How many keep seahorses and Cephs?

[DWhatley]

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 :>).

 

[flamingo]

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 though. Eating like crazy.

 

[DWhatley]

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).

 

[Lev]

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. 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.

 

[flamingo]

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 .

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

 

[Jean]

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

 

[DWhatley]

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?

Webshots - Desktop Wallpaper / Screen Savers

 

[DWhatley]

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.

 

[flamingo]

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]

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?

Webshots - Desktop Wallpaper / Screen Savers

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

 

[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

 

[DWhatley]

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

What is that cuttlebone looking affair behind her?

 

[Jean]

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

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!

 

[DWhatley]

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 You would think a seahorse keeper would get that much straight Even worse, I have a couple of female pipes and have had one small group of fry from the male we had.

 

[Jean]

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 You would think a seahorse keeper would get that much straight 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 ).

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

J