Real's Seahorse Diary

[real]

Since SRC 2.0 database has been wiped out, I am taking this opportunity to re-organise my seahorse postings. I intend to make this an ongoing thread to report on my experience with seahorse keeping and breeding. I will try to be as factual/honest as possible, reporting on notable progress/success as well as setback/failure.

All RELEVANT advice, comments, sharings, constructive criticism are welcomed. Please do not post general seahorse questions in this thread.

All my seahorse pictures can be viewed at http://community.webshots.com/user/_real, will only attach illustrative pics here.

Now my seahorse story begins....

I have been keeping seahorses since Sep 2002, but on a casual basis (sidekick to my reef tank). My SH craze only started in Jun 2003 when I purchased a stunning pair of wild caught Brazilian seahorses (H.reidi). From then on, my life changed,

I shifted all my attention to seahorses: reading web resources, participating in SH forums, buying SH book, learning to culture BBS/greenwater/rotifer, to the extent of considering converting my reef tank to SH only tank.

My SH luck has been extremely good recently. On 13 Jun, I bought a red male reidi from OceanPlanet and orange-turn-yellow female reidi from MarineLife, at S$40-50 each. Both were not eating frozen mysis when bought, but started to do so after several days. Then they started courting and mating immediately! And then the red male was pregnant!! He gave birth to a premature baby (I call him/her BigBrother) on 29 Jun, and 150-200 babies two days later!!!

The reidi pair had 2 more batches of babies on 14 Jul and 26 Jul, almost every 2 weeks one batch. After 3rd batch, they stopped for a while, and is pregnant again now! Both parents are eating very well, look healthy and strong, and stunningly colored.

Next I will touch on the SH babies... but here are the loving parents:

[real]

And here is the sequence of pictures of red reidi during his first pregnancy period:

[real]

My seahorse tank is a 30"x16"x16" tank which acts as a refugium to my 3ft reef tank on top. I have a Hailea chiller which has temperature set at 27C. Here is my tank pic:

[real]

Now the babies...

To date, I only have 2 babies (BigBrother and Darkie) surviving from first batch, now 1.5 months already. 2nd and 3rd batches are totally gone, none survived more than a month. The 3 batches have population about 200, 100, 300 respectively, the 2nd batch is exceptionally low because the father still has a big pouch after delivery, I think he reserves them all the way to

the 3rd batch, hence explaining why 3rd batch is huge amount. The babies are 7-8mm when born and black color, only BigBrother has lighter color with dark stripes.

My first nursery was a simple triangular curved-front tank with an airline. The upper part is darkened with black paper and light source at bottom of tank so that BBS and SH babies will be attracted to bottom and avoid intaking air on water

surface. I also added Ulva (sea lettuce) with some pods and DT phytoplankton. I only feed BBS enriched with DT and/or Selcon. This is a dirty nursery bcos I seldom siphon the debris on tank bottom. I also added a fake plant for hitching purpose. The biggest problem with my 1st breeding is dumping BBS and their shells in the nursery, thus a lot of babies got stucked with the shells causing them to itch or float on water surface. I left half of 1st batch in the parent tank, and they were are gone after a day.

Here is my first lousy nursery (yet it has 2 survivors):

[real]

My second nursery, used to breed 2nd and 3rd batch babies, is a clean 1ft tank. It has 4 airlines on each corner so as to generate current on water surface thus prevent babies intaking air. No Ulva or pods are added, debris are siphon frequently, and 30-50% water changes every few days. This time I am more careful with siphoning BBS by using a light source to attract BBS to a spot and siphon them using a turkey blaster.

2nd batch babies are skinny and more "transparent", and most are gone within a few days.

3rd batch has so many babies, and I transferred all into the nursery. This batch looks healthy and promising and I only have 1 casualty by day 3. Then day 4 has 30+ dead, I quickly changed 50% with NSW. The next day another 150+ gone! The rest are all gone within a week. I think my mistake is putting 300 babies into a 1ft tank, competition may be a cause of their death. I saw them eating BBS, but maybe they have problem digesting the food.

I started to believe what experts said: H.reidi first food should be rotifers. But culturing rotifers need green water culture first, so basically I must provide the entire food chain from the top. This is too much work for me, I may consider buying greenwater & rotifers from LFS & fellow hobbyists.

I have setup my third nursery awaiting my next breed, an exact replica of SimplySmitten's nursery, with 2 round bowls inside a 2ft tank. This is considered a "washing machine" ###### flow-through nursery. Will provide details soon.

Here are my 2 babies:

[real]

Other than my beloved reidi pair, I would also like to introduce other tank mates. This is my oldest SH friend alive, a female H.barbouri, with me for nearly a year now. She has changed color from whitish beige to darker brown, and became fatter and more convexed.

[real]

Another favourite of mine is this deceased female yellow H.comes (tiger tail). She had been with me for about 8 months and was eating very well. But she suffered from gas bubble disease (GBD) on the tail for a long time, and eventually was

floating and not able to hitch. I made the dreadful mistake by bursting the bubbles with needle, causing infection on the tail, and eventually the tail rot off. She still survived for weeks, but passed away subsequently.

You can see the gas bubbles on her tail in this picture:

[real]

I also had a deceased big black male H.kuda who has gone through so much with me. He refused to eat frozen mysis for quite some time when purchased, but later ate them like a pig. I thought the happy story starts here, but it is the reverse. He suffered from GBD in the pouch causing him to float. I evacuated his pouch a few times, each time fine bubbles were released from his pouch. But the problem recurred, worst still he started to have bubbles on his tail. I transferred him into another tank, no improvement, then I removed the airline bcos I have given up hope. To my surprise, he recovered from GBD in pouch & tail and not floating anymore! I think his GBD was caused by gas saturation in my SH tank, hence when the hospital tank has no airline the problem goes away. I happily put him back to SH tank, but now he suffered from flesh-eating parasites (I think) and there was a white patch on his body. Afraid that it will spread to other SH, I put him back to hospital tank. He died shortly.

Here are his photos on better days and suffering from GBD:

[real]

Another seahorse I want to share is a female Kuda who drastically changed from solid black to light yellow within weeks. Although I have seen many SH changed color, this is the most drastic change I have seen.

Here are the pictures for comparison (that's all for now):

[metals99]

hehe reminds me of the sea horse in nemo cartoon great job real and nice seahorse u have..

cheers

[souphamster]

hi there.. nice colours! rarely see them at LFS, where do u normally buy and choose SH? most of the LFS have only brown black wild kind. I wanted to get a pair of yellow but then not many places have it.. only saw at sealife, but dont dare to ask about the price. BTW, are u able to tell us roughly how are the price range like for colours ? are yours all wild and tame to eat?

[ong]

Hi Real,

Nice intro. !

I'm currently also raising 50-100 my SH flies in the newly set up breeding tank. I'm using a small tall retangular tank with a hang-on filter conected all the way down in the sand bed. Same as you, cover with a blank cover around the top of the tank. 3 days now and loss a few, rest still looking good....I feed them with DT and enriched salcon newly hatched BS too....In this small tank, they still have 20-30 tomato clown fish flies (this is the 8 batch I try) in it.....Hope all our SH breed go sucessfully......

Rgds

[souphamster]

Hi Real,

Nice intro. !

I'm currently also raising 50-100 my SH flies in the newly set up breeding tank. I'm using a small tall retangular tank with a hang-on filter conected all the way down in the sand bed. Same as you, cover with a blank cover around the top of the tank. 3 days now and loss a few, rest still looking good....I feed them with DT and enriched salcon newly hatched BS too....In this small tank, they still have 20-30 tomato clown fish flies (this is the 8 batch I try) in it.....Hope all our SH breed go sucessfully......

Rgds

clown fish frys or flies?? u breed them?

[real]

wah Ong, you breeding tomato clown?! solid man!

for your SH nursery, are you using protein skimmer as you previously mentioned? got picture to share share? Did you try feeding rotifers? I guess your SH babies are H.comes (tiger tail) yah? Heard this species not easy to breed also.

good luck to you bro!

[real]

souphamster, the price of SH is not based on their color, but the species and where they are shipped from. All SH from South East Asia should be in the range of $4-$12. H.comes (tiger tail) and H.kuda are usually $4-5, yellow kuda about $8-10. H.barbouri (zebra snout) is about $10-12.

mine are all wild caught, most are trained to eat frozen mysis. Well those that doesn't eventually died. My historical stats show about 50% success rate in getting them to feed frozen.

[souphamster]

saw that one of your pics in your gallery feeding live mysis... what is mysis? got pic to show me? and how much? where to get also? mi new to SH keeping thanks

btw, how come your black can turn into yellow???? so miricle! what other colours is perm ??

[real]

mysis is just a kind of shrimp. There are freshwater and saltwater mysis. The one you saw on my photos are saltwater mysis bought from WaterCircle, I think $3 or $5 a pack. But WC does not have regular stocks. Alternatively, you can buy freshwater glass/ghost shrimps (the common one in most LFS) to your SH, they will like the smaller size ones.

[souphamster]

forzen mysis also can rite? Sealife selling anot? how about the shrimps by harika i think, purple colour packing.

[ong]

wah Ong, you breeding tomato clown?! solid man!

for your SH nursery, are you using protein skimmer as you previously mentioned? got picture to share share? Did you try feeding rotifers? I guess your SH babies are H.comes (tiger tail) yah? Heard this species not easy to breed also.

good luck to you bro!

try try nia mah....anyway, is my wife idea to have a nursey tank and I have to set up one for her. I'm not using PS for now as the cost will be high if I have to setup one. Just do water change every 3 days.

[ReDDeviLs]

sounds so cool...seahorse and clowns kid

hahaha

gd luck guys! may all the breedin be successful! so we will not harm the nature by bring them home ya?

[souphamster]

got clown frys pic anot?? cute leh.. let me see leh...-

[ong]

No D-cam lah. Just like new born guppy flies but more round in shape. Just hatched 2 days only. If I can get this batch to live for more than a mth. then will try to borrow a d-cam to take some pic. If you readi must see than I welcome you to come to my house to take a look lo..... (hope the flies still around...... )

[Limpc]

guys,

can show picture of the SH nursery ? I just lost my first batch of cute little seahorses.

LimPC

[Achilles Tang]

Thank you Real, for sharing with us all, about your experiences with this beautiful species!

Hopefully overtime, you can help lead a group of local dedicated seahorse hobbyists in the proper care and breeding of seahorse and pipefishes!

My faith in starting this SH forum is proven right!

[real]

I couldn't take a neat picture of my new nursery, so using SimplySmitten's pictures directly. This is a "flow-through ###### washing-machine" nursery.

Equipments needed:

. 1 2ft tank (can be larger)

. 2 round plastic bowls drilled for air & water circulation

. egg crates to make stands for the bowls

. airline tubing for air & water circulation

. mesh net to cover water circulation hole in the bowl

. hang-on filter

How to use this nursery:

. connect airline to small drilled hole in the bowl (air circulation via pump)

. connect tubing from filter to bowl opening (water circulation via gravity)

. fill water level up to the opening of the round bowls

. place seahorse babies inside the round bowls

The advantages of this design are:

. 2ft tank gives bigger volume hence more stable water condition

. small bowl makes live food more concentrated hence easier hunting

. round bowl with small opening & midway airline gives circular current hence preventing SH babies from reaching the top and ###### air

. gravity water flow from filter provides clean filtered water to the babies

. big hole with mesh provides water circulation into the tank, let unconsumed food flowed out and siphoned.

. tank cleaning & water change can be done easily without affecting the babies in the bowl