Raising seahorses

[andrew5013]

I work for a facility that has a breeding population of reidi and erectus seahorses and I am attempting to raise the young up, but have been unsuccessful. Does anyone have suggestions or tips on how to raise them, so far i have only been able to raise 8 reidi babies and they are about 7 months old. I have been using a 2.5gal circular tank and made it into a kreisel by adding a air line on one side of the tank. For food i have been feeing 24-48 hour old brine shrimp. Any suggestions would be helpful! Thanks

 

[ReefNutPA]

Can't help with Reidi.... as they are palegic fry (don't hitch at birth) and I've failed miserably with them AND Northern Erectus, which also have palegic fry.

I never used kreisel tanks for palegic fry.... and most don't use them any longer.

As far as Southern Erectus, I've raised many. Didn't start having any success until I started using 10 gal tanks with cycled sponge filters to help with water quality. Keep the tanks SPOTLESSLY clean. I siphon the bottom at least 3 or 4 times a day, replacing whatever water is needed. Feeding enriched 24-48 hour brine.

Cleanliness of the tank is sooo important. Any poop/dead brine should be siphoned right away. I usually siphon shortly after each feeding when they all start to drop little orange "presents" on the bottom of the tank lol.

Best of luck!

Tom

 

[rayjay]

Well reidi are the only ones I've raised as I can't get any of my other species to give up the fry so far.
Most of my experiences with reidi fry are on threads on the seahorse forum but basically, I've tried a lot of ways, kreisel and others but didn't have any luck until I went to 4L wide mouth pickle jars.
Basically I start off with around 100 or so to a bottle until they grow larger and gradually add more jars and reduce the qty per jar until at 3 months or so I put them in a rearing tank.
I use live phyto in the jars and they are lit 24/7.
Each jar has a rigid airline tube in it to keep the water and fry continually in motion so they cannot stop at the top of the container.
I feed enriched rotifers for the first two weeks, enriched rotifers and enriched on grown bbs for the second two weeks, and then just enriched on grown bbs after that until they start to take larger live brine, but always enriched.
Every jar is cleaned every 48 hours with 100% new water, food, and phyto. I split whatever number of jars there are so that I only have to do at most, 6 jars per night.
RAISING REIDI FRY

 

[andrew5013]

Also I have been having trouble with them get getting the bubble in their stomach, any luck with treating that?

 

[rayjay]

I've never seen bubbles in their stomachs. What I see with newborns is the air bladders which is higher up on the body.
Seahorses don't have stomachs as such.
Their digestive tract is more like an esophagus just connected to the intestines with a slight enlargement along the way that some might refer to as stomach but in which food doesn't remain for processing but continues on through.
To minimize the floaters that seem to always appear, I keep the water in motion enough so that the fry are always in motion and cannot stop. The food density is such that they can capture food without having to "chase it down" as it is merely in their face as they are being propelled around the container.
I don't treat the fry for anything and I don't cull, removing fry only when dead on bottom.
My survival rate to 4 months of age is just under 50% and hopefully I'll improve on this but if can only happen by doing a lot more work then I'll settle for what I'm doing as it's simple and effective for me at least.