A journal of an attempt to raise Seahorse Babies

[Raf]

What type of horses are they, I believe Anthony already asked you?

As for your losses, we have tried raising reidi's several times and found that the losses seem to come from three main reasons, some which you may have done trying to raise yours.

Firstly, if the babies snick air, they are good as dead. It seems they cannot evacuate those tiny bubbles stuck in their gut. You have to be very careful while catching them in the main tank and then transporting them into their own tank. This is problem is further escalated once you use an airpump to create current only to find micro bubbles sticking to the glass bowl or floating in the water coloumn for you babies to snick. Also, be careful where you place the light on their tank. These guys are attracted to light instinctvely, so if you place a light on top of their tank, they have a good chance at snicking air.

Secondly, ammonia poisoning. Having them in such a small bowl and feeding them so much food so often will give you major headaches with ammonia spikes. This is a major killer and no doubt a cause of some of your death IMO. It is vital to find a balance of tank size, food concentration and MOST IMPORTANTLY waterchanges leading to superior water quality.

Lastly, feeding the correct food at the right times. Yes rotifers are great, but are they eating them? or are the rotifers droping from pH or temp shock as soon as they enter your baby tank, hence ammonia problems. BBS is important too, but when to make the transition? Also, I have heard numerous problems with baby horses overfeeding on BBS or getting damaged by BBS in their guts. BTW, decapsulating BBS eggs is very easy using bleech.

All in all, the difficulty of raising ponies depends on the SPECIES and the equipment used and of course your experience raisng these guys.

Anyways, thats all I gots to say, good luck with the next batch but don't get dissapointed if history repeats itself. If these guys where easy we would see $1.99 weekend specials on ponies at the LFS.

[howdy20012002]

As far as I know, they are reidis.

[DiscusZ]

one thing you can do is use SW from your tanks. I have done this with great success as well.

Good luck on the 2nd batch of Seahorses


jim

[Murminator]

Hey Neal I tried raising some FW ram fry a few times with no luck I recently bought some german rams from a breeder and he gave me tips on raising them that seemed so simple, maybe it will work on the ponies.
He would put the babies in a tupperware container, just a round 4" one, and just let it float around in the main tank with a air line with about 1 bubble every 2 seconds just for water movement and he would have like 150 babies in it. The reason why this rather than it's own tank it like puting 200 babies in a gymnasium then throwing food in there, they are young and haven't learned to find food or eat yet, so by conentrating them in a small area they learn faster cause food is always floating around in there. And water changes a simple just dip the dish down a bit and viola done new water just make sure your don't swish them out
Now that I know all this think my rams will lay eggs???
HTH

[howdy20012002]

thanks everyone for the advice and tips
I will try a couple of them in the future.
this second batch isn't doing all that well
I think I may have overdosed them on Prime.
I was adding some every water change and I was doing waterchanges every 3 hours...so yea, too much chemicals.
they are moving around more now, but they weren't looking good over the weekend...I haven't removed any bodies yet because I am finding it difficult to tell whether or not they are dead or alive. There are lots of them just lying on the ground, but they are still moving around.
I still have one alive from the first batch.
I am feeding it baby brine shrimp and Rotifers.
I am putting in Phytoplankton into the tank as well in hopes to keep the food alive for while and ensure that they are nutrutious enough to sustain the seahorse.
Raf - reference the rotifers - I take out tank water everyday out of tanks to replace the water that I take the rotifers out with.
I have 10 gallons of rotifers going at all times and generally switch about 4 - 5 gallons of the water everyday out of my different tanks.
the ph and such should be relatively the same as the water in the baby seahourse tank as I have taken the water out of the main SH tank.
I don't think the rotifers are dying in the baby seahorse tank.
I belive that the water conditions were the biggest problem of the deaths...
I am trying to do more water changes and although I want to have some prime in the water, I definitely was putting in way too much.
Lessons learned.
As well, I increased the amount of air bubbles. I am not using a stone, I just have a tube into the bottom of the tank that causes the current to keep them moving and yet, producing no noticable air bubbles to create any issues that I am aware of.
I realize that I always have the chance of some small bubbles, but can't think of any other way to do this. they definitely need some movement and air.
The lamp I do have is at the bottom of the tank so to attract them to the bottom. at the same time, the rotifers and brine shrimp are attracted to the same area. Thus making them easier for the SH to eat.
I have yet to decapsulate the bringe shrimp and am undecided to which way I am going to go. I have read that the shells can cause the death of the SH cuz they get stuck in the mouth.
However, I am really really busy with my Limo company, my career in the army and my Salt water business and am finding that I just don't have enought time to do everything.
So yea, decapsulating may wait a little and I might just continue on with the way I am currently doing things. Currently, this consists of turning off the air supply and allowing the rotifers to settle to the bottom and then siphoning them into the SH tank...I add newly hatched without adding anything. After the first day, I start adding flake food and enrichment formula to feed the brine shrimp to keep them going and nutritional.
My biggest thing is once they are in the baby SH tank, how do I keep them alive and nutritious. I am currently adding phytoplankton in hopes that will work..but any other suggestions would be appreciated. I definitely don't want to add the enrichment formula as the cost would be higher than I want to incur.
thanks again for the advice and if anyone has any suggestions to what I am doing that would be greatly appreciated as I am definitely not an expert in the area of raising them.

[Diana]

Try visiting www.seahorse.org and have a look at some people's reidi setups. I cannot offer any great advice since I have been trying to raise reidi fry for a while now with no luck. The longest I've had one live is 2 weeks. My ponies give birth to over 200 fry every 2 weeks, and its disheartening to flush them but I just dont have the time for them right now.

With reidis its extremely important to keep them away from the surface of the water. That is the reason why the airline tubing is in there, to keep em down near the bottom. So the positioning of the tubing is critical- it needs to create a circular flow pushing the fry quickly back down to the bottom if they happen to catch a ride to the top. Obviously the airline helps with airation, but IMO preventing them from snicking air is the biggest challenge.

How can you tell if they snick air? Its quite easy. You'll see a shiny little bubble in thier 'throat' area. I'd say 80% of my fry have air bubbles by the time I see them in the morning (they are usually always born at night). If you have difficulty seeing the air bubble then try shining a light on them to make sure they do or dont.

I think on seahorse.org its the general consensus that a "kriesel" setup works the best. You'll need a plastic fishbowl. I have yet to try this setup, but once I get some time I will give it a go.

Anywhoo, I'm not sure if it helped, but it would be fantastic if you had succsess with your fry. I cant wait to be able to raise the little tykes. Reidis are definately one of the hardest species to raise... I'm looking into adding another species that have fry that might be a little easier.

-Diana

[howdy20012002]

Thanks Diane for the info.
I got alot of my info from Seahorse.org.
I think that my last batch of babies might have done alot of snicking.
unfortunately not many are left.
However, the one left from the orginal batch is still going strong.
I am feeding it BBS enriched with selco. I hatch a new batch every 2 or 3 days. feed them right away after the birth, then starting feeding and enriching every day so that they are still nutritional for the SH.
Alot of work though for one little guy.
But I am very proud of the fact that the little dude is still going.
it is still really tiny though.
I will keep posting the progress.
Neal