Anyone have a culture of Rotifers?

[Matt LeBaron]

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.

 

[Fazio92]

Send me a PM

 

-Anthony

[davelin315]

Do baby seahorses eat rotifers? I think that seahorses in general can handle some pretty big food. If you weren't so far away I'd say come by and get some mysids to feed to them.

[dbartco]

can't hurt to throw some at them some. better than nothing until the bbs hatch out.

[Matt LeBaron]

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.

[Jan]

Wow, congratulations. You're in good hands with Anthony. Wont they be fine eating the pods that are in your macro, inside the sump? Just until the brine hatch? Keep posting, please. I'd like to know how everything turns out.

[Matt LeBaron]

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.

[davelin315]

Very neat, I had always thought that seahorses would just eat Artemia nauplii and whichever variety of pod they could find. No idea that they were so small that rotifers could be substituted.

[Big Country]

Congratulations Matt

[Matt LeBaron]

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.

[Chad]

Very neat, I had always thought that seahorses would just eat Artemia nauplii and whichever variety of pod they could find. No idea that they were so small that rotifers could be substituted.

 

Depending on the species this is true. Erectus can eat bbs right after birth, but they are a bit large and not really a natural food for them. Most of the breeders at least mix rotifers in with bbs for the first week. Some of the pelagic species (like reidi) need rotifers offered for longer and are sometimes reared using a greenwater method.

 

Baby seahorseare voricious little eaters and will usually decimate a pod population and starve if that is the only food source. Good for suplementation, though.

 

I attached a PDF that shows the method Dan Underwood (Seahorse Source) uses to rear erectus.

scaleerectus.pdf

Edited February 7, 2011 by Chad

[Fazio92]

Anytime Matt, good luck and keep us posted!!!

 

-Anthony

 

 

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.

[Matt LeBaron]

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.

[bcjm]

How are the seahorse babies doing?

[Matt LeBaron]

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!