JManrow Posted March 20, 2009 Share Posted March 20, 2009 i used to keep dwarf seahorses 5 years ago and i feed mine live brine shrimp everyday and supplemented with mysis..they are awesome to keep and not to hard like kevin said when you feed them enough and have the correct tank set up so fun to watch eat too You forgot to mention they can breed faster than guppies, with a gestation period of only 10 days!(laugh) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason7504 Posted March 20, 2009 Share Posted March 20, 2009 haha yeah but who doesnt love that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JManrow Posted March 20, 2009 Share Posted March 20, 2009 haha yeah but who doesnt love that ... and hatching/decapsulating brine shrimp. Gotta luv it.(whistle) I would see a male H. zosterae give birth in the morning... then later that day see him chasing a female around to mate. When the tank conditions are right, these little guys just can't get enough!(naughty)(laugh) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason7504 Posted March 20, 2009 Share Posted March 20, 2009 haha oh yeah..so much fun! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pledosophy Posted March 21, 2009 Share Posted March 21, 2009 Kevin, when u stated a 30gal or larger tank, that would be for larger species,not dwarfs.......correct? I don't see dwarfs finding BB in a 30gal..... I was speaking of any species available in the hobby, except dwarfs. I guess you might do a 20g tall with fuscus. I do know of people keeping dwarfs in larger systems. There was a local guy who converted a 72g bowfront into a dwarf tank, but he never reported back on how it went. There are many people keeping them in 20g's, including breeders. While it is hard to imagine them finding food in larger systems as they seem to only eat what is right in front of them, they do survive in the ocean which is a bit bigger then the standard 5g. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pledosophy Posted March 21, 2009 Share Posted March 21, 2009 So putting the larger species of seahorses in my fuge, full of copepods would not work over the weekend. I was planning on putting them in their full time and feeding them Mysis during week. Raising shrimp or buying live ones does not fit in my decreasing budget! Awesome thread. Thanks for all the expert input. Roger There are a few problems with that scenario. Project Seahorse has published info that they have observed species of seahorses eating up to 3000 small shrimp in a day. The way a seahorses digestive system works, they will eat when there is food. They can eat all day long and never get full. If there is too much food, they can actually eat all day and loose weight as they never fully digest anything. There have been some ancedotal reports of seahorses pooping out live artemia they were eating so fast, but I'm not sure if I buy into that. Point being, they can devour all of the pods in your refugium in a few hours, and they will. I have been able to keep an alright supply of amphipods in my system by having large piles of rubble rock where the seahorse can not hunt, and directing flow so it is uncomfortable for them to get there, and my refugium is the same size as the display. Another problem arises with temperature. IME/IMO seahorses really do need temps under 74F. Long story is that seahorses are often asymptomatic carriers for bacteria's IMO. The bacteria's they carry are most often strains of vibrio, although there are other not as pleasant strains such as myco. There are several strains that have been cultured out of seahorses (by Dr. Martin Belli a board certified pathologist who happens to have a love of seahorses, lucky for us). When Labdoc (Dr. Belli's SN on most forums) grew out the cultures he found a significant higher growth rate at higher temperatures. The bacteria's that come into play with seahorses also became much more virulent/aggressive at these temperatures even altering there protein configurations (i.e. IIpp would now be IIPP). The seahorses would have little to no previous resistance towards the more virulent bacteria's. While under normal circumstances this would not be the biggest deal with most strains of the bacteria, if there is an initial stressor, say lack of food, a vibrating pump, or a scrape from a rock a secondary bacterial infection would follow. You can read more about the findings in the book "Working Notes", but if you have any questions, I can probably answer most of them. If not I can pass them on to Doc, he's proven to be very helpful and patient in explanations to me over the years. There is not a lot of hard data on this as there is no money to research these things in relation to seahorses in the home aquarium. Much of what we believe to be true comes from the research of Labdoc, and the ancedotal reports of keepers across the world as they are reported on forums. As we all know forums are not the best place to gather real info, but they can be very useful IMO. When I started with seahorses they were known to live a year or two. Now many people have seahorses 5+ years. IMO it is the combination of diet and temperature that is the key to this success. I was able to keep an adult WC for 5.5 years in my aquarium, if I can keep a WC alive that long, we are definetly onto something IMO. I'm not the best keeper in the world by far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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