Seahorse snacks???

[AZBigJohn]

Seems a silly question. After a couple of months cycling and preparing a 28 gallon "bullet-shaped" tank to try a smaller reef tank, at my wife's request (always good to keep the wife happy about my salt water hobby), we decided to get a pair of seahorses, and turn the tank into a seahorse tank, not a reef. I have a pair of captive bred H. erectus horses, and they seem to be quite happy exploring the tank, and have been eating quite well. I have had them for a little over a month.

I feed them frozen mysis shrimp, and have a peppermint shrimp and several snails that keep the tank clean. Water parameters are good (ph 1.022; NH3 0, Nitrates barely detectable to zero on API kit).

What else can these guys eat? I put a tablespoon or so of live brine in there one day (I had bought some for my other reef tank) which they loved, but I realize brine shrimp are in essence "popcorn" in nutritional value. (that being said, even I like to snack on popcorn once in a while)

I want to give them some variety, and help them stay healthy. What do you suggest?

 

[mtc1966]

live ghost shrimp is a nice snack. live amphipods another.

 

[TamiW]

Frozen krill is less of a treat (because a lot of seahorses are not thrilled with it) but it's really good for them. Hikari sells a small krill, it's packaged as "Ocean Plankton" (Reef Plankton is something else). Also, enriching the brine shrimp before you feed to the seahorses will make it a healthier food. My personal favorite is Dan's feed from Seahorse Source.

Red shrimp from Hawaii are also a good snack. They're kind of expensive, but if you're only feeding as a treat, then it doesn't seem so bad.

Livebearer fry might be an okay treat - some seahorses will eat it, some will not. But I'd only offer them as a treat.

Live mysis is another treat - the ability to hunt down their food is good stimulation for seahorses.

I've had some seahorses eat arcti-pods/reef plankton. It's a large copepod. It's been hit or miss for my seahorses though.

If you have cleaner shrimp, like skunk cleaners and peppermint shrimp, you can offer their larvae to seahorses whenever they spawn. They tend to spawn just after the lights out out.

 

[mtc1966]

i also recently came across frozen gut loaded brine shrimp . they a green .

 

[tmz]

Mine enjoy a mix of mysis, birne, a few bloodworms(mosquito larvae ) and cyclopeeze.Roughly 60% mysis, 30% brine and 10% bloodworm with some frozen cyclopeeze mixed in.

 

[rayjay]

I realize brine shrimp are in essence "popcorn" in nutritional value. (that being said, even I like to snack on popcorn once in a while)

You've been given a good list of other foods you can use.
However, I want to correct the impression you have about brine shrimp nutrition. (and what many others have as well)
Brine shrimp start off as nauplii with good protein levels and because of the egg sack, a high fatty acid profile that degrades starting from hatch out because it is being consumed from that point on.
As the brine go through the moulting stages, the protein level increases so that it is a higher level than most foods we feed our tanks. Unfortunately the fatty acid profile goes lower.
The beauty of feeding brine is that we can first of all, increase levels of the fatty acid profile by feeding specific foods that can be assimilated into their bodies. We can also enrich them by gut loading them with more protein, more fatty acids, medications, or vitamins.
Protein levels of juvenile or adult brine shrimp grown from Great Salt Lake cysts have protein levels of 49 to 62% as shown in the chart in Section 4.4.1 taken from Live Foods for Aquaculture and was compiled by the Artemia Reference Centre at the University of Ghent for that United Nations site.
Those levels as I mentioned before, can be increased by enrichment of the brine.
With respect to marine fish like seahorses, feeding mainly protein with little fatty acid content will lead to a slow decline in their health so it's always much better to enrich the brine first, and even better to grow them with a quality food and also enrich, before feeding the brine to the seahorses.
This nutrition confusion probably comes from people reading the protein levels marked on most frozen brine shrimp packages and compare those levels with protein levels of other foods.
To properly compare, one needs to convert all percentages to the same base, either DW% or WW%.
Frozen brine shrimp are marked in wet weight percentages that include the brine moisture as well as the packaging fluids, while most other foods are marked in dry weight percentages.
If you take ALL the moisture out of the frozen brine shrimp and THEN compare the percentage in DW, then you have comparable if not superior protein levels in the brine.
Conversely, if you soak the other foods in water, and THEN compare their percentage of protein in the now WW%, you again will find comparable if not superior protein levels in the brine.