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Dawn's seahorse garden. Farewell 36g bowfront!


vlangel

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Adam and Eve both use the feeding dish, more or less. They would benefit from some hitches there because they struggle to stay at the dish. Adam's pouch continues to expand so I am almost positive he is pregnant! My little "in tank" diy nursery is finished and in the sump. It should be big enough to hold 20 ponies at first. Once they are hitching well I plan to move them to my bb cycled 5g QT to grow. Today I fired up the bb hatchery as the babies can arrive any time after tomorrow.

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This morning Adam was waiting at the feed dish when the actinics came on. I take back what I said about him not being the smartest pony in the barn. His girth continues to expand and I kind of was hoping to find baby seahorses this morning but alas there was none.

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Still no baby seahorses. Every morning I run out and check to see if Adam gave birth but alas...not yet. The anticipation and anxiety is almost as bad as when I was pregnant. The wait isn't as long though, haha!

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Adam looks like he's about to burst! I have some enriched bb ready,( enriched with Dan's feed, selcon and phytofeast )and the hatchery is loaded for another batch of bb that should be ready tomorrow morning. This way I should have enough bb to feed my 10-15 fry I plan to try and raise and still send bb home with the reef club member who is taking the rest of the baby seahorses.

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Waiting on all babies generates excitement, anticipation and anxiety. I can't believe how much I am looking forward to the arrival of the seahorse fry! And to think that I ordered 2 females to avoid all this.

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Well its a terrible pic but these are the seahorse babies. It was a much smaller brood than I expected and I am guessing 20-25 fry. Adam delivered when the tank was still dark so scooping the babies out was a challenge. I should have turned the pumps off but didn't think of it. Anyway, they are pretty cute and eating pretty well. A local reefer is coming tomorrow for half of them and we will both give it a go. I am sure that I will have more opportunities in the future as Adam and Eve began courting again tonight!

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I checked on the babies this morning and I didn't see any. I was beginning to think that somehow they got out of the nursery. It turns out that they are just so tiny and a lot of them were hitched on a fake plant that I just didn't see them! All of them made it through the night.

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Babies! I'm hoping it all goes well for you.

Thanks Mark. I am hoping it goes well too, but considering that Adam and Eve began courting again last night I suspect I will have more opportunities after this batch. A local reef club member is coming over for half the babies tonight. I hear that your chances of raising a few babies is better than a whole bunch because its easier to keep their nursery clean and easier to feed them when you don't need so much bb.
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Thats awesome! I want one when they get big! :)

That might be able to be arranged if I have any success at raising baby seahorses. I am thinking that 4 adult seahorses is the max I should have in my system unless I convert my reef tank to a seahorse tank also so I may sell them locally if I can. Or if my pair have more babies and I suspect they will, I'd be glad to share some of the baby seahorses with you for free. You'd just have to come and get them.

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That might be able to be arranged if I have any success at raising baby seahorses. I am thinking that 4 adult seahorses is the max I should have in my system unless I convert my reef tank to a seahorse tank also so I may sell them locally if I can. Or if my pair have more babies and I suspect they will, I'd be glad to share some of the baby seahorses with you for free. You'd just have to come and get them.

Sounds good to me!!! :) Let me know I would love raise some if you get more!

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Sounds good to me!!! :) Let me know I would love raise some if you get more!

Good to know. I am suspecting that I would be exhausted if I tried to raise all their babies and yet I don't think I could euthanize them.

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The babies are all tucked in for the night and I'll be following shortly. They all hitch on the fake plant when the lights go out but they float all over the place hooked to each others tails, necks and even snouts during the day. I wonder what thats all about? I have 16 now that a local reef club friend took 12 of them. Less mouths should make hatching bb easier.

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Today the babies are swimming independently more and also hitching more. That seems like a good sign. They are eating well too but I have no idea how much is enough. I let them eat for about an hour then flush the nursery of bb. It's live but that is putting a lot in the main tank. I may have to move the babies into a 5g to keep from polluting the main system. There are so many things I don'the know. I guess it's live and learn.

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I nearly killed the baby seahorses with kindness. I am not positive of what happened but I had just finished pouring some prebiotic and bb in the nursery. I looked a half hour later and it looked like all the babies were dead or almost dead. Fortunately I put the feed back in their tank that brings water from the sump into their nursery, thus flushing the water in the nursery out. Amazingly they began to revive! My theory is I put too many bb in the half gallon nursery and maybe with the prebiotic the slow bubbler could not keep the little bowl oxygenated. Seahorses have a high respiration and need a lot of oxygen. Anyway I am glad they revived!

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Today I left the babies for 6 hours while my hubby and I went to church and then out to lunch and some shopping. Sundays are our only day to do something out together since we pay a home helper to care for mom while we are out. That meant the baby seahorses did not get fed from 10am-5pm. They were hungry but did just fine. They are much more coordinated and hunt bb very effectively.

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I have decided that the hardest part of baby seahorses is culturing the food. Between hatching it and then keeping it clean, that is a fair amount of work. So far so good!

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In an hour my baby seahorses will be a week old! Hooray!!! They have come a long way in a week. They can swim where ever they want and their voracious appetites drive them to be relentless hunters. I suspect that they have doubled in weight and they are longer as well. As near as I can count I have at least 20.

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Well I stumbled into a happy mistake. When I feed the baby brine sometimes I have a little left over when the next hatch is ready. I didn't want to throw them away and I didn't want to mix them in with the new hatched brine. So I set up a 5g, teed off the airline tubing and put them in their to maybe grow out and feed to my adult seahorses. As luck would have it the baby seahorses have grown so much that they prefer the slightly grown bb to the newly hatched. It doesn't require as much since they are bigger which is good too.

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Tonight I remembered a tip I learned 6 years ago when I was raising my baby clowns. When culturing tiny live food like rotifer or newly hatched bb use a coffee filter to strain them. That way you are not dumping all the culture water into the fry tank, or the main system in my case. I was starting to have some algae problems so this should help with that. :-)

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These are the babies on their 1 week birthday! They act like siblings at times when their tails are hooked together but they can't agree which direction to go. Watch the 2 at the top of the nursery. LOL

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