Cautionary note re: seahorses for anyone who is considering them

[Lydia]

Thanks for sharing your experience...

Is there any way you can find live shrimp to feed your remaining seahorse? Maybe grow your own?? There should be articles on seahorse.org telling you how to do that (but I know it's labour intensive, plus you need the right set-up, etc.)

I set up my first marine tank September 1st, and hope to one day have Canadian-bred seahorses in it. I have a cleaning crew in there now, and last week I bought a Royal Gramma, as I'm realizing now it's going to take awhile to find captive-bred seahorses... I'd hoped to have them by now, but it seems that private breeders are few and far between (especially for the breed I want). People keep asking "don't you have seahorses yet?", and I keep saying "no, this takes time to find the right ones..." Argh!

I feel bad that you have gone through this, and this has only re-affirmed why I won't be buying these from any LFS...Thanks again for sharing your experience, as painful as it is...

If ANYONE reading this thread knows where I can get Canadian bred seahorses (erectus or reidi), please let me know!

Lydia

[trilinearmipmap]

Originally Posted by Lydia

If ANYONE reading this thread knows where I can get Canadian bred seahorses (erectus or reidi), please let me know!
Lydia

Lydia, the point of my post was: I've had 30+ years of fishkeeping experience, bred various fish, done FW planted, have a reef tank thriving for 3-1/2 years, kept various difficult fish corals and inverts, then I went all-out to do a seahorse tank properly and they all died. In other words, don't do seahorses.

[Pan]

Originally Posted by trilinearmipmap

Lydia, the point of my post was: I've had 30+ years of fishkeeping experience, bred various fish, done FW planted, have a reef tank thriving for 3-1/2 years, kept various difficult fish corals and inverts, then I went all-out to do a seahorse tank properly and they all died. In other words, don't do seahorses.

I 've kept seahorses in the past for quite a few years at one time and experienced no difficulties other than normal. I had 2 pairs for 3 years at one point. I made sure they were captive bred but other than that nothing special. aside from a planted macro type tank no corals with no live rock except in sump. they did fine and do fine for many people. They are no the most hardy of marine animals to keep you are right, but there are marine fish far more delicate than these people keep with some success. The only problem now is deciding if what you have are WC or CB...which is very difficult. But i would say you have as much chance with CB seahorses as your avg. butterfly. I also personally know someone who setup a cadlights 34 gallon nano and has two seahorses in it, they have been living for 9 months now, he has had no experience with marine animals until he purchased the tank. Other than maturing the tank for 5 months before adding them he did nothin special ether. I know they are CB and i beleive they are Hippocampus reidi. But anyone who doesn't admit to luck being part of the game in captive marine ecosystems is fooling themselves...now as to who had the luck...well who knows me and him good luck and you bad...or the other way. They like anything should not be done without significant forethought and planning as well as a genuine interest in creating an ecosystem your pets can thrive in.

[albert_dao]

Captive-bred kuda's are pretty common. I've had some for well over a month, some for as much as four months.

[trilinearmipmap]

Are they really captive-bred? I read on the seahorse boards that most captive breeding places are no longer in business, and most "captive-bred" seahorses are wild-caught, net-pen raised. Can you tell me the name and location of the breeder of your seahorses?

[albert_dao]

All I know is that they're from New Zealand.

I had them purchased through a transhipper.

Either way, they eat frozen PE Mysis, were doing so within 20 minutes of arrival and have been doing so for a while.

[seahorsecanada]

I doubt H Kuda in Canada is CB. Kuda in my city has the lowest price (around $49) comparing to other species, except those WC ones that only eat live food. In South East Asia, seahorse farmers raise large quantity of net-pen kuda. Those seahorses eat pods and shrimps in the ocean. After they reach a certain size, farmers feed them frozen food. A small numbers of them eat. Those are then sent to our aquarium as "tank raised seahorses". Those don't eat frozen food will starve to death and then sold to traditional chinese medicine stores. They are cheap because there is not actually any big cost for raising them. I have been trying very hard to breed seahorses. It is just very very "time-consuming" and "costly".

There was a well-known seahorse breeder "Drace Marine Aquaculture" in USA. The owner Jorge closed the business in Oct 2007. His business was actually making money. The reason why he closed that business is because he had no time for his family! After he closed the business, all other breeders ran out of their H Erectus since then.

Breeding seahorses in Canada is also costly. There is no LIVE brine shrimps or feeder shrimps suppliers in Canada. Seahorse juveniles have to eat live brine shrimp, amphipods, or feeder shrimps when they grow too big to take baby BS but not yet trained to take frozen food. I always have to order my BS from FL. The shipping is 3 times more expensive than the product itself! Also brine shrimp eggs are lot more expensive than those sold in USA. Due to this reason, there is hardly anyone breeding seahorses in Canada. Even they do, the CB seahorse is much more expensive than those bred and sold in USA.

[Myka]

^ What he said!!!

Originally Posted by Lydia

I set up my first marine tank September 1st...

...If ANYONE reading this thread knows where I can get Canadian bred seahorses (erectus or reidi), please let me know!

Lydia

Eeek!!! For the horses' sake...don't try to keep them until you've gained a lot of experience with easier marine fish.