Woke up to a suprise this morning!

[Diana]

Thanks guys! I'm excited and going to do my best to raise them (and if I cant, I'll try again next time ).

Originally Posted by Beverly

What species are they? I'm thinking they are too small to eat newly hatched brine shrimp until they get a bit bigger. For the next few weeks, they will probably only eat rotifers. Hope I am wrong, though. Good luck with them

They are reidi, which are pretty small when born. I've read they do best on roties when they are young, but numerous people on seahorse.org are raising thiers on bbs and having a fairly good succsess rate. A lady on the site also noted that my fry seem to be fairly large, and might do okay on bbs right off the bat.

I'm crossing my fingers.

-Diana

[pc604]

now that's cool! i've never seen baby ones before. good luck raising them

[Beverly]

Originally Posted by Diana

A lady on the site also noted that my fry seem to be fairly large, and might do okay on bbs right off the bat.

I'm crossing my fingers.

I'm crossing mine, too

Next to feeding them, ammonia build up is their tank is the second biggest hurdle to overcome. Make sure you have plenty of change water on hand. When I tried raising our H. whitei, I often did two 50% water changes a day, siphoning crud from the bottom as I did so.

Good luck!!!

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Also test the change water to be exactly the same as the baby growout tank's (pH, salinity & temp. mainly). At this stage, they're very sensitive to changes in the water composition & being extra careful will hopefully pay off.

Not to be a downer, but if it doesn't work out, don't be too discouraged because most breeders (whether for seahorses or other species) are unsuccessful with their first batch of young. Good luck with this "new pile of extra work you weren't expecting"

Anthony

[Diana]

Haha! To quote it perfectly anthony! LOL

I devised a good little water change strategy. I mixed a large bucket of salt water when I added the fry (part of the water they are in now is from this bucket). And there is also water in the tank around the glass bowl that is airated and the same temp as the water in the bowl. So, when doing a water change, I will remove water from in the bowl, replace that water with water from in the tank, and then replace the tank water with the bucket water.

Follow? hehe. Its a little confusing.... but that way the water going into the fry bowl will be exactly the same temp as the water in the bowl.


-Diana

[Diana]

It looks like they've snicked in air... I see a teeny weeny little bubble in thier throats, although they are not floating or swimming funny.

It might be because there were some little bubbles trapped along the inside of the bowl...

We'll see how many are left in the morning. So far though, none have died in the bowl.

-Diana

[G1GY]

Very

[Beverly]

Originally Posted by Diana

It might be because there were some little bubbles trapped along the inside of the bowl...

Diana,

Gently turkey baste those bubbles on the sides of the bowl to get rid of them.

Also, rest a low wattage light on the counter so it shines into the very bottom of the tank. The fry will stay low where the light is so they don't snick water from the surface.

[Raf]

Yeah I got rid of the bubbles once I noticed them and have a light attracting the fry to the bottom of the bowl. If these guys dont work out, at least I'll be prepared for the next batch!

I think my pair mated again yesterday, the female was SO FULL of eggs she dropped some on the ground.

Its very exciting nonetheless!


-Diana

[Diana]

Well they are all still alive, but only about 5 or 6 have bellies full of brine shrimp. A lot of them just follow the shrimp around but never snick at it, I guess its only the largest of the fry that are able to eat the brine. I enriched the brine with Selcon, hopefully this will provide the fatty acids.

-Diana