Reading through all the posts, I noticed a number of people (besides myself) mention seahorses so I thought I would ask how many of us keep both?

I kept seahorses when I was a kid, and I want to keep cephs now, but I haven't taken the plunge yet... does that count?

I've wanted to keep both since I was a kid, although I have to admit that after a few years the novelty of seahorses wore off a bit. I still like seeing them in public aquaria, and sea dragons even more so, though!

i have 1 male reidi seahorse that might be pregnant. the female died a few days ago:sad:

Monty,

No, it doesn't! I have wanted an octopus since I was a young teen and kept a hitch hiker in a mask for all of 5 minutes (it escaped back into the ocean behind my back). Trapper is the first one I have ever had in an aquarium and I am now (or soon will be) of the double nickel age bracket.

Did you keep seahorses or dwarves? I can see where the dwarves might loose their uniqueness but I don't think I will tire of my larger ones. Of course today's reef keeping has changed soooo much that everything stays more interesting.

I had fairly large ones. My guess was that they were Hippocampus hudsonius hudsonius or at least they looked exactly like that picture in the Encyclopedia of Sea Horses I had. They were about 3 or 4 inches tall, with the tail in its normal curled position.

I didn't mean to imply that they were terminally boring, just that they didn't enthrall me enough that I kept up with the hobby into high school... and since I'm wanting to pick it up again, I'm more inclined to go for ramping up to an octo or cuttle than seahorses again.

I've read that seahorses are also a bit more controversial now as some are threatened, but I think that's more because of harvesting for insane Chinese medicinal myths than because of the pet trade...

ctarry,
If you need a suggestion for a brine hatchery, let me know (or are the Redi's the really tiny ones at birth that need something smaller?). Brine shirmp hatching I have licked, keeping the young alive more that 5 weeks is still a challenge I have not met.

Monty,
The fact that you kept a saltwater aquarium so young is exceptional, regardless of WHAT you kept in it.

Yes, there is a lot of controversy on WC vs CB vs TB seahorses, especially since they CAN be tank bred. I have both WC and CB but have never successfully kept tank bred. It seems strange but the tank bred with wild caught parents seem to be the hardest to keep alive through normal life expectancies.

What has kept you from starting a ceph tank? I didn't even know an octopus COULD be kept in a tank until I found TONMO last year. Then it was a matter of affording the life support system ;>). Expecially after we had just started building out our primary reef (which took over a year in the planning and paying for). If my son had not decided to consolidate his tanks, we probably would still just be reading about octopuses. Now if Trapper will just decide we are safe to be around!

Monty,
The fact that you kept a saltwater aquarium so young is exceptional, regardless of WHAT you kept in it.

Yes, there is a lot of controversy on WC vs CB vs TB seahorses, especially since they CAN be tank bred. I have both WC and CB but have never successfully kept tank bred. It seems strange but the tank bred with wild caught parents seem to be the hardest to keep alive through normal life expectancies.

What has kept you from starting a ceph tank? I didn't even know an octopus COULD be kept in a tank until I found TONMO last year. Then it was a matter of affording the life support system ;>). Expecially after we had just started building out our primary reef (which took over a year in the planning and paying for). If my son had not decided to consolidate his tanks, we probably would still just be reading about octopuses. Now if Trapper will just decide we are safe to be around!

Thanks, yeah, keeping the seahorses was great fun as a kid.

I've had a number of factors conspiring for me not to have a ceph tank yet: I had put it off when I was moving between rented houses a lot, since it seemed like a bad idea. I know it's a big investment of time and money, and I would only do it if I can really put in the required amounts of both to take proper care of the animal. I also am now very aware of how lucky I got with the seahorses, since I really didn't understand any water parameters other than salinity and pH at the time, and I just used undergravel and carbon filtration, and fed brine shrimp from the LFS, all of which would be pretty sub-par by TONMO standards.

I am thinking of getting a real full-blown tank to learn the ways of wet-dry filters, skimmers, sumps, and whatnot enough to be confident that if I get a bimac or a bandensis that I won't be likely to screw up and lose it, but I'm (in my typical form) spending a lot of time thinking and researching but hesitant to actually make the leap and get started... but when the stars are right, great Cthulhu will, er, wait, I mean when I have the time, money, and plan all aligned, I very much want to get back into the game! And I have been exploring the local LFSes and investigating possible tank choices, so I'm sort of looking down from the diving board, but I'm not positive if and when I'll take the actual plunge...

I had H. capensis, but they are cold water species, and the male succumbed to a tail infection, and I gave the others up. He was pregnant when he died. Only 2 fry were born (premies) and they died a week later...that experience kind of made me wary of getting any more, simply because I don't want to end up killing them, since H. capensis were the first species of seahorse to be put on the endagered speices list.

We (my girlfriend and I) have kept H. Kuda with little luck. We had several H. Reidi in a 60 gallon hex, and after one died mysteriously, we moved them all to quarantine and then they all died, except one, which we have determined is not a Reidi. He stays in a 30 gallon tank by himself now since we can't positively ID him, and certain seahorses will kill other species of seahorse by releasing pathogens into the water, which we assume is what happened. He has done fine since.
We have kept 3 H. Erectus in the main tank and we have had them for 10 months. I really like the Erectus because of the spikey texture.

Monty,

I was curious about your hudsonius. I have read A LOT about seahorses and have kept several differ species but had never hear of hudsonius. The size and now your additional info on success without really knowing what to do suggested Erectus (they are probably the most hardy on this contenent) but it took me a while to find the cross reference. Apparently the Erectus found in NY were originally called hudsonius (and actually wintered in the Husdson river - hence the name) but are now classified as Erectus. I have 1 captive bred, and three wild caught and all are very different. One even has a completely different pattern (somewhat unusual) and does not have the typical "lines" of the "lined" seahorse. My cb is from the Baltimore area and some think it is a different subspecies. Two of mine are from the FL keys and the fourth (most colorful and my oldest) is from an unknown origin.

Animal Mother,
I kept 6 "captive bred" "Kellogi" that we think were actually tank born (possibly not even tank bred) and possibly from Indonesia (likely Viet Nam from what we could find online). All six were supposed to be the same kind and compatible with our tank parameters. They grew well through adolescence but all died mysteriously within a week (one actually survived several weeks longer and we had hoped she would make it) after reaching breeding age. The Erectus in the same tank were uneffected and continue to be healthy after more than 6 months. It is possible that the Erectus (or anything else in the reef tank) carried lethal pathogens but we also wonder if the tank temperature was too high for the breeds. It turned out that there were two different types but we never could positively identify either one. Shipping and capture methods were obviously not part of the problem so we have decided to keep only critters from FL in that tank to at least keep the exposures to what they would encounter normally and hopefully have some immunities.

Brock, the Capensis are now bred fairly commonly. My pot bellies are an Australian colder water seahorse and they are ONLY legally available as CB as Australia protects them. The breeding program was to try to fullfil the "medicine" requirements and slow down some of the poaching in Australian waters but the cost of raising them did not meet the goals needed. Fortunately, they found that the aquarium trade would bring enough to support the facility and they are now raised in abundance and are very hardy. One of mine I have had for a year and a half (she was between 4 and 6 months old when I got her) and the other three were newly acquired 3 or 4 months ago.

If I had not had the success with the first one Pot Belly, the chiller would have been available to keep a bimac but we like the pots so our first octopus needed to come from warmer waters. Now if we can just figure out if the tank will sustain his size ;>). I really can't afford to put another 140 in the other corner! However, we have him now and hopefully can get an id so we will know if a new tank will be required. So far, no one has taken a stab at guessing from my acclimation pics.

Monty,

I was curious about your hudsonius. I have read A LOT about seahorses and have kept several differ species but had never hear of hudsonius. The size and now your additional info on success without really knowing what to do suggested Erectus (they are probably the most hardy on this contenent) but it took me a while to find the cross reference. Apparently the Erectus found in NY were originally called hudsonius (and actually wintered in the Husdson river - hence the name) but are now classified as Erectus. I have 1 captive bred, and three wild caught and all are very different. One even has a completely different pattern (somewhat unusual) and does not have the typical "lines" of the "lined" seahorse. My cb is from the Baltimore area and some think it is a different subspecies. Two of mine are from the FL keys and the fourth (most colorful and my oldest) is from an unknown origin.


Unfortunately, I'm pretty rusty on seahorsemanship, and the details are clouded in my distant youth... this was in the late 70s and early 80s, and the seahorses came from a little LFS called "Nippon Goldfish" in Palo Alto that's been gone since the early 80s sometime. Googling suggests that they survived until recently in San Francisco, though. Anyway, I'm happy to describe what I can remember... they did fine eating brine shrimp (possibly enriched, I got them from the LFS, I know Jean in particular would yell at me for that being a lousy diet) they were dark brown most of the time but could turn lighter on occasion, usually not too active except at feeding time, and maybe as big as 4-5 inches long with their tails outstretched. My tank was rather primitive by today's standards: undergravel filter, some sort of carbon canister that was just run by the air pump circulation, heater, and that's about it. I can't remember what salt mix I used, but it seemed like as long as I did regular water changes and kept them in tasty sea monkeys, the seahorses did fine. I had some sort of fungal infection on one of them, but otherwise they lived a long time and seemed pretty healthy. They never seemed to breed in my tank, however, although I did have a male and a female at some point.

If there's anything else that would be helpful, I can try to scrape the dusty corners of my brain, but it's been a long time. I can also ask my parents if they remember things from a different perspective, since they were at least adults, although their participation was more in the funding and driving me back and forth to the LFS area.

Useful resource (sorry if already mentioned): http://www.seahorse.org/ -- they have an active discussion area...

Sort of! The public aquarium I work in (see http://www.otago.ac.nz/marinestudies) has both octies (2 x Pinnoctopus cordiformis "Long John Slither" and "Cap'n Black Beak") and we have several pairs of Potbelly Seahorses (Hippocampus abdominalis) These are giant horses and not recommended for home aquaria (can reach a total length of 30-35cm!)

Does that count?

jean

Jean,
That's cheating ;>).

I had expected an upward graduation to cephs since the horses require so much time and effort, what's one more time consuming pet . It is sort of, once you are tied to your aquarium what other interesting pet is available to add to an in-house ocean and where CAN I put just one more aquarium?

So far folks have shown a lot of related interest but few are active seahorse keepers. Perhaps the better question would have been what other unusual aquatic pets do ceph keepers have or become proficient with before they kept cephs. I have only had Trapper 3 days and am wondering where I could put a cuddle tank ;>).

I wish I lived close enough to our aquarium to work there, it has got to be a daily learning enjoyment and so much less expensive!

I only know of 2 people that breed H. capensis commercially, and one recently quit.

I never kept seahorses because I always thought they were too delicate and I wouldn't be able to take care of their feeding requirements - I guess it never occurred to me that taking care of cephs was harder than seahorses... but I am an invertebrate zoologist, so I guess I always think it is easier to care for an invert. rather than a vert.

I have raised and bred (unintentionally...) dwarf African frogs - does that count as an unusual pet? They have the smallest tadpoles of any frog, just a few millimeters long when they hatch. Oh yeah, and the tadpoles are carnivorous and all other tadpoles are herbivorous. That was fun, feeding tadpoles you can barely see :bugout: .

Cuttlegirl,
If we change the question to "what unusual aquatic animals did you keep before keeping octopuses" then you IN ;>). I wonder how many times Steve and Roy make their students rewrite their thesis questions.

I do find it amusing that you think (thought) seahorses would be HARDER than octopus. They may require more time and observation but I can't make that call yet, particularly since there are things you can DO to try to save a horse when it gets hurt or has other problems (only minorly successful treatments though). The one common ailment I have found, Vibro bacteria infection, is considered untreatable in both although I think Roy has tried treating infected babies.

If your African frogs are the small ones that they call African frogs in the pet store, I lost my last one several months ago. They seem to live several years with no major care requirements. I did have multiples at one time but they never bred and I had no idea they were carniverous as tadpoles. I only recently read the label on the frog food I have always used (and the only one I have ever seen ;>) and was surprised to find that it was vegetarian. I expected I was handling crushed flies all this time (and one family member preferred I didn't feed during dinner because of the misinformation ;>) since our domestic frogs are carnivorous.

Brock,
It has been a tough two years for anyone commercially breeding seahorses (and I suspect most any marine fish). There has been a huge influx of wc marine critters from Indonesia and a bumper year for seahorses in the wild in general. My point was that if you wanted to keep cold water horses, they are available as CB and that the H. Capensis, as well as the H. Abdominalis and Ingens are being captive bred for those with an interest. The viable commercial site you mentioned has the H.Capensis right now for a reasonable price - unlike some of their other pricing - which leads me to believe they breed rather well in captivity.

Cuttlegirl,
If we change the question to "what unusual aquatic animals did you keep before keeping octopuses" then you IN ;>). I wonder how many times Steve and Roy make their students rewrite their thesis questions.

You are the one who mentioned it first :grin: . I did have to rewrite my thesis question after my first attempt at raising Sepia officinalis failed.

I do find it amusing that you think (thought) seahorses would be HARDER than octopus. They may require more time and observation but I can't make that call yet, particularly since there are things you can DO to try to save a horse when it gets hurt or has other problems (only minorly successful treatments though). The one common ailment I have found, Vibro bacteria infection, is considered untreatable in both although I think Roy has tried treating infected babies.

I guess because everytime I go to an LFS, they mention they are hard to care for and I get my cephs from other sources besides the LFS... that will teach me to listen to the staff at the LFS! :smile:

If your African frogs are the small ones that they call African frogs in the pet store, I lost my last one several months ago. They seem to live several years with no major care requirements. I did have multiples at one time but they never bred and I had no idea they were carniverous as tadpoles. I only recently read the label on the frog food I have always used (and the only one I have ever seen ;>) and was surprised to find that it was vegetarian. I expected I was handling crushed flies all this time (and one family member preferred I didn't feed during dinner because of the misinformation ;>) since our domestic frogs are carnivorous.

The frogs are not hard to keep, it is just unusual to have them breed. These days the ones you find in a pet store are captive bred (they are considered extinct in the wild). Most home aquarists aren't successful raising the tadpoles because of the microscopic live food requirement.

Well, mine mated, and had 2 premie fry, but the male died of tail infection WHILE he was preggo...very, very sad. They were always courting though, and I guess having a mirrored background didn't help...

I keep both cephs and squid, well i breed both to. I have 2 species These are:

Hippocampus barbouri (zebra-nosed seahorse) and

Hippocampus kuda (yellow seahorse)

I keep alot of other marine fish but cephs and seahorses i find the most intriging,especially the social side of each, they have very distictive personalitys and traits, very similar to us humans i think :)

I havnt found keeping seahorses that hard although i feed most of my marine stuff live food, shrimps.. brine shrimp and small fish, ( i live next to the ocean so i can catch alot of live shrimp and fish for my squid each week) I think live food really makes for happy campers.

Sea horses really like the live brine shrimp through most stages of there life, The babies however depending on the species like a mix of 1 day old brine shrimp hatclings and some sort of rotifer/ plankton etc. Even then mortality rates are high with the ponies, the 2 month barrier im always trying to perfect - sometimes is higher than others.

A brine shrimp hatchery isnt to hard, i make one out of a 2lt bottle, salt water mix inside and a airline with a airstone for the first 48hr then they move to a plastic tub with a airstone which i feed them a mix of live rotifers / dried plankton. Takes about 1 1/2 - 2 weeks to get to maturity, i prefer to use shell less brine shrimp eggs just for ease of use.

Plankton cultures are a bit more difficult to keep going but all it takes is practice, theres alot of good articles on the need as far as keeping cultures / raising them.

i think alot of people make the mistake of not having a properly cycled tank and skimp on filtration this leads to early deaths, They like good water :)

I'm jealous of all of you that live next to the ocean! I think I would have to invent some kind of windowed seawall and just have the ocean as my tank if I was that close.

I have found a great, easy, simple brine hatchery for baby horses and pipes but if you would send me a private message on your fry setup I would appreciate the info. I switched to enriched mysis after using live enriched brine and grass shrimp because I found that the horses actually preferred it and do better with the more nutritional food (and my backyard is freshwater so I don't have the natural supplements you do ;>).

You mentioned cephs and squid, what are you feeding them? So far I am almost sure Trapper has eaten 1 crab (I found the cartilage, intact but without meat or shell) and maybe one hermit (it could have been a shed though). I am hoping to feed him frozen shrimp but so far he doesn't seem interested in eating it. It does bring the grass shrimp and just about all other live food to a gathering spot and I saw him checking out my offering today but he didn't pull the shrimp off the stick. He did move the feeding wand but I am not sure if he was looking for the things feeding on it or just decided it wasn't something he wanted.

Well i understand what you are going through, i used to live about 2 hours from the coast then decided to make the move to the coast to be closer to the sea. Im quite sure i will never move away from it again.

Mysis is also another great food, i would try them myself but i havnt found any colonys of them locally yet.

The fry tank is nothing special, i transfer them to a 2ft tank that has a tiny hang on filter which the inlet i have covered with plankton mesh. The hang on filter i remove all the media and put in bioballs as the media with sponge on the top for a pre filter. Ill make some pics and show u later :)

I feed my cephs and alot of my fish a shrimp i catch locally (they are about 1inch max), i find them in the esturary grass near the shore, im not sure of what they are called, i call them food :P . i use a net to skim through the weed to collect them. Process takes about 30 mins to get enough food for a week or 2. I just keep the shrimp in a bucket with a airstone as they dont seem to need any filtration to live the 2 weeks.

With your ceph one thing i do with the larger shrimp that sometimes die through collecting, (about 2inches long) is i hold the shrimp by its antennea and "drag" it through water to make it look like its swimming. Sometimes they eat them sometimes they dont, mine are a bit spoilt tho. Maybee you can try that yourself? try tying the antennea to the stick with a loose knot and drag it through the water? I guess its a trial and error thing until you find something that they like, Im sure it would eat the crabs if hungry.

I'm a seahorse freak :p.

I'm only fifteen so my ceph/seahorse addiction is kind of put off most of the time. When I was 14 I kept a male H. reidi and had it produce 10 fry. Although I had them last 5 days, I was barely prepared to say the least.

Now, about a week ago, I just bought my latest seahorse (Hippocampus comes AKA the tiger-tail seahorse). While it's wild caught and a delicate species to begin with, it's been doing pretty good. Since my last reidi was infected with vibrio at the same time as it had internal gas bubble disease, I made sure I freshwater dipped my tiger tail before placing into quarantine so it didn't end up like the last one. I'd love to get a male in and try breeding them (and document it), even though they are notorious as being one of the hardest seahorses to raise from birth.

In a few days (if i'm allowed to) I may order a small H. erectus also, or might purchase a small octo (joubini). All depends on how much money I have leftover and what i'm willing to buy.

I started keeping saltwater aquariums when I was around 12-13 years old, and have been since then! Currently I have 5 saltwater tanks, and i'm planning on getting a few more. I'd love to keep a dwarf octopus or two, and i'm likely going to try breeding seahorses and pipefish later on. I'd currently being doing it now if I had the money.

Btw, seahorses aren't hard (well, compared to most sw fish they are), as long as you pick captive bred, quarantine, provide a stable set up with good quality foods, quarantine, and don't mix species or with pipefish. Sadly a lot of people are buying wild seahorses and feeding them only brine shrimp- and that's where a lot of the "horror stories" are coming from.

flamingo,

If you want to breed pipes to get some experience, the Atlantic pipes seem to be easier to start with and are reasonably priced (they do have to be separated from their parents immediately). They are not, however, very attractive. They can live easily with Erectus or Dwarves (another good choice to practice trying to raise fry without a huge investment). After several false starts, I am learning that the "learning" part is important before trying the more delicate critters.

flamingo,

If you want to breed pipes to get some experience, the Atlantic pipes seem to be easier to start with and are reasonably priced (they do have to be separated from their parents immediately). They are not, however, very attractive. They can live easily with Erectus or Dwarves (another good choice to practice trying to raise fry without a huge investment). After several false starts, I am learning that the "learning" part is important before trying the more delicate critters.

I know, breeding pipefish would probably be my last step. People that breed seahorses regularily have troubles with raising most pipefish fry. Thanks for the advice though!

But on another note, i'd never mix them with dwarves or seahorses :(.

I know, breeding pipefish would probably be my last step. People that breed seahorses regularily have troubles with raising most pipefish fry. Thanks for the advice though!

But on another note, i'd never mix them with dwarves or seahorses :(.

This is true of the Indonesian varieties but the Gulf pipes are quite hardy and do not have the delicate nature of the exotics (like some seahorses, their pelagic stage is short). They and do fine with seahorses that come from the same environment (most WC Erectus and dwarves - it IS very helpful to know their origination). Mixing critters that have different exposures and tolerances as well as not quarantining and (in some cases) not pretreating WC animals is often where problems occur. I agree that mixing critters with a heritage of captive breeding should not be mixed with wild caught but this applies to even mixing the same animals as well.

I wish we had started with the Erectus ponies. We've had them for almost a year without any issues, in exception of the male having air in his pouch for a couple of weeks which has been several months ago now. He's doing fine ever since. I just hope he's not sterile now.
We went shopping for some new corals right after Christmas and came home to find their tank had sprung a leak about 6 inches from the bottom... it's 2 feet high. Lost 2 of the 3 new corals we picked up, and our Jawfish and Neon Goby I'd had for over a year :( Everyone was living in a 5 gallon bucket while the new seal cured, and the Jawfish jumped ship. I think the Neon must have bailed while we were moving rock out of the tank. The ponies did just fine though. Erectus are tough.

We're about to move them to a 60 gallon cube that's pre-drilled. Maybe turn the hex tank into a Jellyfish setup.

Animal Mother,
Ouch! I agree, anyone starting with seahorses should begin (and in my case stay ;>) with erectus. The pot bellies are equally as tough (or tougher) but require a chiller and seascaping is minimal.

Let me know if you find out newer info than I did on keeping jellies. Our new public aquarium has a very interesting display and we came home hoping to convert our 30 gal, 4' tall hex into a jellyfish tank. The small amount of info we could find on keeping jellyfish pretty well limited you to getting your own on a regular basis and excessive water change to keep the ones in the tank alive for a short time period. We would still be interested in trying if you happen upon a jelly that lives longer and can live in a small tank.

Cuttlegirl,
My son felt sad for me watching JoeJoe die so when he went to get feeder fish he bought me an additional birthday present and came home with a pair of Amazons for the table planter that I have had them in for several years. I had missed them when they were gone and kept trying to feed the planter with frog food (Several years ago my daughter-in-law bought me one of those Betta planters but I replaced the Betta with the frogs after it died and have kept the frogs for about 4 years). Now he reminds me at supper to feed the frogs and give them names ;>). These are smaller than my last ones so they must be very young. Is there a way to tell the sex of these little guys? I have never seen eggs so I assume my others were the same sex. Do they lay eggs like North American toads and frogs (I know you said the tadpoles are cannibalistic but do the eggs look like the ones in the ponds)? Small world :>).

Reidi and Erectus are great beginners. Abdominalis aren't really a good one to start with- and need a large tank.

I love my H. Comes :p though. Eating like crazy.

flamingo,

I readily (not Reidily - I have not kept these so I have no first hand knowledge) agree that the Erectus are excellent (unless you start with dwarves for initiation like I did) for first horses. I would take exception, however, that the Abdominalis (assuming awareness of tank requirements, the colder temperatures -necessitating a chiller, height and limited livestock companions) are any less a good beginners choice. Some of the limitations may make them even a best choice as there is less to care for in the tank. They are exceptionally hardy (more so than the Erectus), more active than most seahorse and are only available as captive bred in most countries (so, OK, Aussies can catch their own).

Hello,

I have/kept both. I kept a Pair of Hippocampus Kuda a while ago, along with some pipefish, but they got some kind of disease (presumably from one of the pipes) and died. Some nice Reidis have appeared for a low price, and I have set up a tank for them (connected to my 65 gallon Mixed reef) and am going to get a couple very soon (somewhere next week).

As for Cephs, I recently had some O. mercatoris babies hatch. 8-) I've seen about 20 so far. They are probably 4 or 5 days old, I first spotted them on the 24th of January. They are doing really well (knock on wood.) Mom is still alive, though not accepting any food. I got her about a month and a half ago. She used to accept frozen shrimps (until she laid eggs.)

I am 14, BTW. :tentacle2:

flamingo,

I readily (not Reidily - I have not kept these so I have no first hand knowledge) agree that the Erectus are excellent (unless you start with dwarves for initiation like I did) for first horses. I would take exception, however, that the Abdominalis (assuming awareness of tank requirements, the colder temperatures -necessitating a chiller, height and limited livestock companions) are any less a good beginners choice. Some of the limitations may make them even a best choice as there is less to care for in the tank. They are exceptionally hardy (more so than the Erectus), more active than most seahorse and are only available as captive bred in most countries (so, OK, Aussies can catch their own).

The only reason I stated that is because they require a more thought over tank- and the fact that more people have been having troubles with them then erectus. I've seen about 30 cases in the past few months with abd's having complications. But nontheless- there are still harder species out there to start with :p.

About to get dwarves sooner or later. I'm so excited :p. Going to take a lot of effort on my part- but worth it.

our long snouted pipefish (Stigmatophora macropterygia) is pregnant!!!!!!!!! We'll probably release the babies as we simply don't have the time to culture food for them (rotifers, mysids etc etc) and yes, in an emergency newly hatched brine shrimp nauplii (< 24 hours old so they still have yolk).

Cheers

J

Jean,
I have been meaning to ask if when it is stated that baby cephs shouldn't be fed brine if the seahorse fry rule of less than 24 hours old (the actual recommendation is less than half that time) has been applied to those who have failed. You, obviously know the difference but when I read about NOT using brine no one seems to make the distinction. Actually they mention that enriching doesn't help and you can't enrich brine with the yolk sack since they don't eat anything.

Have you tried any of the newer dead gutloaded micro feeds with any fry? I am thinking about trying supplementing (or possibly splitting my expected seahorse fry into two groups) with some I have found to see if it helps.

Have any of the aquariums ever thought of selling captive bred babies? It occurred to me that this would be a good thing if it could be properly controlled.

Is this what your little girl looks like?

http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2684499380025899448pwWHSV

Flamingo,

Dwarves are really cute and if you get them from mid to north FL there are some nice colors, some will even change color (the ones from the keys are very bland in comparison, less expensive but a huge difference in color and body type) but you are right, they take a LOT of effort. I finally stopped keeping them because they were really more trouble than my larger ones and much less human interactive. However, for a nano or pico, where you are limited to creatures anyway, they are much more interesting than a lot of other critters.

Brine shrimp don't have mouths or fully developed digestive tracts until around the 12-36 hour mark. After about 4 hours from hatching most nutrition from the yolk sac is gone- within 12 hours they're worthless. You can start enriching around the two day mark, and it's recommended you include this in the diet along with newly hatched brine if possible.

Jean, where are you located?

Jean,
I have been meaning to ask if when it is stated that baby cephs shouldn't be fed brine if the seahorse fry rule of less than 24 hours old (the actual recommendation is less than half that time) has been applied to those who have failed. You, obviously know the difference but when I read about NOT using brine no one seems to make the distinction. Actually they mention that enriching doesn't help and you can't enrich brine with the yolk sack since they don't eat anything.

Have you tried any of the newer dead gutloaded micro feeds with any fry? I am thinking about trying supplementing (or possibly splitting my expected seahorse fry into two groups) with some I have found to see if it helps.

Have any of the aquariums ever thought of selling captive bred babies? It occurred to me that this would be a good thing if it could be properly controlled.

Is this what your little girl looks like?

http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2684499380025899448pwWHSV


The brine nauplii are only for dire emergency! We find our horses wont eat dead stuff (with one or two exceptions!).

As for selling the babies...we're owned by the University and our animal ethics approval does not support this, many otheraquariums may be in the same situation reagarding the sale of live animals.

Our pipefish is reather different, I'll try to get a pic for you!

cheers

Jean

Here is the one pic I managed to get. They were being elusive today! Unfortunately I won't be able to get any more until June, as I'm not working so much as an aquarist but will be teaching more!

J

Jean,
I finally found her in my pipefish book. It gives a different common name (that name is for a different species according to my reference ;>) but it helps to look in NZ and not Australia :oops:

What is that cuttlebone looking affair behind her?

Jean,
I finally found her in my pipefish book. It gives a different common name (that name is for a different species according to my reference ;>) but it helps to look in NZ and not Australia :oops:

What is that cuttlebone looking affair behind her?

Common names can be confusing! The cuttlebone like object is a carpet shark, Cephaloscyllium isabellum, egg case containing one wee baby due to hatch at the end of march!

Cheers

J

PS She's a HE! Pipefish are like horses and the males carry the young!

Jean,

Neat looking shark! Won't the carpet immediately eat the pipe when it hatches?

There are times when I think the stereo-type of a blonde female ("D" is short for Denise) has merit :hmm: You would think a seahorse keeper would get that much straight :oops: Even worse, I have a couple of female pipes and have had one small group of fry from the male we had.

Jean,

Neat looking shark! Won't the carpet immediately eat the pipe when it hatches?

There are times when I think the stereo-type of a blonde female ("D" is short for Denise) has merit :hmm: You would think a seahorse keeper would get that much straight :oops: Even worse, I have a couple of female pipes and have had one small group of fry from the male we had.

We've shifted the eggs (we have about 8), not because of danger to the pipes and horses (these sharks are so harmless we do public touch a shark events with them.......and the horses steal the babies food!) but because they're in a >2m tall tank and we can't reach the bottom to hand feed the shark babies. If we didn't hand feed them they simply wouldn't eat (food must walk into their mouths in the wild :grin:).

I have "blonde moments" all the time! I was born platinum so perhaps it's understandable!

J

Jean,
It is strange how different reality is from what you find on the net. I looked up carpet shark and found several references to their very sharp teeth and one story of a snorkler that had one attache to his leg and would not let go until he DROVE to a site with life guards and they poured freshwater on its gills.

I know a lot about the tall tank issues! My horse reef is 3 feet tall (my arm is not and the hood is not tall enough to give me maximum arm length anyway) and I have a 4 foot tall skinny tank that I can only clean about 1/2 way by hand ;>).

:confused: Hi I this came from a longliner, working some place in cook strait, looks like a type of (tube worm), I could be wrong, what do you experts think? :confused:

Jean,
It is strange how different reality is from what you find on the net. I looked up carpet shark and found several references to their very sharp teeth and one story of a snorkler that had one attache to his leg and would not let go until he DROVE to a site with life guards and they poured freshwater on its gills.

I know a lot about the tall tank issues! My horse reef is 3 feet tall (my arm is not and the hood is not tall enough to give me maximum arm length anyway) and I have a 4 foot tall skinny tank that I can only clean about 1/2 way by hand ;>).


Probably a different species. I hate common names :grin: Ours has only got 2-3 mm long teeth, I doubt it could latch on and hold something as big as a snorklers leg (I heard that story too!). Ours seem to be primarily scavengers who also eat small crabs etc

We have a special siphon for our horse tank (its about 5.5-6.0 feet tall) and it can be disassembled and the bottom removed for a really good scrub.



J