increasing biodiversity in DSB

[Glampyre]

I'm in the westend, about a 10 minute walk from AI. Speaking of, Dez is starting to sell frags from the farm.

Beverly, my small pond is 3500 gal (I have three more on our family farm 50,000 gal each, so 40 gal counts as a nano for me.

[Beverly]

Originally Posted by Glampyre

Beverly, my small pond is 3500 gal (I have three more on our family farm 50,000 gal each, so 40 gal counts as a nano for me.

Okay, that explains it. In your case a 40 gal IS an nano

[Glampyre]

Beverly, speaking of nano's, I have a 10 I use as a hospital, but not very often, so I'm thinking of doing it up for sea horses. Any suggestions?

[Beverly]

Originally Posted by Glampyre

Beverly, speaking of nano's, I have a 10 I use as a hospital, but not very often, so I'm thinking of doing it up for sea horses. Any suggestions?

Someone else from this board recently PMed me about seahorses.

Basically, I told them that SHs are a PITA to keep. They are not like normal fish who, when seeing you approach the tank, come running for food. Seahorses are very shy feeders, and are prone to health problems that aren't found in regular marine fish.

Before you even consider seahorses as pets, do research upon research upon REASEARH to make sure you're up to the rigors of keeping these lovely but often frustrating animals.

Two places to go are:

http://www.syngnathid.org/

http://www.seahorse.org/

10 gallons isn't going to be big enough to house anything but a pair of small horses, or a whole bunch of dwarf horses. Dwarfs need a constant supply of enriched live food in order to survive. Small SHs, if captive bred, will very likely be trained to eat frozen Zoe-soaked PE mysis.

But they're still a PITA, if you really want to know what I think. I love my horses, but they're worse than having a newborn baby in the house sometimes.

Wish I could send you more positive reviews of SH keeping, but they're very tough to keep, even when captive bred.

HTH.

[Glampyre]

Thanks Beverly,
I was thinking of doing dwarves. I talked to a guy a while back that has plans to fly to the states so he can get several pairs from Oceanriders. It'll cost, but he said he'd be willing to bring back a pair for me. That gives me about three months to prep (or chicken out?)

[Beverly]

Originally Posted by Glampyre

Thanks Beverly,
I was thinking of doing dwarves.

You're welcome

Dwarfs are going to cause all kinds of problems, imo. You're going to have 2 or 3 or 4 brine shrimp hatcheries going at one time to feed them properly. The brine eggs also have to go through a decapsulation process before being put in the first stage of the hatchery process.

I initially considered dwarfs, but after understanding the full extent of the undertaking of culturing baby brine shrimp then enriching them, I knew I wasn't up to the task. I cultured live food for our finches a number of years ago, and it was a definite PITA. Culturing bbs for dwarfs is infinitely more tedious and time consuming.

But if a person has the patience, time and a huge amount of desire, dwarfs would certainly do well in a 10 gal.