New dwarf seahorses!

[l Morphine]

Ordered 5 from Seahorse Source. I let them acclimate an let them out and they are outstanding! As soon as I let them out, 2 of them latched tails and later on one of them was like pulling the other off the hitch post(I'm assuming trying to mate). I have pics so I'll post them soon. I feed them newly hatched baby brine shrimp.

 

[mtc1966]

sweet what size tank you using? will be looking for pics

 

[l Morphine]

5G marineland hex. I have a feeling I'll have some babies very soon. Will post pics as soon as I get home from work. I also figured out a way to auto feed them . It's stupid but basically you take a airline hose and suck up baby brine and the plug one end into a airpump and plug it into a timer, when the timer goes off the air pushes the baby brine into the tank

 

[mtc1966]

as long as they stay alive in the tube. i wonder how small the baby's would be . forget the pics we need a video .

 

[l Morphine]

Haha Ill get both. The babys are so small. Maybe like a quarter of an inch

 

[rayjay]

Did you also get Dan's Feed to enrich the bbs with?
Also, if you are going to use an automatic feeder method then you should know that by the time the bbs are timer fed, they will have consumed much of the egg sack and therefore will be lacking in nutrition.
Most people find that the dwarf lifespan is increased by growing out the bbs for a day after hatching, and then doing two enrichment stages of 12 hours each with new water and new enrichment for each 12 hour stage.

 

[l Morphine]

I hatch them daily. Feeding twice a day

 

[rayjay]

Unfortunately, the bbs start to degrade their nutrition as soon as they are hatched. I believe that is why Dan U of seahorsesource.com developed the enrichment. There are a lot of ingredients to the product that cover a range of benefits.
DAN'S FEED

 

[l Morphine]

Hmmm. I wish i knew that before i ordered the seahorses lol Is there anyway products like that in Petco or something?

 

[rayjay]

No, that is the only place you can buy the best enrichment product.
The next best thing would probably be High DHA Selco, but most places don't carry that type of Selco and the other Selcos just don't have enough of the DHA to do the job, IMO.
Also, the Selcos don't have the probiotics and vitamins in it that Dans Feed has.
Some people think they are enriching their bbs with nannochloropsis but bbs don't digest this well and nanno is not a balanced nutrition anyway.
Also, it doesn't have the needed DHA properties so you would have to also use Isocrysis for proper nutrition. The Iso would have to be about 10 times or more than the volume of nanno due to the lower density of the culture.
It is not impossible to keep the dwarfs without enrichment, just that their already short lifespan will not be what it can with proper enrichment.

 

[l Morphine]

Ill look to see how much shipping is for dans feed. If its only like 5-10$ then thats fine but not another 40$ lol

 

[MonsterTankMan]

That's awesome..What are you using for filtration? I've always wanted to try seahorses.

 

[Bluemon]

i had the same exact set up a year ago. now theyre all dead

 

[rayjay]

Dan mailed me two packs here to Canada and the postage was under $1 but I don't remember exactly how much now.
For biological filtration I use live rock in the sumps of the seahorses tanks. By putting it in the sumps it makes for easier cleaning of the tanks and also makes it easier to see the seahorses who always seemed to be hiding in the rocks when I had the rock in the displays.
If you are interested in keeping seahorses, check out the links at the bottom of "My Thoughts on Seahorse Keeping" that have been written by experienced seahorse keepers and one by Dan Underwood of seahorsesource.com

 

[oflaherty21]

cant wait to see pictures of the seahorses, and congrats on the spawn

 

[l Morphine]

Just the stock on the 5g but it seems to powerful for them so im trying to find a way to slow it down.