Show off your seahorses and pipefish photos

[greenighs]

Click on the little red house with the www next to it, up near my name! Can't post the link or else folks think I'm advertising.

 

[Fishfreak218]

ohhhh.....ok....i like your pico their...very cool......i saw it a while back but i didnt know it was yours.....i couldnt go to the main site...just that one page b.c. it was a google search

 

[phudeb]

 

[abarnswell]

Male and female H. abdominalis and female H. breviceps in their temporary home. More info at my website, if anyone is interested.

Wow, gorgeous! Where did you get the Potbellies and the Brevie?

 

[masterswimmer]

Does everyone here have their pipefish in species tanks? Or does anyone have theirs in their reef?

I picked up this Jann's Pipefish about two weeks ago. I got him from a dealer in Fl. that had a half dozen or so in his reef tank with MUCH more aggressive feeders, tangs, blennies, anthias, clowns, etc. He said this was the only pipefish he knows of that can survive in a reef tank.

The pic is not nearly as good as the rest of you guys, but you get the idea. And now, introducing Mr. Ticonderoga:

Russ

 

[abarnswell]

Does everyone here have their pipefish in species tanks? Or does anyone have theirs in their reef?
Russ

I have a Blue Stripe Pipefish in my Reidi tank. They are super tankmates. Blue stripes are small -- about 2.5 - 3 inches long. They are strong swimmers, but delicate fish. I would never put one in a reef tank that had aggressive fish in it. They're pretty much like seahorses.

My blue stripe eats pods and bbs -- only live food. I wish I could put her in my reef tank, because my reef is teeming with pods. But she's in my SH tank, where she hangs with the horses. She even checks on them regularly to see what they're up to.

 

[masterswimmer]

April, thank you for your quick reply.

Mine is in my reef and nobody bothers him at all. My most aggressive fish is a Kole Tang, so it's not an aggressive tank, just more aggressive feeders.

The Jann's Pipefish is also a pod eater and I've got a fuge teeming with pods and 130 lbs of LR in the display. So far he seems happy, but two weeks is about two years shy of knowing if it's been a success or not.

Russ

 

[clippo]

here's my male bluestripe mid-yawn

 

[abarnswell]

here's my male bluestripe mid-yawn

Oh, he is gorgeous! Can he come over and play with my female Blue Stripe? She's very lonely. (I have an order in for a male Blue Stripe for her.) The male passed away a little while ago and she is very lonely these days. They were like an old married couple, attached at the hips. It broke my heart when he passed away. I actually cried, because I knew it would break the female's heart to lose him.

Don't they have the tiniest mouths you've ever seen? What does yours eat? Mine eats baby brine shrimp and any pods I can find to stick in there with her.

 

[clippo]

thanks - yeah, he's a bit of a show off too!

I feed them 'marine cuisine' frozen mix - but just the little whole shrimps out of it using a small pipette - just once a day. I've had them for nearly a year now and the male usually has a full pouch (looks a bit empty in the photo) - never seen any babies though.

I'd love to send him over, but Mrs pipefish wouldn't be too happy! - like you say, they really have a strong pair bond it seems.

 

[fishtail22]

Here is a male H. erectus born here at ATlantis Marine World in 2004.

 

[abarnswell]

I'd love to send him over, but Mrs pipefish wouldn't be too happy! - like you say, they really have a strong pair bond it seems.

Oh yes! They do bond very tightly. My two were never more than an inch apart from each other. And they slept side by side, every night, vertically tucked up under the leaf of a Mermaid's fan plant. Since the male passed away, the female stays pretty much in one place. She doesn't travel around much, other than to go check on the seahorses and see what they're up to.

I have asked my LFS/marine distributor to get me another male for her, and perhaps one or two more females. They do well in groups, I hear, as long as there is only one male. The males will not get along with each other.

 

[masterswimmer]

How do you determine the sex of the pipefish?

 

[abarnswell]

How do you determine the sex of the pipefish?

I can only speak for blue stripe pipefish, because that's what I have. It's really easy to determine sex. Scroll up to jclipper's picture of his male. Do you see those little bumps on his snout? Only males have those bumps. The female's snout is perfectly smooth. Also, a male (blue stripe, anyway) has a concave belly with ridges on each side, while the female's belly is smooth and rounded.

I do not know if these gender clues apply to other species of pipefishes. ??? Does anyone know?

 

[masterswimmer]

Thanks April. Wow, mine doesn't get into view quite that close lol. I'll have to really examine him/her for that clue. If it doesn't have the bumps, your not sure that it's a female though.

Does anyone else know if sexing all pipefish is the same?

Thanks,
Russ

BTW, this has been my first venture into pipefish. He has been with me now for a little over 2 weeks. During the day he/she stays hidden amongst the rocks. At night it sleeps under an overhang in a cave out in the open. Occasionally I'll see it after daylights go out and actinics come on. Would this be an indication that it's scavenging for food (pods) amongst the LR?

So much to learn!

Thank you,
Russ

 

[abarnswell]

Thanks April. Wow, mine doesn't get into view quite that close lol. I'll have to really examine him/her for that clue. If it doesn't have the bumps, your not sure that it's a female though.

Russ, do you have a blue stripe pipefish? If you do, and it does have little tiny bumps on its snout, then it's a male. If the snout is smooth, it's a female.

My blue stripe swims around most of the day, hunting on the glass and rocks for pods. They are constant grazers. I also feed mine live baby brine shrimp (enriched) twice a day, too. I tried frozen Cyclopeeze with her, but she really doesn't like dead food. She's probably wild caught.

Once the lights go out, she goes to sleep underneath the overhang of a fake coral. They aren't nocturnal, at least mine isn't. She goes to bed when the horses go to bed, when the lights go out.

 

[masterswimmer]

April, mine is a Jann's Pipefish. I posted a pic. It's the last post on page one. I don't want to repost the same pic.

Russ

 

[abarnswell]

April, mine is a Jann's Pipefish. I posted a pic. It's the last post on page one. I don't want to repost the same pic.
Russ

Oh, yeah. I went back and looked. How do you like the Janns? They are very handsome fish, and they look rather similar to the Blue Stripes, with their similar coloring.

I wonder if there are many people on this board who have pipefish? I really enjoy mine -- she is so relaxing to watch. She's like a water ballerina, so graceful. I could watch her for hours. I'd love to have a tank full of pipefish.

 

[masterswimmer]

I'd really like my pipefish more if she'd spend more time out in the open. I never see her until lights out. That's when she retreats to her cave, which happens to be in the front of the tank (fortunately for me, or I wouldn't even know if she were still alive ).

She is a beautiful blue, orange and purple though. Great colors. I'm going to look for a mate for her. My fear is that I'll determine the wrong sex and have a war going on here.

Russ

 

[greenighs]

Same thing with my janns pipes. They'd come out at dawn and dusk and do figure-8s in the water, parallel to the front glass. Sometimes, just to watch them, I'd turn off the MH lights and leave the actinics on in the middle of the day, for a few minutes. So beautiful!



Here's another pic of my wee one: