Matt LeBaron

Sorry should have specified, they are the red variety and the treatments do kill them, they appear to work fine, the problem is that 2-3 days later they are coming back.

So my tank has been cursed with a fun flatworm problem that will just not go away. I've tried both AquaVision Aquatics Flatworm Solution and Flatworm Exit, careully following the instructions on each. The third time I even double the recommended dosing but they just keep coming back eventually after a couple of days, sometimes just 2-3. Starting to drive me a bit nuts since I'm having to treat the tank every 2-4 months just to keep them from over running the tank. So thought I would post here to see if anyone had any advice I have not thought of. Right now I'm thinking of buying about 3 bottles of FWE, removing all carbon and turning my skimmer off and doing a double dose and sucking out the dead ones as quickly as I can; do a water change to keep the potential poison in the water to a minimum and then adding more FWE to keep the concentration at double. Thinking of trying to keep the skimmer and carbon off for about a week and just do a couple water changes throughout the week to keep water quality decent without the skimmer or carbon pad I normally run. These things are driving me insane. If this doesn't work I'm thinking of just buying a blue velvet nudibranch and letting him hopefully just keep the infestation at a reasonable level.

Not to seem like a jerk or anything but as jumpinjoker already has the pipe fish advice other than "You're basically screwed" might be a bit towards the helpful side of things. There is an EXCELLENT article in the latest Coral magazine about getting mandarin fish to eat frozen food, I would highly suggest trying to find that article as I believe you could use a very similar method with a pipefish. Beyond that find a LFS that carries live adult brine shrimp. (not sure where you live but House of Tropicals in Glen Burnie and Aquarium Depot in Randellstown both do) I keep a 2 gallon bucket that I keep a supply in and feed them phytoplankton to keep them alive until feeding. The phyto also helps to enrich them although I would HIGHLY recommend getting some Selcon and putting the adult brine shrimp in a small cup with some Selcon for 20-30 minutes before feeding. Ideally you target feed the pipefish, get a turkey baster and squirt them near him and monitor him to make sure that he is eating. You'll need to do this at LEAST twice a day, three would be best initially until you can be sure he is eating regularly and then you can go back to twice a day. In the long term you want to get him to eat frozen but in the short term to keep him alive and fatten him up a bit (he probably hasn't eaten properly in weeks during capture and transit) adult brine shrimp that have been enriched might work.

For my up coming 30th birthday my wife drove me over to Pacific East Aquaculture to pick out some corals for our 90G. I have to agree with everyone that says it is worth the trip. It was seriously coral overload there, just the sheer amount was impressive and how clean everything was too. Dr. Mac runs a fantastic store and if you can make a trip over I cannot recommend you do so enough.

Anyone know if any of the local area stores or any US online retailer carries the JBL Artemio Brine Shrimp Hatcheries? I saw a set of them in the lastest Aquarium Fish International and would really like about 3-4 of them but the only places I can find them are overseas, which isn't a huge problem but would prefer to be able to get them a bit closer without expensive shipping. Right now I have a bunch of upside down soda bottles, which are ok but I've got airline tubes going all over the place, the JBL kits can be linked together to work off one airhose line and have a drain at the bottom and come with mesh to drain the water away from the BBS. Thanks,

Well more babies today, my fish tank is like a seahorse factory, it's insane. I did find out today though that it's been my younger male that has been having all of the babies though. I had thought that he was just filling his pouch with water in reponse to my two older pair breeding but I actually got to watch my younger male release the babies in my 90 gallon, which explains why I could never tell that my older male was pregnent. I just didn't think the younger male was old enough. Not sure how old he was when we got him and a female from Seahorse Source in January but I didn't think he was old enough at all, he's still so tiny compared to my older pair. Not sure how many there were this time, I had just gotten off a 12 hour night shift and was going to feed the seahorses for their morning meal before I went to sleep when it happened so I just got them out into my breeding tank, fed them from BBS and rotifers, and then went to sleep. It's been exactely 15 days since he gave birth, so at this point he is literally giving birth almost every 2 weeks like a clock. I'm not sure if anyone is interested but if anyone would like to try raising some seahorses you are more than welcome to a bunch from the next brood. Frankly my breeder tank is at capacity. Assuming I might lose 2-3 more from the second and third batch I'm looking at about 15 juvenile seahorses I have to raise now plus whatever survives from the 50+ that were born today. My 20 gallon breeder with a 10G sump is beyond capacity. I'm having to do daily water changes to just keep things in check as it is. I live up in Catonsville so it may be a drive for some people but we could meet somewhere a bit farther south if you'd like. Now having said that people that are seriously about trying to raise them only please. You can check out seahorse.org's library section for some information on raising them but basically you'll need a 10-20G tank with very very low flow for them. My initial setup was a 10G with a divider in it. On one side I kept the seahorses, on the other I had a HOB filter and a bag of carbon. That worked well, the only reason I changed the setup was that it was sitting on my dining room table. Replaced an existing 20G I had with the new setup. You'll need at least 2 cultures of BBS going more or less all the time for them basically using one batch for 1-3 days and then switching as they get depleted. That's the basics I can answer any other questions you may have.

Might give it a try, not sure how interested my little seahorses may be in them but figure it can't hurt. I might shrink my rotifer culture down and maybe get two 2-3 gallon buckets and use one for copepods since I really don't need a 5 gallon bucket of rotifers, I only feed them to the little babies for the first two weeks and I'm not 100% sure they even eat them but I figure it can't hurt to much.

Chad with copepods such as Tigriopus can you tell feeding levels by monitoring the color of the sample if feeding with green water. I've been making green water using the Reef Nutrition Phyto Feast as a starting culture. It's been working very well, I just use a 5 gallon bucket with an airline and some miracle grow to get it going. 1.5-2 weeks later I have a very nice dark green bucket of green water. Right now I'm just using it to keep a rotifer culture going and keep my brine shrimp cultures going but would not mind experimenting with copepods. Right now I know when I need to feed the rotifers by just looking at the color of the water. Once it starts to turn very light green I add more.

Here are some pictures: Bit blurry but he kept moving so the Macro lense couldn't get a good picture. This is the one survivor from the first batch. Some pictures of the new batch and the one from about 2 weeks ago. They're all in the same area of the tank. And a picture of the 20G I have them all in right now.

Chad covered it well, the reason most people recommend the temperature at 74 or below is that a very common bacteria infection called Vibro multiplies at a significantly slow rate at 74 degrees or below, in the past Vibro infections have been a bit problem for people keeping seahorses. Doing a seahorse only tank is almost always a good idea. My first tank was a 55G with two seahorses and a Firefish. After I successfully kept that for about two years I upgraded to a 90 Gallon and got two shrimp gobies, a pistol shrimp, some red spot cardinal fish, and another pair of seahorses and have been doing well with that for almost a year now. Right now for the baby seahorses I have a 5 gallon bucket of rotifers going, a 5 gallon bucket of green water, and 4 soda bottles of brine shrimp. One holds adult brine shrimp for my 6 week old, the other three cycle between hatching baby brine shrimp to make sure that I have plenty for the little guys. One they get a bit bigger I'll also let one bottle grow out towards adulthood for that 1-2 week period where they're a bit big for BBS but can still eat them but not quite big enough to eat full grown ones. I gut load the brine shrimp once I start letting them grow past a day old, usually with the green water as I can just dump that in the container with them but sometimes I'll keep a clean bottle and use selco. The setup I have for them right now is a 20G tank with a 10G sump. I covered the slots on the overflow with that mesh they use for tank dividers and then placed a tank divider in the 20 gallon to keep the little guys away from the overflow since even with a Maxijet 400 for flow from the 10G being very slow they still get pulled and get stuck on the overflow if they get close. Plus I've got the older seahorse on the overflow side so I can target feed him the brine shrimp and hopefully in a week or so I'll start to ween him onto chopped mysis. I've got a couple pieces of LR in the sump that I don't mind losing if I have to dose with anti-biotics or something like that, a small skimmer, and a HOB filter with heater.

This is an excellent article. I've been thinking about trying to Cultivate Copepods for my seahorses that keep breeding like rabbits to maybe improve my survival rate. Does anyone know if there is a good source for graduated and translucent containers and the necessary mesh sizes? Right now I've got green water, rotifers, and brine shrimp cultivating but if I can find some room away from all of that to precent contamination I think I may give it a try.

Well found more babies in the sump again today. I don't even know how they managed it so quick, it's only be 16 days since the last batch. Smaller batch this time again, probably 30-40, I didn't count carefully like I did in the past. The survivor from the first group is doing well at about 6 weeks old now, the second batch at a bit over 2 weeks are doing well, 13 of the 48 are still alive and I haven't had any deaths in the past 6 days so while a couple more may not make it they're all growing and appear to be doing well. I put the new batch in with the 2 week old ones for lack of anywhere else to put them honestly. Not sure what I'm going to do if they keep having babies every two weeks. I just don't have the tank/setup to support that. If they keep it up I may put a call out to see if anyone wants to try and raise them and just give new births that I can't handle away to anyone who would like to try.

Some may have seen my post SuperBowl Sunday requesting rotifers for the first time my seahorses managed to breed. Due to some problems and the surprise of the babies only one out of the first batch survived, he's doing very well at close to 6 weeks old now and is about ready to move up to full grown brine shrimp. But my two adult seahorses, Theoria and Stevie managed to pull it off again. This time there were only about 50 babies, about half what I found the first time but I am prepared this time! So I got them all into the 10 gallon I had setup for the babies from the first breeding, 48 of them, lost two in the transfer. Fed them rotifers twice today and everything seems to be going well. Some are showing more promise than others, some are freely swimming around and hitching already, others kind of seem to be stuck at the top. So we'll see how it goes but the survival rate for seahorse babies is not great. Onto the pictures: Macro lens goodness. Proud mom and dad. Stevie the dad on the left, Theoria, the mom on the right. Closeup of the dad, Stevie.

Very striking setup, looking awesome!

Work has been killing me recently and it totally slipped my mind to post some updates. So bad news with a bit of good. About 2 weeks in my wife got the bucket of Rotifers and Green Water mixed up and fed the babies from the green water, which was a problem since I was using Miracle grow to accelerate the green water growth. So almost all of the babies were lost before I could figure out why they were dying due to ammonia poisoning over the course of a day and a half and do a massive water change and put a huge bag of carbon in their tank. So we lost all of them but one. We're just calling him little yellow right now but if he survives we'll have to think up some epic name for him since he survived all of that. I have since labeled the buckets with what they are to avoid this in the future, which I have hope there will be since the seahorses were courting again a couple days ago, I have a hard time telling if the male is carrying (I couldn't tell the first time because he is so large and doesn't hang out at the front of the tank like the female) but I'm marking on the calendar when I think they may have bred and I'll keep checking the sump. But pictures of the little survivor, he's almost 5 weeks old now and while still tiny he is loads bigger than when he started out and I've kept the rotifer culture that I got from Anthony/Fazio92 for future births but the current little guy is a bit big to be eating rotifers now so I'm just culling the batch occasionally and putting in fresh salt water at around 1.020 or so to keep it going. I apparently contaminated my green water with some brine shrimp I noticed today so I'm starting a new batch up from some extra I had stored to keep it clean, not a big deal really but I figure eventually the brine shrimp may overtake the green water and I can't feed the rotifers from that without risking contaminating that too. No biggie though. But onto pictures!

Some pictures from last night. I'm hoping today to move them all to a 10 gallon I have setup, having them in the HOB fuge like I do not is easier for me but I can't be sure they're all eating since it's flow through so even though it is a slow flow the food flushes out into the DT eventually. Here's the proud Mom, Theoria, the data Stevie is was in the rockwork when I took these pictures. And everything I have setup within the past two days for food for these guys. Thanks again to Anthony, not sure what the end survival rate of these little guys will be but they'd all be dead right now if it wasn't for the Rotifers he gave to me.

Huge thanks to Anthony/Fazio92, he was kind enough to give me a good culture of Rotifers to get me through the first couple of days until I can get a stream of BBS going.

They might be, I have a boat load of cheato that I could kind of rotate out for them but I would feel better if I could feed them and make sure they're eating.

PM sent Anthon. And the mysids might actually eat the seahorses right now. They're about the size of a grain of rice right now, maybe a bit longer but not as thick. They'll eat BBS but Rotifers are a much much better food for their first week of life, after that BBS works for the next couple weeks until they start moving up to larger food.

I know this is a long shot but my Seahorses just had babies (I went to empty the skimmer and prune some cheato in the sump when I found them all covering the cheato) and as it was a total surprise I don't have anything ready for them. I've started a culture of brine shrimp but that's got a while before they hatch and I would feel a lot better if I was able to feed them today. Thanks, Pic of them in a breeder net in my DT until I can get their new digs all setup.

90 Gallon Tank 15 Gallons in the sump 20 Gallon Refug

Battery backup for the Vortechs is only $160 too. Been considering it for a while and I think I might pick one up for my MP40 before next winter just in case.

Just...wow. That trip looks like spectacular just does not cover it. Wonderful pictures.

Man that is just heart breaking, you are taking it a lot better than I would I think. Just horrible to hear about things like this. As far as top offs go, I have a gravity fed ATO, and the float actually broke off from the holder. I had to re-attach it with super glue last week. Nothing is fool proof and having someone with some basic knowledge of the hobby can make all the difference when you are away.

In general the advise to go with a MP40 is a good one but I would recommend considering your rock work too. The Vortechs are awesome but they are still just one pump, if you have rock work that would sit in front of where you would place it it's flow will be highly reduced. If you have very high rock work in your tank you may be better off getting two MP10W's, you can then sync them up and potentially have better flow.