My new horses :)

S

ssericz

Member
So im new to the horse world but just like anything gotta start somewhere...Can i get a postitive Id on them please. Im going to be keeping these 2 in my fuge on my 90g mixed reef. The tank is well established with plenty of pods but i will also feed gut loaded brine and anything else you guys suggest. I made the fuge with them in mind lots of hitching spots and im working on getting more macros for them
can you please give me advice, i really want to learn about these guys and hope to keep them around :) Please let me know if i should remove/add anything to their new home too... right now the only coral in there is a leather, there is a few different macros too including mangroves which they seem to like.
thanks,
Eric
 

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Impossible to tell with those photos, looking at just the markings I would lean towards h. comes. Seeing that your planing to feed them gut loaded brine they probably are WC and not captive bred? While its not impossible, I strongly recommend getting them from a CB trusted source. More than any other fish I have ever owned, WC seahorses are next to impossible to keep. Make the move and order Captive bred seahorses and you won't regret it.

However, give them all the dedication you have and you may be able to train them to frozen.
 
oh no they are cb, they eat mysis and other prepaired foods but i figured that gutloaded brine was better no? right now they readily take hikari mysis the tiny ones these guys are maybe 3" if that...
 
i fed them again today with the hikari mysis and they are pigs weird though they only eat what gets stuck to the rocks and macros around them they dont pick from the free floating in the water... any suggestions? but both ate around 25 mysis they look super fat and happy now lol
 
i remembered out of the blue while looking at them earlier they are h. kelloggi or the great sea horse... are they a good starter pony? sofar they have been really good eaters and i have added more hitching points for them. the only other tank mate is a harliquin shrimp until it gets picked up and i have encrusting gorgonian, kenya tree and leathers in with them, macros i have 3 mangroves, a huge ball of cheato filled with pods, and calupa are these other tank inhabitants sutible?
 
Some may say im wrong, but ive been told by my breeder that if they are frozen trained, feeding them live may make them picky and only want to eat live foods. Also, brine does not give them the proper nutrition that mysis does. Just an fyi! cute babies tho!
 
I think you will find that there are MANY keepers here that feed frozen foods on a regular basis, but still feed gut loaded live shrimp of various kinds once or twice a week, and have no problems with them continuing to eat frozen foods.
As for live brine shrimp nutrition it is not as good as live mysid nutrition but it still is a great source of protein on its own.
The main reason however for feeding live foods is to get specialized nutrient to the seahorses or their fry.
You can gut load live shrimp, brine or other, with fatty acids, protein, vitamins, or medications, in order to have the seahorses ingest these enrichments via the live food.
Frozen mysis cannot deliver such enrichment's efficiently as anything you soak it in is most likely to wash off in the water before being ingested.
 
ya i was wondering what to gut load them with? they seem to love the mysis but they truely are very slow feeders... i have done a lot of research on these guys in the past few days and they do look the most like the kelloggi and I'm 99% sure thats what i was told they were. They seem to pick at the rocks/ pod but they are really mellow like more than other ponys i have seen b4. also they stay hitched together what does that mean? are they mated/mating?
 
First of all, from the pictures, they look like H. comes, not kelloggi.
Unfortunately the stores selling them have no idea what they are getting and only pass on what they have been told which is incorrect. (many different reasons)
Hitching together is normal and not in itself a sign of mating.
Seahorsesource.com has excellent gut loading materials.
SEAHORSE SOURCE ENRICHMENTS
 
H. Comes? any additional info on them then rayjay? you seem to be "the guy" on the board i really appriciate your input :)
 
Well, I am not "the guy" on this forum, just a retired person who has more time on his hands than some of the more experienced seahorse hobbyists.
I have learned most of my information by some experience and by some learning from seahorse.org.
HERE are some pics from the "gallery".
 
ssericz said:
i fed them again today with the hikari mysis and they are pigs weird though they only eat what gets stuck to the rocks and macros around them they dont pick from the free floating in the water... any suggestions? but both ate around 25 mysis they look super fat and happy now lol
Click to expand...

In this case, you should make a little feeding dish. You're actually lucky that they're this way. My ponies only ever eat from the water column and that's a bad thing because the mysis that falls to the bottom is a pain to try and clean up in a tank as tall as a 25 hex. You can make a simple one just by using a seashell like this.
295692266.jpg

Or you can construct one out of acrylic... Just a thought :) Good luck.
 
Wow....I'm glad I checked this thread. Learned that my H. Kelloggii might actually be H. Comes. AND......love the feeding dish idea!
sserica - your ponies look exactly like mine. Mine was sold to me as H. Kelloggii. But I'm no expert. Never heard of H.Comes.....but mine resemble the pics Rayjay posted of them.
 
If you are unsure if they're h. comes or h. kelloggi, a quick way to tell is to look at the cheek and nose spines. H. comes will have double cheek spines and a well defined nose spine. Kelloggi will have a single cheek spine and no nose spine. These are not definitive and wouldn't work for comparing other species. but between those two it should work pretty well.

Based on the color, they do look like comes and there have been a lot floating around for the past month or so. Color isn't a really good way of identifying species, but comes have very distinctive tail rings making it somewhat easier than other seahorses. On the other hand, I just saw a photo of two kuda with the same tail pattern.

One word of warning though, they are a very touchy species. They're not captive bred, they're net pen raised; which means they're vulnerable to a whole host of illnesses. They don't have a particularly good track record in captivity so you really need to monitor closely. Ideally, you should quarantine them and deworm them.
 
gem said:
Wow....I'm glad I checked this thread. Learned that my H. Kelloggii might actually be H. Comes. AND......love the feeding dish idea!
sserica - your ponies look exactly like mine. Mine was sold to me as H. Kelloggii. But I'm no expert. Never heard of H.Comes.....but mine resemble the pics Rayjay posted of them.
Click to expand...


im a guy btw i got the horses b/c i like something that will challenge me, thats why i like sps
 
gem- its ok no issue

ok guys how often should i be feeding them b/c i have not seen them eat the past 2 time i have fed but they are prettymuch living in my cheato ball they look plump and healthy are they just eating pods? anyway to get them to eat?
 
Definately need to make sure they're actually eating. You may need to entice them with either live mysis or more readily available in most cases live brine shrimp. The movement stimulates them into eating. Also worth trying is soaking frozen food in garlic guard or similar.

I wouldn't rely on the fact they may or may not be eating pods. Ideally you want to feed at least twice a day, more if you can. They need to be actually taking food on board though as their digestive systems are very poor and they need regular and full feedings.
 
Greetings from Amsterdam,

99.9% of the time H. comes are net/cage/pen raised. Read up on the health issuses of this. Also cover up your powerhead with bridal veil of fine mesh. The powerhead can really do a number on them.

Lastly, I this you need to keep the growing tip of mangrove above the waterline.

Tim
 
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