Experience with seahorse survival
 

For those who have kept seahorses, were they wild caught or captive bred, and how long have you kept them alive? The answers to this poll will help me decide whether to get seahorses.

I would suggest forgetting about wild caught seahorses. Stick with captive bred.

I have kept wc (in the old days before cr were readily available) and they were difficult but I usually needed to always keep at least one other "trained" seahorse around to teach the new ones how to eat frozen mysis. I also work at home so I can spend the required time to squirt food at them all the time.

They are now all cr with the CITES ban & that makes them reasonably easier to raise & keep alive. I still think that anyone interested in keeping seahorses think long & hard because of their special needs. You should have a tank dedicated to just seahorses or maybe with a few small, slow, harmless fish (I kept mysis eating mandarin gobies with mine). You also need to feed at least twice a day & still keep water quality high. Try tnot to have bristleworms in a seahorse tank because they will reach epidemic proportions in most seahorse species tanks.

Seahorses are extremely cute, but they don't really move around much, so don't expect them to "entertain" you that way, except at feeding time.

Anthony

I've only kept CB, never WC. Unfortunately, my males often got air in their pouches and they died no matter how I tried to evac the pouches. Females lived much longer than males in my SH tank.

i have lost a few over the last few months..
they just seem to slowly waste away.
They are TR.
I personally woudn't buy WC, simply because the rate of survival is so low.
it gets to be an ethical dilemma of killing things for our own purpose.
Neal

I had my captive bread sea horses for about 3 months. I got board with the tank and ended up selling them. So can't tell you how long they would survive but I would sugest getting captive bred. They seem to be more prone to taking frozen foods and not relying on live foods.

IME, having a feeding station for mysis (preferably PE mysis) instead of just dropping in food for SHs, makes a huge difference in the amount of food they eat.

Yup, train them to eat in one place all the time. Of course, sometimes just training them to eat frzn mysis is the trick, even if cr, some will get stressed from switching tanks & stop eating. Seen it happen before.

Anthony

Just wondering where people got their seahorses from.

Got my Shs from a supplier in ON. Unfortunately, he is no longer in business.