My new dwarfs!

[Pea-brain]

I has dwarfs!

These guys are pretty tiny, so they are very hard to catch with a camera. I got them yesterday and they are happy snickin at the baby brine. Out of 6 1 died in shipping. Which is pretty amazing considering there was a mixup with shipping and the box was in shipping for *2* days, with only a tiny heat pack. the water in the bag was really cold when I got it, but they survived just fine. At least 2 are males, and at least 1 is preggo Here are the best pics I got. The tank is a 2.5 lighted by a desk lamp. In all but the 1st one I had to take the light from another tank to get a good picture. The tank is panacure free so far. I'd like to try and keep it that way until I start to see hydroids.

Tank with normal lighting, before seahorses came.

one of the better pics:

What do ya think? Nice huh? (not the camera work though )

Dan

 

[aspinn]

very nice bud i love em! =) shame you lost one =( /sigh what can ya do? better to focus on the ones ya have =) what plant is that in therE? congratz!

 

[Pea-brain]

Yeah, it kinda sucks but I'm lucky to have the ones I got. The algae is caulerpa. I got it from a pet store in connecticut a while ago. I dunno if its common in canada but it's almost too easy to get it here (It can root to rocks and stuff so it can be a pain in the butt to get rid of if it gets in the display)

Dan

 

[angieg1123]

Too cute. Congrats. I love dwarfs. My daughter is getting some in March for her B-Day. I have 12 seahorse (erectus and reidi + fry and grow out) tanks.......guess I'm rubbing off on her, lol.

 

[Pea-brain]

Good news! ccritters.com is resending the dwarf that died (and the other things that didn't make the shipment) free of charge!

angieg1123- I can't immagine how I'm the only person in my school (that I know of) who has any fish tanks except badly taken care of FW tanks (Several people have fish tank that are something like: "well I got like 30 tetras and a pleco and an oscar for my 10 gallon and for some reason all the tetras started dissapearing and then the water got all cloudy and smelled bad and the rest of the fish died" :sigh: ).

I think its great your daughter is interested too. And she'll probably be responsible enough to take care of them if she has grown up around marine tanks. Good job

This hobby is definately addictive though. This is the first SW species tank I've planned thats come to fruit (besides my first tank-mantis shrimp). It proves that with about 6 months, some concentration, some luck and some money I can get around to it. Maybe some day I'll set up my planned cuttlefish tank....and my planned octo tank....and my planned frogfish tank...and my planned seahorse/pipefish tank (with bluestripes that have been rigorously qt'd)...I could keep going for a while so lets just leave it at that

Dan

 

[Reefmore]

Wow they are small...Is that normal or are they "frys" Im new to ponies so Im asking...

 

[sixfins]

Yeah, dwarfs are small, about 1" to 1 1/2" full grown. the fry can barely be seen and just look like a small piece of thread for the first few days or so. Nice looking tank, did you do anything to avoid getting Hydroids.

 

[Pea-brain]

No, and it looks like I'm starting to get some. I'm ordering some panacur to get rid of them but I'm worried what it'll do to my bristleworm population....

Dan

 

[angieg1123]

It will kill any kind of worm in the tank. Be prepared to get them out asap or they will foul your water. That is why we suggest panacur before adding the seahorses and before getting the tank set up. Most of us panacur the rock and stuff before we put it into the display tank so anything that dies is not in the seahorse tank. I use a spare 10g tank that has been treated with panacure. I add the rock, macros, and anything else to this tank for a week or so. Once all of the nasties are gone I move it to the display tank.

By doing it first you don't have to worry about the "dying" nasties in the display tank.

Angie

 

[Pea-brain]

I was worried about that. I guess I'll start removing bristleworms tomorrow. I should be able to get most out within a day or two. I'll also try to order the 10% panacur solution from seahorse source. Maybe a couple weeks after I'm done treating I'll add a small bristleworm and see how it fares....The only other inverts besides the hydroids are a few flatworms but i don't think they cause a big problem.

Dan

 

[sixfins]

The Panacur will wipe out the flatworms as well. Also, panacur leaves residuals on everything that gets treated for a couple of years. It would be a bad idea to try to reintroduce the bristleworms as they will probably die anyways. You may want to try a couple of Limpets, I've heard that they will eat hydroids (not sure if it's true, never tried myself) as an alternative to nuking the tank with panacur.

 

[Pea-brain]

Thanks, I'll look into it but I'll proably go with the panacur....more pics though!

Dan

 

[Egres]

i have a question what is a Hydroids and what does it do to be that bad with seahorse???

 

[Pea-brain]

They are kind of like colonial anenomes. They eat the brine shrimp and sting the seahorses, sometimes to death. They are only an issue with dwarves and baby seahorses.

Speaking of babies, my guy gave birth! They are soooo tiny. I might try to take picture, but I don't think I'll be able to! They look like a tiny, lumpy gangly string!

Dan

 

[airinhere]

That is awesome!

 

[Pea-brain]

You can see the baby dwarf in this pic. This is the absolutely best pic i could get. I have no idea how many babies i have. They are tiny and seem to want to move whenever I try to count them. Also, there is too much cover to get a truly accurate count till they get a bit bigger. You may notice I changed the caulerpa. The other form of caulerpa was too feathery and got too many brine shrimp stuck in it, which was causing the algae issues you see in the background. I've replaced it with a less feathery caulerpa.

I've also got a video for you (ignore the fact that my video taking skill are on par with a mentally challenged monkey on crack)

http://s91.photobucket.com/albums/k308/Pea-brain/?action=view&current=Dwarves.flv

Dan

 

[Egres]

do you have any pic of Hydroids sow i could see what it look like

 

[Pea-brain]

My camera isn't good enought to take a good picture. They look like little white stars that don't really move. I found this pic on wetwebmedia.

 

[Egres]

oh ok i have that in one of my tank ...there are only bad for the dwaft seahorse and nothing else right??

 

[Pea-brain]

For the most part yeah-they are only bad for dwarfs and babies of other species.

Dan