A journal of an attempt to raise Seahorse Babies

[howdy20012002]

yes i did put the ones back into the tank.
Except for one, I noticed that his tail had been broken, so I put it out of its misery.
I felt really stupid about the whole thing.
I had tried really hard to make sure that they were dead. But I felt I also just couldn't leave a bunch of bodies in the tank as I was afraid of spiking the ammonia levels because of the decomposing bodies.
IMO, if they were just lying on the ground they probably weren't doing that well in the first place and probably weren't going to make it anyways.
thanks for the support. I am really happy with the results so far.
From what I have read online, I am doing better then the vast majority of people already..so yea..I must be doing something right.

[michika]

How big do they look now?

[howdy20012002]

they are probably about 1 cm in length now
still tiny

[OCDP]

Keep up the good work. Sounds like it takes a lot of effort and time to raise these little guys... I'd say your definitely doing something right here as well.

[howdy20012002]

Well I pulled 9 more bodies out this morning.
The good thing is that the rest are looking good except for 1 or 2 that still hang out at the bottom.
I think that I should slow down on casaulties. I better as I only now have 20 left. But hey day 11...and the fact that I have any left is amazing.
So yea, all in all a good first attempt.
Egads, if Bev is right, then I only have 3 days left before the next batch come.

[SaltLady]

WTG!!

My Kudas' just had babies on Monday. This is my 3rd attemp at raising the fry. While waiting for my rotifers to "grow out" I have been feeding them frozen cyclopeeze and they seem to manage with that ok.

I don't get big brood sizes like you do, though each time I have had fry the number seems to be increasing.

Day 10 for me has always been the critical day, so I am hoping to make it past day 10 this time.

Glad you started a journal, it is very helpful to me and also very interesting!

As for starting to feed bbs, maybe check out http://www.seahorse.org/ I found allot of useful information. They were a great help to me when my horses came down with worms (ewww). Fortunately I was able to get the meds they needed and treat them and they are back in good health

Good Luck and keep us updated!

[woodcarver]

Hey Howdy , Don't know if it will help but ,when I raised thousands of freshwater angels , you could see if they were feeding by the pink colour of their little bellies ,which also extended noticably. Maybe the same thing would work with your little guys. Just a thought......................Dave
P,S. you could just syringe a few shrimp into the rearing tank and watch the bevaviour of the sea horses,again small angel fry can be seen attacking the shrimp .Using a magnifying glass helps . Good Luck

[howdy20012002]

reference the brine shrimp did u decapsulize them before hatching them? or how does that work.
if you didn't, how did u get rid of the shell afterwords?
my fear is that the seahorses with choke on the stupid shell
thanks
Neal

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/FA023


That's the link cc_bruno sent me about deencapsulating brine shrimp eggs. Worked well for me.

HTH,

Anthony

[michika]

When you hatch brine shrimp you can purchase decapsulated brine shimp or capsulated. When you use capsulated ones, you avoid getting the shells by only draining to a certain point.

If you want I can send you a video link about brine shrimp.