Please Advise Me on Hundreds of Baby Seahorses

[ManotheSea]

I just spent the past hour scooping hundreds of baby Seahorses out of my Refugium. I heard that they had to be removed from the father or he might eat them. Is that true? Can anyone offer some advice on how to keep them?

I put them into a 2.5 gal tank with a slow airline at the bottom. They have a gorgonian and some macro for shelter and rest.

My best guess is that they need live rotifers for food. I dont have a phyto/rotifer growing station so what else will work? If they only eat rotifers can they be bought and from where? I do live very close to a clean ocean source. Would I be adding enough rotifers by changing out fresh sea water every day?

Please share some tips and tricks with me on how to raise these Seahorses. Pictures to follow.

 

[inkmates]

Many online sources sell live rotifiers as well as some lfs check some of the popular online auction sites as well good luck with your babies

 

[ManotheSea]

 

[Kanicky]

For now, you can hatch or buy pre-hatched Baby Brine Shrimp (BBS.) Reef Nutrition sells the things you're looking for.

 

[Rays]

If they are southern erectus you won't need rotis, if they are northern erectus or reidi you need roti's first then BBS. There's a place right in FLA that has roti's. http://www.seahorsesource.com/cgi-bin/shop/search.cgi?&category=Foods-Live

 

[clownFish1313]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11970464#post11970464 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ManotheSea

That is sweet are you planing on selling them good luck that os just so cool

 

[ManotheSea]

Thanks for the link to the Seahorse store Rays. Good stuff

clownFish1313 - This all happened very quickly so I havent given the results of success much thought. The seahorse was given to me pregnant. I had it for one week then babies everywhere. I actually expect to have a high loss since I was unprepared and its my first attempt.

They are now just over 48 hours old. So far loss rate is extremely low so I hope Im doing something right. I started feeding regular doses of cyclop-eeze for lack of having anything else. I have been doing two water changes each day with fresh sea water hoping there will be rotifers in it. This morning I bought a live phyto culture and a live rotifer culture that will be ready in about 2 days. Meanwhile I bought some frozen baby brine to go with the cyclop-eeze.

I seperated them into three tanks to give them less competition for food and slower fowling of water. The ones I couldnt get out of the refugium are still swimming around. I could get them out now but Im curius to see how they do there. I keep swishing the gathered groups apart so they dont trap each other by making a hitching chain and then cant feed. I have also been sheilding them from strong light so they dont waste energy trying to swim through the tank sides to the light. Thats basically it. So far, so good. I hope I did a good job of quickly gathering good breeding tips and applying them.

 

[OranguTang]

Awesome, must be quite the experience. Good luck!

 

[krazeekiddie]

Hello!!! Beautiful babies!!!! Good luck with them, fry are a challenge well worth the effort! =)

Heather

 

[gatorolsen]

Where in Fl are you located? I might be able to recommend a few places for supplies.

What kind of sh do you have? Pics were a bit blurry on my computer but it looked like a few were hitching. Southern erectus hitch at birth and can take bbs. Northern erectus do not.

If S. erectus I would recommend getting decapsulated cysts or decapping reg. cysts yourself. I never had luck getting mine to take frozen bbs but they never had a problem switching to cyclopeeze when they were older.

You don't have to work about the male snicking up the fry - removing the fry is usually recommended as they are food for clean-up crews or other common tank inhabitants also most tanks with live sand, live rock and plants could have hydroids which can harm fry.

Congrats on the fry and good luck,
Gatorolsen

 

[Lightsluvr]

How are they doing?

How are they doing?

Are the fry surviving?

I am very interested...

LL