A journal of an attempt to raise Seahorse Babies

[howdy20012002]

Well I have 1 left.
looking good.
and I also now have another batch of about 50 more babies to attempt to raise again. (born Friday)
Man, this is going to be alot of work.
I am going to try to learn how to decapsulate the brine shrimp as I think that may have been why a couple of them died from eating the shell
wish me luck with this new batch.
Neal

[Beverly]

Good luck with the new fry, Neal

[woodcarver]

Hey Neil , Good luck with the new batch . Not to be pushy but you should not need to de-capsulate the brine shrimp eggs . If you are using the pop bottle method the shrimp and shells are completely separated when you allow the hatched shrimp to syphon out of the bottom airline leaving the shells on the top of the water ! If you want to make absolutely certain shine a light at the bottom of the bottle ,as the shrimp are attracted to the light.
Hope the last little guy survives.
....................Dave

[DiscusZ]

When I was breeding angels, austrialian rainbows I used the capsulated . as far as I remember the decaps would not hatch.

To avoid getting shells in your live BBS I turned off the air for about 20 mins or so. then I turned on a light near the base(already had a hard air tube in to syphon out the BBS) the shells will float to the surface. never had any problems with shells.


I too used a 2l pop bottle. I drilled the hole through the ca which was no the bottom. inserted a rigid airline tube in and siliconed it.


Good luck

Jim

[woodcarver]

http://www.bettatalk.com/hatching_brine_shrimp.htm

[woodcarver]

http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com/Bri...p-Eggs-c2.html

[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