Tips on raising fry?

What I am doing, (and it is still labor intensive)is the hatchery is loaded with bb decapsulated eggs and freshly made salt water. I also have the hatchery sterilized. After They have been in there 24 hours I add some enrichment for the ones that will soon be able to eat but I leave them in the hatchery another 24 hours. Then I move them to the enrichment container, sterilize the hatchery and reload it. The enrichment container is also sterilized before anything went in it and all it is, is a plastic food container like ziploc or rubber maid with an air line tube in it with slow to moderate bubbles. I add newly made salt water and add the bb from the hatchery and add the enrichment. I feed that hoping enough were enriched in the hatchery. I conine to feed from that container for the next 2 days while the eggs in the hatchery are hatching doing water changes and enriching every day. When the newly hatched bb in the hatchery is ready I move what is left in the enrichment container into a 5g tank with an airline, the enrichment container is sterilized for the newly hatched and the hatchery is sTeri liked for more eggs. The 5g is for growing out bb to a larger size so they get enriched as well. Also that tank needs vacuumed daily, sides and bottom wiped down every other day and daily water changes with new salt water. This is my first baby seahorses so I am no expert but so far I have not lost but just 1 the very first night. Of course they are only 9 days old so I am definitely not bragging, I know they can be lost in no time. I am merely sharing what is working for me right now.
 
Well, I am learning some things the hard way! I had 2 poor hatches of bb in a row and my ravenous fry were eating it faster than I could produce it. I could see I was going to run out before the next batch was ready, so I drove an hour each way to buy pods to carry them over. I was only able to get enough for 1 meal but the eggs in the hatchery are being to hatch. The plan is to keep the nursery dimly lit so the fry conserve energy and only feed 3 lite meals today. Tomorrow morning the hatchery should be ready to harvest. Now I have 2 hatcheries going to hopefully avoid future crisises.
 
Now I am seeing a new problem...the newly hatched bb is starting to be insufficient for my almost 3 week old fry. It seems like maybe they have to eat too many to meet their growing needs, and yet adult brine shrimp are just a tad too big. I tried a few and the biggest and bravest seahorse fry tackled and conquered but most of the others are too timid to try. I guess I need to try and grow the bb up a bit until everyone is eating adult brine shrimp. I am sensing this could be a critical time for the fry.
 
What about introducing frozen food? I've read that some will start adding frozen frozen cyclop eeze to the diet at around 2 weeks. They say to mix it in w/ the bb and over time they will all start eating it and then you might be able to decrease the amount of bb
 
RedAnt78 said:
What about introducing frozen food? I've read that some will start adding frozen frozen cyclop eeze to the diet at around 2 weeks. They say to mix it in w/ the bb and over time they will all start eating it and then you might be able to decrease the amount of bb
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Yes, I have tried but when they turned their noses up at it I quit. I guess I need to stick with it more. I just worried about uneaten food in their nursery tank but that could be sacked out after the meal.
 
IMO, any uneaten food needs to be removed BEFORE the next feeding.
Frozen foods will have started to decay, and enriched live foods will have lost the majority of their enrichment.
 
rayjay said:
IMO, any uneaten food needs to be removed BEFORE the next feeding.
Frozen foods will have started to decay, and enriched live foods will have lost the majority of their enrichment.
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Yes, When the baby seahorses have had enough time to eat their live enriched bb I put the feed line from the sump back into the nursery tank and that flushes the bb through a screen in the nursery and into the sump thus leaving their nursery area clean except their wastes which I vacuume up. That is why I have held off on the frozen food, it's one more thing to worry about bacteria. I already vacuum after meals and wipe down all surfaces of the nursery daily and sterilize their hitches every other day. I have great respect for those of you that have been doing this for a long time!
 
Believe me, I STILL have lots of problems in raising fry.
Worse yet, I have most problems with erectus fry when my reidi fry were usually considered to be the hard ones to raise.
You mention flushing the BBS into the sump, how do you then remove them from the sump?
 
rayjay said:
Believe me, I STILL have lots of problems in raising fry.
Worse yet, I have most problems with erectus fry when my reidi fry were usually considered to be the hard ones to raise.
You mention flushing the BBS into the sump, how do you then remove them from the sump?
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I have a filter pad before the chamber to my return pump which hopefully catches most of them. I only kept 20 fry and they are in a half gallon plastic fish bowl. That way the amount of bb entering the marine system is relatively a small amount since some of them are also removed when I am vacuuming the wastes. Perhaps this is not the best way to do it but I thought the fry would benefit from the filtration of the 65-70 gallons of water and live rock in the main system. I have however set up a 20L in anticipation of when the fry outgrow the half gallon nursery. My plan is to make a larger nursery for there, ( of course assuming I still have fry by then ).
 
Paul B said:
to keep seahorses in my reef with the other fish I had to partition off a side of the tank for them or the fish would eat all of their food. The pipefish only eat new born brine shrimp so the rest of the fish don't eat many of those because they are to small for them to see except for the mandarins.
This picture was taken in my reef, the female is transfering the eggs to the male. I collected these two in the sea.

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You caught them in the ocean? Did you catch them locally? Looks like barbs, no? It says your location is NY ... I'm assuming you're not in NY anymore or was this an older picture?
 
The fry have grown a lot so I started adding some adult brine shrimp in with the bb. The biggest and bravest went for it right away. Now most of the fry prefer the adult brine shrimp. I think I have noticed a growth spurt since I began offering it. Most of the fry are about an inch long now.
 
Well you must be doing something right.
I've never been able to feed adults to fry until they are about 2 months old.
It's nice though as you don't need to add as many due to the larger size.
I've just picked up some erectus fry from a friend nearby and they are only 1/4" at best.
They go right through window screen they're so small.
 
rayjay said:
Well you must be doing something right.
I've never been able to feed adults to fry until they are about 2 months old.
It's nice though as you don't need to add as many due to the larger size.
I've just picked up some erectus fry from a friend nearby and they are only 1/4" at best.
They go right through window screen they're so small.
Click to expand...

I had no idea they were even close but I had posted on a seahorse forum and Tami told me that they looked like they were almost ready for adult brine shrimp. Between her and you helping me with so much info I could never have gotten this far. I am guessing that my male only birthing 32 fry that perhaps they were a bit more robust than some and many were a half inch at birth. Well, good luck with your new babies!
 
http://youtu.be/KT1jJlZu7J4
The baby seahorse fry are 5 and half weeks old now. There are still 17 but some are only half the size of the bigger ones. For that reason I am still hatching baby brine shrimp for the smallest of the fry. I am in the midst of adding a 10g nursery/quarantine tank to my salt water system. I am tired of getting down on the floor to see the baby seahorses in the sump.
 
I have found that every batch has a percentage of runts, many of which die off before others do, but many grow larger. Even after a couple of years some remain half the size of their siblings.
 
Here is a pic of my system with the new 10 nursery/quarantine tank though you can't see the seahorse display tank, (its all the way to the left off the photo). Although I am in good health at 55 years old if I can avoid having to get down on the ground many times a day to care for the fry I will.
 
rayjay said:
I have found that every batch has a percentage of runts, many of which die off before others do, but many grow larger. Even after a couple of years some remain half the size of their siblings.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info Rayjay. I guess I am not necessarily contributing to their small size then. It helps to know that it just happens sometimes.
 
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