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My seahorse tank is up and running now


carznkats

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Wow! "Daddy" has some great cirri :)

Livingart,what size are your SH tanks? height? what do you feed?

I'm asking cuz 3 years, and never a successful egg transfer :(

Not that I really want the challenge of fry-raising!...

How big is that flounder?! My little hog would probably try hunting it down!

Carz, what are you feeding? I feed mainly frozen mysis. I used to give live wild mysids, but found they got spoiled & picky and went off their frozen, so weaned them off it. I am also trying to mix a little brineshrimp occasionally into the diet, because my female is looking Obese! and I don't want her to go the way of my other female; I know they can get really plump and gravid with eggs, but I had a gorgeous huge female that died last year... slight chance she was eggbound, but after more reading, think she could have had fatty liver disease.

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DJ

I'm feeding both frozen mysis shrimp (which they don't seem to be interested in) and brine shrimp. The wee girl spends most of her time on the bottom looking for live food, and just keeps going past the frozen brine shrimp.

Did I see in your photo a feeding dish? How did you train your horses to eat out of it?

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Wow! "Daddy" has some great cirri

half of our males have cirri and about 1/3rd of progeny, some get knocked off if they are tumbled too much when very young

Livingart,what size are your SH tanks? height?

show tank is 5 foot x 20 inch x 20 inch

breeding tank is a 1metre deep by 60 x60cm plastic bin

courtship involves 2 or 3 males harassing a pregnant female and driving her upwards in the water, if the tank is too shallow they broach on the surface and transferal of eggs can't take place, sometimes the males will suck air into the open pouch and you have to release it or they can't swim properly. The same thing can happen with airstones in the tank

Not that I really want the challenge of fry-raising!...

it is a good challenge, first started keeping horses in 1984 been keeping them ever since, fry are susceptible to water quality, flowrate, live food and being eaten by the parents. We have a constant supply of fresh saltwater and brine shrimp, currently setting up a new breeding system with a 1,000 litre sump on a trickle flow, currently raise about 50% of fry and put 80% of them in the habour

We feed frozen brine shrimp, mysis, daphnia and bloodworms float cubes in tank and up flowrate as they defrost they float around the tank and they chase them (enrichment program) for seahorses lol

also feed live whiteworms, mosquito larvae, daphnia and brineshrimp

run young with older horses to teach them to accept frozen food

flounder is abot 4cm a bit big for any horses snout :o

females can sometimes get eggbound with eggs putting pressure on internal organs, small males can go the same way if they are impregnated by a large female where the young grow too big for the pouch and crush internal organs

good luck with the gee gees carznkats :D

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DJ

I'm feeding both frozen mysis shrimp (which they don't seem to be interested in) and brine shrimp. The wee girl spends most of her time on the bottom looking for live food, and just keeps going past the frozen brine shrimp.

Did I see in your photo a feeding dish? How did you train your horses to eat out of it?

try some frozen or live daphnia on the smaller horses

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DJ

I'm feeding both frozen mysis shrimp (which they don't seem to be interested in) and brine shrimp. The wee girl spends most of her time on the bottom looking for live food, and just keeps going past the frozen brine shrimp.

Did I see in your photo a feeding dish? How did you train your horses to eat out of it?

Yes, I started using the little dishes not too long ago. It was quite easy; well for 2 of my SH's, anyway; the 3rd still does not eat out of it but that is another whole very long story...

Prior to the dish, I have been feeding them with a turkey baster, squirting out little puffs of food, which they liked chasing (sort of mimicking the movement of live) They see me with the baster and come zooming over and will hitch to the tube and snick attack it. So they are very familiar with it which made it a natural progression just to squirt the food into the dishes., where they now eat.

I would take LA's advice and start with whatever they were raised on and familiar with, and later mix a bit of the new food if you want to switch them over.

Right now, you just want to get them settled in to their new home and make sure they are eating.

With frozen food you can play/make it move with a baster, to encourage the wee girl who only wants to hunt live food. You could hold out 3 days, but if she has not eaten in that time, you should really make sure she eats so you probably do want to have some live food on hand.

My SH's started on brine as that's what they were raised on, being was smaller, softer, and their soft shape waves in current to mimic life. BS is not their natural food though, so they do have to be trained to recognise different foods.

At one point one of my SH got spoiled with eating live food and it took a lot of tricks to re-train him to frozen. involving snap freezing live, and feeding them (they have more "sparkle") and slowly mixing with the even deader petshop mysis.

Sorry for all the rambling... that's just me :) hope you can sift out what's useful!

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LA, thanks! all good info...:) but sorry, more Q's!

...currently raise about 50% of fry and put 80% of them in the habour

At what age, and why do you release them? do you tag & track their survival rate at all?

flounder is abot 4cm a bit big for any horses snout :o

LOL, I had an accidental bycatch 1/2 that size and it got et :o That hog of a SH used to stalk shrimp nearly it's own size! Your 4cm flounda should be safe enough :)

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LA, thanks! all good info...:) but sorry, more Q's!

...currently raise about 50% of fry and put 80% of them in the habour

At what age, and why do you release them? do you tag & track their survival rate at all?

flounder is abot 4cm a bit big for any horses snout :o

LOL, I had an accidental bycatch 1/2 that size and it got et :o That hog of a SH used to stalk shrimp nearly it's own size! Your 4cm flounda should be safe enough :)

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At what age, and why do you release them? do you tag & track their survival rate at all?

release at 3 weeks,

in the wild only 1 % of progeny reach adulthood, hence the up to 200 babies they can have at a time

in the first 24 hrs after birth approx 50 % are eaten or die so they have a slim chance in the wild

In the 80's i used to catch and sell them to the pet trade so as i was taking from the wild i think its only fair that i replaced more than i had taken, renewable resource and respect as well

at 3 weeks of age their chances of survival to adulthood were greatly increased, let nature take its course after that.

it is just a practice i have kept up, if you keep lots of horses you have babies to deal with

our turtles lay approx 400 eggs each year but we only hatch 80 as we can only sell about that many each year as responsible owners can be hard to find

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They all seem to be settling in well. One has taken to doing laps around the top of the tank, then latching onto the top of the return pipe before doing another lap. :lol:

The boys seem to be eating the frozen mysis shrimp, which I have been braking up as if I don't do that it tends to get sucked up into the overflow.

I will try some daphnia, but I don't have that many and was hoping to increase the amount before I fed them out...but then I can probably get some more off Loopy! Hopefully the wee girl will start eating larger food soon, she seems happy enough hunting, but I just want to make sure she doesn't starve :oops:

Thanks Livingart for your help, I might try a baster...where did you get your baster from dj?

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I was at redwood aquatics last weekend and they were selling bags of live daphnia for $3. I grabbed a bag and stuck it in a small tank with an airstone, banana skin (no heater) and now i have my own little daphnia supply. They were selling fast so perhaps give them a ring?

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LA: ahsoo... :) just curious, as I have heard pro's & con's of releasing captive into the wild. It would be neat to know the actual survival rate. I've seen little tags on SH's somewhere...

Cool pic!

CarZ: baster --> Payless Plastics (after searching 6 other shops >o< )

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Yah! My wee girl is now eating frozen mysis shrimp and bloodworms!!!!

good to hear

how often do you feed

i feed morning and afternoon keeps them occupied with more to do

in the wild they spend their day hunting for food and in the tank they are fed all at once

horses are very intelligent and it doesn't take long to become tame and know where the food is coming from

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I feed them twice a day, first thing in the morning (around 7am) and then when I get home (around 6pm). I have found that if I defrost the shrimp and bloodworms first then the smaller amounts seem to be eaten more than if I leave it in clumps... In the weekends they might get a third feeding if i'm home.... :lol:

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