NEW puddle ponies from Kailu-Kona, Hawaii. Pictures

[tmz]

Received these 4 beuaties( Hippocampus erectus) on Friday morning. They tolerated 50 hours in bag water for the trip without problems and are now in qt undergoing tank transfer. OceanRider Seahorse farms is the source. They do a nice job and require customers to complete a 10 lesson on line certification program before purchase: a thorough program with a lot of very good information.
Seahorses have lived in the puddle for about 5 years. I raised the initial pair from fry which came from Ocean Rider stock. There are now 3 young adults and with these four juveniles it will be 7
( 4 males and 3 females). I'm uspsizing the seahorse tank to 75 gallons from the current 35 and will add 1 more male.

Some pictures:

 

[tmz]

A few more pictures:

 

[Conesus_Kid]

Beautiful creatures, Tom! :thumbsup:

I wish I had the time/space/patience to care for some of these.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

I only know a little about Hippocampus.
H. erectus occurs in different colors, right?

 

[tmz]

Yes they do occur in different colors. They change colors frequently in response to mating , stress, illness and backround colors( camelion like). They are fascinating, social animals and display lot's of interactive behaviors that are fun to watch. The Ocean Rider stock is very colorful. The have a broad range from North America on down; not sure if their are Pacific species. They like it cool 75 degrees but up to 80 is ok; my puddle runs 77 to 78 with occasional peaks to 80 and they do fine.

 

[tmz]

Thanks Scott,

Those that are captive bred are easier than you might think. Mainly they need nice clean water,gentle flow, hitching posts, some depth at least 20 inches ,2x per day feeding heavy on the mysis,and no competition, ie. they are best kept in their own tank. Wild caught tend to have low survivablility.

 

[tmz]

Gary,

A little more on your question about color:

Each specimen has a range of pigmentation that can be surprisingly broad.

Seahorses have chromatopores, branched cells that hold pigments; they can move the pigments around in the chromatopores to change their color .

They generally darken when stressed ;perhaps, a response to help them hide. They also change color to blend into their environment or during mating rituals.

Sometimes they grow branchy looking skin appendages called cirri as additional camouflage,when in sea grass beds for example. They often loose them when the environment changes.

Cooler temps expand the chromatopores and leads to brighter colors.

Foods enhanced with cartenoids also allegedly enhance color. I do use bloodworm and cycloppeeze in my food mix.

Bright backrounds and structures brighten them as they try to blend in.Brightly colored artificial corals and plants are popular in seahorse tanks. I'm thinking about painting several pieces of luan plywood different colors to slide behind the back glass to observe some changes.

 

[NirvanaFan]

Tom, have you ever had them breed in your aquarium? Erectus are on my (long) list of marine species to try and breed.

 

[saltyscotsman]

Hi Tom I see you are adding more to your tank, how are the chains working out ???

 

[tmz]

The plastic chains work great . The seahorses love them for hitching up.

 

[tmz]

I have not bred them but did raise a bunch from fry on the fly about 4 and a half years ago. Some newly born fry were left at a local lfs in a 2 liter bottle. No one was up to raising them . So, I took them home since I felt badly for them and tried to learn what I could as I reared them. After several mistakes I got about a dozen of the original 25 or so out to 3 weeks and then there was a die off, probably due to an ammonia spike in the rearing tank or some damage during their earliest days. Saved 4 or 5 for another few weeks and ultimately only 2 survived but I had them for over 4 yrs; a male and a female.
They didn't breed though they danced together often and kept each other company. The male died a few months ago; the female darkened and hid a a lot immediately after the loss. I purchased 3( 2 males and 1 female). The original female perked up, colored up ate well swam regulary coiled her tail around some of the newcomers but sadly one am about a month later she was sitting up resting her head on some sea weed and not breathing. They have an expected life span of 3 to 7yrs; mine made it 4 despite my early ham handed care.

Now , I'll have 4 pairs from different stocks and should see some breeding several months down the line. I'm prepared to do a better job of raising the fry;so we'll just wait and see. I enjoy raising them but hatching and enriching atremia nauplii daily is a chore.

 

[grcforce327]

Saw the title.... Kailua- Kona, correct? At a quick glance, they look like fake kids toys! lol

 

[tmz]

That's right I missed the a on Kailua in the title. Here's a map:

http://www.seahorse.com/map--ocean-rider-kailua-kona,-hawaii/

 

[NirvanaFan]

I have not bred them but did raise a bunch from fry on the fly about 4 and a half years ago. Some newly born fry were left at a local lfs in a 2 liter bottle. No one was up to raising them . So, I took them home since I felt badly for them and tried to learn what I could as I reared them. After several mistakes I got about a dozen of the original 25 or so out to 3 weeks and then there was a die off, probably due to an ammonia spike in the rearing tank or some damage during their earliest days. Saved 4 or 5 for another few weeks and ultimately only 2 survived but I had them for over 4 yrs; a male and a female.
They didn't breed though they danced together often and kept each other company. The male died a few months ago; the female darkened and hid a a lot immediately after the loss. I purchased 3( 2 males and 1 female). The original female perked up, colored up ate well swam regulary coiled her tail around some of the newcomers but sadly one am about a month later she was sitting up resting her head on some sea weed and not breathing. They have an expected life span of 3 to 7yrs; mine made it 4 despite my early ham handed care.

Now , I'll have 4 pairs from different stocks and should see some breeding several months down the line. I'm prepared to do a better job of raising the fry;so we'll just wait and see. I enjoy raising them but hatching and enriching atremia nauplii daily is a chore.

Ain't that the truth? I had multiple batches of clownfish going all at the same time. I hatched daily for 3 or 4 weeks.

I'm glad to hear you've had at least a little success. I am debating about selling off some clownfish to make room for something different. Seahorses, pipefish, peppermint shrimp, or something else. Good luck with these. If you're ever looking for someone to raise some fry, let me know

 

[tmz]

Erectus are easier than amphiprion;no rotifers required but are taken. They are capable of taking newly hatched atremia nauplii right away and can be weaned off it to frozen minced mysis, brine and cyclopeeze after 3 to 5 weeks. They reach sexual maturity after about 4 months with a typical survival rate of 25%. Brood sizes range from 1 to 8 hundred with reidi spewing out as many as 1800 which are the toughest to rear and have a very long pelagic phase.
Erectus do have a pelagic phase for several days after birth which requires a kriesel current set up, basically a flow pattern that keeps them and food off the surface and in the center . They gulp air loose equilibrium and tangle up otherwise and it kills them. I used a 2.5 gallon plastic fish bowl with an air pump inlet near the top of one arched side to create a circular current around the arched sides bottom and top; it also has a 2.5 inch hole in the side covered with fine mesh to allow water exchange. The whole thing is clamped into a tank which is integrated into the puddle system. After a week or so their lifelong benthic nature comes into play.

I'll keep you in mind if I get extra fry.

I have 5 mated pair of breeding amphiprion but don't gather the fry. Heartless, I know . I did it once and found keeping the phytoplankton and rotifer cultures tedious. I might try it again now that my reef tanks are cruisng along with less effort. I also have a male /female pair of bangais , I'm watching .

 

[tmz]

At a quick glance, they look like fake kids toys! lol

:spin1: You bet. That's exactly the point. When I play in the puddle with corals fish etc, it does take me to nice childhood places. It's one of the main reasons I enjoy the hobby.:fish2::bounce3:

 

[NirvanaFan]

I did it once and found keeping the phytoplankton and rotifer cultures tedious. I might try it again now that my reef tanks are cruisng along with less effort. I also have a male /female pair of bangais , I'm watching .

Thanks for all the info. If you get back into rotifers, check out Reed Mariculture's RotiGrow Plus (or other rotifer feeds). http://www.reed-mariculture.com/product_rotigrow_plus.html

I just started using it, but I dumped my phyto cultures. I never really minded raising phyto though. I traded for an old acrylic sump a while back that has a 1" bulkhead drilled in a corner. It has a ball valve on it, so when I want to catch rotifers, I just stick my 53 micron sieve up to it, and let the water flow into a 5 gallon bucket.