with long term success, as will a diet of steady frozen foods.

Cheers

 

[pledosophy]

Hi Kudagirl; I feed my ponies mysis enriched with vibrance II. It is a supplement that comes from Ocean Rider Seahorses. They describe it like this "This NO fat formula is rich in pure, fresh Astaxanthin, and Water Soulable Vitamin C". Then as a treat 3 times a month I dump in a batch of live red shrimp in the tank for a treat. The ponies just love it and it gets them hunting and makes things less boring for them. I also maintain a large group of amphipods that the ponies like to snack on.

Not to hijack but, how do you like Vibrance. It is a funny thing that enrichment. It is a powder that somehow sticks to the mysis as it thaws . . . or does it just become a big cloud of waste for the skimmer to take out later . . . jury is still out, but common sense can answer that one. My filter feeding corals did react when using it, and I do like that they began to use Beta Glucan in the mix, which I think is valuable. As to the fresh pure astaxin, the stuff appears to be freeze dried and powder form. . . . so no counting for the freshness, and so pure as it is mixed with there other ingredients. Seems to me I can make the same thing for far less money, if I were to believe that somehow the frozen mysis thawing in water would actually absorb any of the food for it to even make it into the seahorses. I guess if you were feeding it out to some live mysis or something then that might get the product in there, but at that point, you can feed them any of the flake foods and produce the same ingredients for far less money IME.

Personally as someone who has been keeping seahorses for just over 13 years now I would be concerned if my horses were not reacting to mysis as a food source. That sounds fairly worrisome to me. If they are CB, and are not trained to eat mysis most reputable breeders would not even sell them to the public. If you need help on the conversion maybe start a new thread.

It is inspiring to find a happy Ocean Rider customer, I think your the first I have ever met. Glad some people are having good experiences with them, I knew there had to be someone since they are still open, but it's like a unicorn, something you have heard about but never witnessed.

If you do a search on this site or many others for Ocean Rider you will see how rare you are. I am glad you have had a good experience with them.

Hope your enjoying that Hawaiian sunshine, we could use some of it up here.

Cheers

 

[TamiW]

I've been hearing good reports about ocean rider for the 2 or so years (compared to poor reports for the past 10+ years.) I suspect that since they switched their primary business model to tourism, they're not as hard pressed to oversell. At least that has been my take on the matter. I think they sell far fewer than they used to as well as it's not their main source of income. That being said, they're still way overpriced.

 

[pledosophy]

That is good to hear.

 

[Bonnie LI NY]

Hey everybody!
Wow so much information to absorb and retain.
Tim from Amsterdam, PS my husband is Dutch! Thank you,
I went to the Seahorsesourse site, they are beautiful, and there are so many to choose from. And I am going to get only ONE pair!
i have decided that I am going to wait at least another 7-8 months before I try again. we are in the Hair algae stage now. I am also getting a ton of brown algae.
I love the idea of gut loading. I have done that with any/all reptiles of anphibians I have kept, and they live well past life normal expectancy. Is there any type of pony that is sturdier than the others?


As far as a wish list, i would love to keep friendly corals, soft corals and polyups Ii think the xenia (his name is "hands") we have is beautiful, and i also bought another polyupy thing, we call him "legs".
Last nite we bought a big (20lb) piece
Of Fiji rock to serve as a background. and a place to house the little polyups and worms.

Oh! I almost forgot my favorite little maniac in the world!!! We got a orange spotted goby! I was told he was peaceful. I am so in love w him.
He trashed the entire tank! He was partying
Ike a rockstar! (the fact that he seems happy and isn't dead is the part I love best!)
We gave him shells and stuff to make his "den" with and he went to town.
What a personality on him.

I dont remember who asked @ the refund and the LFS. He gave me a full cash refund for all of my seahorses. He is such a good guy. I have been dealing w him for 35yrs. I truly believe he would never deliberatly screw me.
Can anyone tell me which forum would be proper to ask fanworm questions??
Thank you all for you advice. I will keep plugging along, and one day I hope to get it right.
Best regards, Bonnie

 

[Bonnie LI NY]

Hi guys, I figured I may as well annoy my seahorse friends w this as well as the other forum!!l Lol. And as always thanks for your time and wisdom.
This is just copied and pasted from what I wrote to the general forum.


Hello everybody,
I normally post in the Seahorse section, but this question is @ one of my other critters.
I got 3 fan worms, the first one dropped his crown and ran away from home. We found the dead worm@ one week later
The seconed was a beautiful orange in the LFS, he was never to be seen again. He never opened up, we never saw a worm, just vaporized. I have no predators so he wasn't someones lunch.
The third one was much bigger than the other two. It was this magnificent maroon color with big swirly fans. He/she? It? Lol dropped all of it's crown within 24 hours but the worm is still alive.
I have read @ them building a new tube that starts clear and hardens in a day or so. They also say that they are a good simple easy starter critter.
NOW WHAT AM I DOING WRONG???? I killed the ponies, and I guess you can add worm murderer to my list of accomplishments. As always any and all comments suggestions are greatly appreciated. Best Regards, Bonnie

PS Vinny the board will not let me answer you PM until I have 10 posts! I wrote you, but it got kicked back to me. I am not ignoring you! Thank you for writing.

 

[pjb9166]

I've been hearing good reports about ocean rider for the 2 or so years (compared to poor reports for the past 10+ years.) I suspect that since they switched their primary business model to tourism, they're not as hard pressed to oversell. At least that has been my take on the matter. I think they sell far fewer than they used to as well as it's not their main source of income. That being said, they're still way overpriced.

I agree. I purchased two pair of sunburst. They are way over priced. Needless to say I wound up loosing all 4. It was heartache after heartache. They also are not true tank raised ponies.
Check out seahorse http://seahorsesource.com/
You will be much happier.

Paul