Seahorse babies.

[Matt LeBaron]

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.

[Hilary]

Matt, that is incredibly cool! Congrats!

[LanglandJoshua]

ummm wow...Im jealous. Congrats

[flowerseller]

very nice.

[Chad]

Nicely done, that is awecome!

[roni]

very cool!

[Big Country]

Sweet deal Matt congrats

[Coral Hind]

Very cool, thanks for sharing!

[treesprite]

Cute little things.

[Jan]

Awesome!

[Matt LeBaron]

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.

[Chad]

Congrats!!

 

Both Piper and L82Rise have expressed interest to me in the past about raising seahorse fry (since my overflow goes into my sump tank with other fish... I rarely see any). But you may try them first

 

 

[Jan]

I'd like to give it a try as well. LMK. thanks

 

J

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

[Jan]

I'd like to give it a try as well. LMK. thanks

 

J

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

[Sham]

That's awesome! How hard is it to raise seahorses? Is their diet crazy? How do other fish treat them? Congrats on being a parent!

Edited April 1, 2011 by Sham

[Chad]

That's awesome! How hard is it to raise seahorses? Is their diet crazy? How do other fish treat them? Congrats on being a parent!

 

Matt, I hope you don't mind me answering:

 

Certain species of seahorses are not difficult to raise as compared to other salt water fish; however, it does require some specialized setup and equipment. Other species are much more difficult. It depends on whether the species can "hitch" from birth or if the fry goes through a pelagic phase. H. Erectus hitches from birth, H. Reidi does not.

 

Seahorses in general do not have a crazy diet, mine get mysis 1-2 times per day. Once every couple of days I enrich their food with a vitamin powder. When I am in a LFS that has live brine, I buy that and gut load them for the seahorses. Baby seahorses need food much more frequently, though at 5-6 times per day and generally graduate from rotifers to baby brine shrimp to cyclopeze to chopped mysis to mysis.

 

It depends on the other fish, some ignore them, some pester them, and others "make them nervous." There is a good tankmate guide here. Although I always recommend that someone just starting out with seahorses keep a species only tank. Seahorses are susceptible to many types of pathogens that can be carried innocuously by other fish (even other seahorses). Until you are confident with both your ability to quarantine incoming fish and recognize/treat problems, it is best to stick with one species from one source.

 

And, I always have to mention that keeping seahorses at a consistently slightly lowered reef temperature (less than 74F) is, in my opinion, the single most important NEED that has to be met to successfully keep them. At higher reef temperatures, any issue that does arise moves much too fast for us to identify and treat the problem in an enclosed environment. Lower temperatures gives us a chance to intervene successfully, plus it seems that fewer issues come up in general at lower temperatures.

[Sham]

Awesome! Thanks for the info! Since I'm brand new to this, I'll put the seahorses on hold for now.

[Matt LeBaron]

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.

[Matt LeBaron]

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]

I love the cirii!!

 

Totally awesome!

[Matt LeBaron]

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.

[squiddly]

As one who failed at seahorses (cudas) I can only be amazed at what you have done. I was very sad at losing my babies, so I don't know if I'm ready to try again but I'll be following your adventures, and when I do decide to get back into the gorgeous critters, I'll be sure to ask you for advice, starting with a heartier species of seahorse than I had.

[Chad]

Kudas are a tough one to keep as much of the livestock out there comes from Asian mass brooding tanks that are open to the ocean... so they are technically tank raised, but are worse off than most wild caughts (due to crowding issues + all the normal wild caught issues). There are a few good breeders for kudas out there though. If you have a reliable means of keeping your tank less than 74, I recommend you try again if you are interested. Matt and a few others on the boards are pretty experienced and can offer good advice to you

[squiddly]

Kudas are a tough one to keep as much of the livestock out there comes from Asian mass brooding tanks that are open to the ocean... so they are technically tank raised, but are worse off than most wild caughts (due to crowding issues + all the normal wild caught issues). There are a few good breeders for kudas out there though. If you have a reliable means of keeping your tank less than 74, I recommend you try again if you are interested. Matt and a few others on the boards are pretty experienced and can offer good advice to you

 

Thanks, Chad. I'm trying to find a reliable method now, starting by reprograming my Aquacontroller Jr. And thanks for the info on the Kudas. I learned about the mass brooding tanks only I had my first ones. I won't be doing Kudas again for a long time.

[Chad]

No problem, depending on the location of your tank fans might be a viable means of keeping the tank at a lower temperature. Although, for insurance in our hot summers, I really prefer to run a chiller. If you are set on having Kudas again, ORA has captive bred ones that you can order through an LFS (be sure to pick them up while still in the transport bags).