Seahorse Help!

[Guest Mike & Michelle]

Does anyone have a long term solution to a WC female erectus that doesn't want to eat frozen mysis? She has eaten guppies but they have to be small and it is hard to keep a live supply at home and keep them small. I have fed the guppies at the same time I am adding thawed mysis in hopes that she learns to eat the mysis, without any success. Any ideas???? Thanks

[davelin315]

Have you made sure the mysis is moving around? If you can agitate the water enough that it does not settle that may entice a little snicking and then it may eat (can't rembember if that's the correct term!). If you can't get it to eat the frozen, get some ghost shrimp. Doesn't matter if they are larger, you'd be surprised at how powerful the suction is and how easily it can snap a shrimp in two. Another method is to put the mysis in a turkey baster or something else that the seahorse can learn to associate with food. As you train it to eat it will eventually wait by whatever you present in order to eat. Anything that comes up will be snicked up.

 

If you need to force the guppies to have more babies, they have them when they are under stress, as do mollies. If you can acclimate some mollies, you may want to keep them in a breeder in the tank and let the babies float off into the water column.

[traveller7]

These may help them bridge to a mysid type diet, but they always seem out of them:

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_di...id=2191&N=0

 

Have you checked into seahorse.org?

http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/L...odSources.shtml

[jason the filter freak]

Silver sides maybe?

[Grav]

Silver sides maybe?

 

 

LOL

[dzekunoi]

I would use live brine soaked with vitamins with added mysis. Squirt mixture just next to her so it moves and droves her attention.

 

Good luck!

[90OcReef]

It is awesome watching Seahorses eat Ghost shrimp. They are quite easy to keep on hand as well. Give them a try and see if it is easier than baby guppies.

 

-Jess

[Guest Mike & Michelle]

I have used live guppies mixed in with thawed mysis and she truly knows the difference between live and dead. My other seahorses and my alligator pipefish love the mysis and I was hoping that if she saw them feeding she would do so as well but that hasn't happened. I thaw the mysis in a small container and they all hang out at the top of the tank knowing what is to come including the female that doesn't eat the mysis. Once thawed I tap on the glass which alerts them and as I add the mysis and the guppies a feeding frenzy begins except the large female is very specific in that she only hunts for the live guppies.

 

I will try the other things but I am really hoping to find a way to switch her over to frozen just for the ease of feeding.

 

Thanks for the advice.

[luan67]

Have you tried PE Mysis? When I had a pair, they never went after any other food except for the PE Mysis.

[tonkadawg]

I don't know what brand of mysis we feed our pair (captive bred though), but you are welcome to a couple of cubes to try and see if you can get her to eat.

[Guest Mike & Michelle]

I don't know what brand of mysis we feed our pair (captive bred though), but you are welcome to a couple of cubes to try and see if you can get her to eat.

 

We use Hikari Bio Pure mysis which our captive bred horses and our pipefish really pig out on.

[90OcReef]

Mike, the PE Mysis is one of the most enticing frozen foods in our experience. There are certain oils and such that really trigger a feeding frenzy even with picky eaters. You may want to give it a try.

 

-Jess

[chideloh]

Have you tried live brine shrimp? I fed mine live brine for few weeks and began mixing frozen brine with the live brine. And then frozen brine and frozen mysis with the live brine and slowly began to wean them off of the live brine shrimp. Now they eat both the frozen brine and the mysis. I do not feed live brine anymore.

 

HTH

[tonkadawg]

We use Hikari Bio Pure mysis which our captive bred horses and our pipefish really pig out on.

 

yeah, thats what we're using too. I would suggest some adult live brine mixed with froozen and see what that does.

[ChrisS]

One of the trick you can use to get seahorses onto frozen in to condition them to associate the smell of garlic with food...kinda like Pavlow's dogs

 

Heres what you do:

Buy something like the Kent Garlic any kind of garlic supplement will work as long as it's not the 'odor-free' type. You can even use real minced garlic.

 

For 2-3 weeks soak whatever food you give them in the garlic. Brine shrimp work well for this as they'll ingest the garlic...just make sure you enrich the brine so the seahorses are getting the nutrition they need. Make sure you're consistant about using garlic for every feeding. This will condition the horses to associate garlic with food.

 

For the next 2 weeks start adding small amounts of frozen in with the live food when you feed. Make sure you soak both frozen and live in the garlic. It works best if the frozen is the same type of food as the live. Again brine works as it's easy to come by both live and frozen.

 

After that stop using the garlic on the live but keep using it on the frozen. Over the next couple of weeks start phasing out the live until all you're offering them is frozen.

 

Once you have them on frozen brine you can then start mixing in frozen mysis Following the same pattern as above. 1st feed both soaked in garlic, then stop soaking the brine in garlic, and finally phase out the brine until they're just getting mysis.

 

After they're eating the mysis well you can stop the garlic.

 

This is a long process and to get it to work you really have to give them plenty of time to learn garlic=food. I'm just starting this with my seahorse fry (my adults are CB so they came eating mysis). This seems to be the most commonly recommended method on seahorse.org.

[Guest Mike & Michelle]

One of the trick you can use to get seahorses onto frozen in to condition them to associate the smell of garlic with food...kinda like Pavlow's dogs

 

Heres what you do:

Buy something like the Kent Garlic any kind of garlic supplement will work as long as it's not the 'odor-free' type. You can even use real minced garlic.

 

For 2-3 weeks soak whatever food you give them in the garlic. Brine shrimp work well for this as they'll ingest the garlic...just make sure you enrich the brine so the seahorses are getting the nutrition they need. Make sure you're consistant about using garlic for every feeding. This will condition the horses to associate garlic with food.

 

For the next 2 weeks start adding small amounts of frozen in with the live food when you feed. Make sure you soak both frozen and live in the garlic. It works best if the frozen is the same type of food as the live. Again brine works as it's easy to come by both live and frozen.

 

After that stop using the garlic on the live but keep using it on the frozen. Over the next couple of weeks start phasing out the live until all you're offering them is frozen.

 

Once you have them on frozen brine you can then start mixing in frozen mysis Following the same pattern as above. 1st feed both soaked in garlic, then stop soaking the brine in garlic, and finally phase out the brine until they're just getting mysis.

 

After they're eating the mysis well you can stop the garlic.

 

This is a long process and to get it to work you really have to give them plenty of time to learn garlic=food. I'm just starting this with my seahorse fry (my adults are CB so they came eating mysis). This seems to be the most commonly recommended method on seahorse.org.

 

I purchased live brine yesterday and she showed no interest last night, nor this morning. I am going to try again tonight and then maybe try ghost shrimp. I just hate to see her starve.