NanoFever Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 I have cheato to spare but the nursery is only a half gallon and it is important to wipe down all the surfaces every other day and syphon the bottom every day to protect against bacterial infections. All the hobbyist I am acquainted with raise fry in bare bottom tanks with plastic hitches that can be sterilized with bleach. Sounds tedious but keep up the good work and keep the pictures coming! I cant wait to see all these get big. Are you going to keep breeding them? Link to comment
vlangel Posted November 14, 2014 Author Share Posted November 14, 2014 Sounds tedious but keep up the good work and keep the pictures coming! I cant wait to see all these get big. Are you going to keep breeding them? I hope they get big, there is so much that can go wrong! Right now I am desperately trying to locate bb as I had 2 poor hatches in a row and they are out eating what I could produce. I have posted on local forums and I am calling lfs. I will keep the pics coming as long as I have babies to take pics of though. Link to comment
kimberbee Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 Sorry, my phone wasn't showing new posts and I thought the last update was a week ago... Seems like soooo much work!! Link to comment
vlangel Posted November 14, 2014 Author Share Posted November 14, 2014 Sorry, my phone wasn't showing new posts and I thought the last update was a week ago... Seems like soooo much work!! It is a lot of work, a really lot of work but they are soooo cute!!!!!!! Link to comment
vlangel Posted November 15, 2014 Author Share Posted November 15, 2014 Ok, so I drove 50 miles last night to buy cope pods for the seahorse fry. I knew with the poor hatch of the 2 batches of bb that I only had enough left for 1 more feeding. I had hoped the copepods would buy me some time until the eggs in the hatchery were hatched, or at least some of them. This morning I fed the pods and some of the bb is hatching now. I will keep the lights low on the nursery to discourage the babies from being too active. I will only give them 3 small feedings today and by tomorrow morning I should have a decent supply of bb. I am now running 2 hatcheries in hopes of prevent this from reaccurring. Link to comment
vlangel Posted November 16, 2014 Author Share Posted November 16, 2014 Well hatchery #1 is producing bb, hooray! Tomorrow morning I expect hatchery #2 to also be producing bb. I think I dodged another bullet. Live and learn. A fellow seahorse hobbyist who is experienced in raising fry said my last video look like they were just about ready to tackle adult brine shrimp. It never occurred to me that they were close but today I bought some. I put just a few in the nursery and sure enough, the biggest and bravest did indeed tackle them and conquered! Wow, that will make life much less stressful as I have 3 lfs that carry brine shrimp. All I need to do is enrich it overnight, each day. Woohoo, oh yeah, I feel like dancing. Link to comment
vlangel Posted November 16, 2014 Author Share Posted November 16, 2014 I have been so preoccupied with seahorse stuff that I never post about the LPS bow front tank anymore. Well, today I crossed a barrier...I bought my first SPS frags! I am so dumb about SPS that I don't even know what they are. I will have to take pics and maybe some of you can help me. The lfs employee was knowledgeable and told me but I can't remember. He did give me tips about placement which I tried to heed. Hopefully they will do well. Link to comment
vlangel Posted November 17, 2014 Author Share Posted November 17, 2014 As I watched the baby seahorses eat this morning, I think they are entering a critical time in their developement. They have just about outgrown the newly hatched bb, (they are using too much energy to catch enough to sustain them) but most of them are not ready for the adult brine, only the biggest and most robust among them. I need to grow some bb to a size half way between newly hatched and adult to meet their needs. Will set up the 5 gallon again in an attempt to grow out some. I fear I will lose some of the smaller, less developed individuals, but maybe if I keep the nursery flooded with bb along with juvenile bb and feed 5 Xs a day I can get them big enough to tackle adult brine? We will see. Link to comment
NanoFever Posted November 17, 2014 Share Posted November 17, 2014 Keep us posted! Where did you end up getting baby brine just out of curiosity? Link to comment
aquariumlover10 Posted November 17, 2014 Share Posted November 17, 2014 Maybe bloodworms would be ok? Or cyclops? Link to comment
vlangel Posted November 18, 2014 Author Share Posted November 18, 2014 Keep us posted! Where did you end up getting baby brine just out of curiosity? I couldn't find bb anywhere, however I was able to get pods from Slippery Rock Corals. Wet Pets said they are considering raising bb here in the near future though. Link to comment
NanoFever Posted November 18, 2014 Share Posted November 18, 2014 Awesome wet pets is right down the street from me I hope they do! Slippery rock is awesome! Link to comment
vlangel Posted November 18, 2014 Author Share Posted November 18, 2014 Maybe bloodworms would be ok? Or cyclops? I tried cyclopese and frozen baby brine but they wouldn't have it. They want to see that little shimmy in the water that only live food can produce. Bloodworms are too big as are adult brine shrimp. Link to comment
Polarcollision Posted November 18, 2014 Share Posted November 18, 2014 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 Are you kidding me! This is the coolest thing I've seen all month. Wow! Nice work! As I watched the baby seahorses eat this morning, I think they are entering a critical time in their developement. They have just about outgrown the newly hatched bb, (they are using too much energy to catch enough to sustain them) but most of them are not ready for the adult brine, only the biggest and most robust among them. I need to grow some bb to a size half way between newly hatched and adult to meet their needs. Will set up the 5 gallon again in an attempt to grow out some. I fear I will lose some of the smaller, less developed individuals, but maybe if I keep the nursery flooded with bb along with juvenile bb and feed 5 Xs a day I can get them big enough to tackle adult brine? We will see. I know nothing of raising seahorses or dragonetts, but found this link when I was learning more about training it to frozen. Maybe the part about feeding the fry is helpful? http://en.microcosmaquariumexplorer.com/wiki/Breeding_the_Green_Mandarin Link to comment
vlangel Posted November 18, 2014 Author Share Posted November 18, 2014 Are you kidding me! This is the coolest thing I've seen all month. Wow! Nice work! I know nothing of raising seahorses or dragonetts, but found this link when I was learning more about training it to frozen. Maybe the part about feeding the fry is helpful? http://en.microcosmaquariumexplorer.com/wiki/Breeding_the_Green_Mandarin]http://en.microcosmaquariumexplorer.com/wiki/Breeding_the_Green_Mandarin[/url] Thanks for the link! LOL, I don't know anything about raising baby seahorses either so I can use all the help I can get. I did raise a batch of tomato clowns once and I am drawing on that experience to help me with my seahorse fry. O and I am glad that you enjoyed the video. I wished I could capture how annoyed they act when one of their siblings hitches to their snouts! That is really funny. Link to comment
aquariumlover10 Posted November 18, 2014 Share Posted November 18, 2014 Maybe a live feed of them would work Link to comment
vlangel Posted November 18, 2014 Author Share Posted November 18, 2014 I am worried about the babies. One died last night and another today. That is 3 in 3 days, not a good trend. I don't know if it is just weak individuals succumbing or if something is contributing bacteria to either the nursery or their food? There is no test for bacteria, one just combats it with due diligence regarding husbandry and water quality. I am trying to be as thorough as I know how but it's all a learning experience. Still I feel sad and frustrated to lose the little guys. Link to comment
aquariumlover10 Posted November 19, 2014 Share Posted November 19, 2014 Maybe not enough protien, try feeding the bb something high in protien before feeding. Link to comment
kimberbee Posted November 19, 2014 Share Posted November 19, 2014 Good luck, hopefully you won't lose any more... Link to comment
vlangel Posted November 19, 2014 Author Share Posted November 19, 2014 Maybe not enough protien, try feeding the bb something high in protien before feeding.I enrich the bb with Dan's feed, Selcon and phytopheast. Dan's feed is formulated just for enriching bb for seahorse fry and adult brine for bigger seahorses. I even bought the immune boost variety. Good luck, hopefully you won't lose any more...Thanks Kimberly, I hope I don't lose anymore as well. Link to comment
aquariumlover10 Posted November 19, 2014 Share Posted November 19, 2014 Oooooooh, maybe to small tank, try getting a 10g tank. Link to comment
vlangel Posted November 20, 2014 Author Share Posted November 20, 2014 Oooooooh, maybe to small tank, try getting a 10g tank. I don't think they have outgrown their nursery yet but I have a gallon pretzel container waiting to be their new nursery. They need to be in small enclosures or it would require too much bb to satisfy them. In order for them to catch their food and not use too much energy doing it, the bb must flood the nursery tank. A 10 gallon would need an enormous amount of bb. Link to comment
vlangel Posted November 20, 2014 Author Share Posted November 20, 2014 Today was more positive. I didn't lose any babies since yesterday. They are looking pretty good too. I asked about feeding and transitioning foods on a seahorse forum...All I can say is it is a miracle that I having babies still alive. As diligent as I am being I was missing entire steps just because I didn' t know. I hope I can implement my new knowledge correctly. It's a steep learning curve, that's for sure. Link to comment
vlangel Posted November 20, 2014 Author Share Posted November 20, 2014 http://s36.photobucket.com/user/vlangelbike/media/20141120_081939_zps814d9085.jpg.html'> Here's a pic of the ponies eating this morning. Link to comment
markalot Posted November 20, 2014 Share Posted November 20, 2014 Glad to see they are still alive! I could never do the amount of work you've done to raise these guys. Link to comment
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