clowns & seahorses

[Bongo Shrimp]

Amusing note is that they recommend not keeping pipefish with them either. Apparently (and I've only read a bit on this) each seahorse species has its own genetic weakness to certain diseases. Effectively they carry them with them (think chicken pox). So, when you mix seahorse species you run a risk of one spreading it to another that isn't immune (think, Europeans wiping out the Indians with said chicken pox). I don't know what the odds are, I've heard more stories of successful mixing than unsuccessful. However, I've seen some stories of people who had seahorses for quite a while, added a different breed and then lost all of them. I suspect it has a lot to do with which type was mixed with what (different areas of the ocean maybe?) but I doubt anyone's done any studies on it.

 

Pipefish, which many sources I read before said were good tank mates are close enough to seahorses in genealogy that apparently they *can* have or receive the same issue. Not as likely as with another seahorse species but still.

 

 

You are right, I should have said captive bred pipefish. Although there's always a risk, captive bred quarantined specimens are the way to go. I mean, we could go about this all day- even LR has the same potential to introduce disease.

[faerl]

Happened to me! I Mixed two species from the same breeder (erectus and kuda from seahorsesource.com) ) and they all wound up dead. BUT for anyone looking to get captive bred seahorses you need to go that site. I've visited his breeding set-up and it really is impressive. Very healthy seahorses!

 

Yup. It's weird, I'd think it would happen more with wild but clearly captive can have it occur too. The two places out that seem decent are seahorsesource and oceanriders. I bought mine from seahorse source and they're doing great. Oceanriders was pretty high on their pricing but recently they've started selling 'medium' (they say 3-4") for about the same as seahorse source (used to be $120 minimum).