Dawn's pony garden.

[vlangel]

11 hours ago, Arce said:

I haven't been on the forums much lately but I've been following your thread whenever you post on the ponies. They look great, glad to hear things are doing well and they are healthy. Your new horse with the cirri is beautiful.

I have not been on quite as much either but I am honored that you are following the ponies.  In general they are doing well.  Ruth just got over a scary time but she is much better and back with the herd.  I am still watching her closely.  I love the cirri on Delilah too.  I hope she keeps it.  Often erectus seahorses lose their cirri as they mature.  We will see.

[vlangel]

3 hours ago, RIP Sebastian said:

How does Eve seem to be taking to them?

Funny you should ask.  She and Samson courted for 3 days.  At first I just thought it was some flirting but then on day 3 in the late afternoon I found eggs on the bottom of the tank!  Oops, ha ha!  So I guess her and Samson are at least getting along well.  She seems to like Delilah too, however.  She has never shown impatience like she did when Boaz tried to get to know her.  Maybe she was still missing Adam at that point.  She seemed really happy to see Ruth when I put Ruth back in.  I have been calling her 'Big Mama Eve' because she dwarfs all the other ponies.  Ruth is significant bigger than the new ponies though.

[RIP Sebastian]

"Big Mama Eve."

[vlangel]

I have upped my WCs to Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.  I also suck out debris 2 or 3 Xs a week and I add make up water when I do that.  It is tricky to know how much bigger WCs to do with the new ponies.

[vlangel]

3 of my 4 ponies are in their new feeding bowl.  They were crowded trying to eat all at once from the former black feeding bowl.  I also have added a small amount of fish frenzie to their mysis.  That will give the ponies a more varied diet along with probiotics.

[markalot]

Hmmm,

 

your ponies are smokers?

[WV Reefer]

7 minutes ago, markalot said:

Hmmm,

 

your ponies are smokers?

I'm shocked Dawn! 

[Weetabix7]

Those ponies are SSSSSmmmoooookin!!!

[vlangel]

1 hour ago, markalot said:

Hmmm,

 

your ponies are smokers?

What do you expect, their mommy is a reefer, ha ha!

1 hour ago, WV Reefer said:

I'm shocked Dawn! 

 

Just now, vlangel said:

What do you expect, their mommy is a reefer, ha ha!

Now talk about shocking, I am even shocking myself!

28 minutes ago, Weetabix7 said:

Those ponies are SSSSSmmmoooookin!!!

I will definitely agree there, the ponies are definitely SSSSSmmmoookin hot!  I love em!

[vlangel]

A cool video of Ruth changing from pinto to piebald.  Then at the end she is a pinto again but I missed the change.

Pay no attention to the husband talking in the backround, ha ha!  I guess he did not know I was taping.

[RIP Sebastian]

Neat!

 

"Do Bob Evans' get frozen, or do they get refrigerated?"

[vlangel]

18 hours ago, RIP Sebastian said:

Neat!

 

"Do Bob Evans' get frozen, or do they get refrigerated?"

Refrigerated.  I guess you have an idea what we will be having for dinner this week.

[Weetabix7]

On 4/29/2017 at 6:54 PM, vlangel said:

A cool video of Ruth changing from pinto to piebald.  Then at the end she is a pinto again but I missed the change.

Pay no attention to the husband talking in the backround, ha ha!  I guess he did not know I was taping.

 

This is so cool!!!!!

[vlangel]

Thanks Weetie,

The male seahorses change color as soon as a female swims near but Ruth is my only female that changes color fast like that.  Eve has made slow color changes to suit her enviroment and Delilah has yet to change.  They all have such unique characteristics.  I guess thats a cool thing about ponies.

[Derrick1980]

58 minutes ago, vlangel said:

Thanks Weetie,

The male seahorses change color as soon as a female swims near but Ruth is my only female that changes color fast like that.  Eve has made slow color changes to suit her enviroment and Delilah has yet to change.  They all have such unique characteristics.  I guess thats a cool thing about ponies.

I find your tank extremely interesting.  The idea of seahorses is awesome but not something I would attempt without many years of experience and a dedicated tank.  It must be so peaceful watching them.

[vlangel]

8 hours ago, Derrick1980 said:

I find your tank extremely interesting.  The idea of seahorses is awesome but not something I would attempt without many years of experience and a dedicated tank.  It must be so peaceful watching them.

They are very charming and interesting in their own special way, (mostly how they interact with each other).  They are ambush predators by nature however so unless they are courting or are youngsters playing in the flow, they tend to spend a lot of time just hitched in their favorite spot.  That can be boring to many aquarist who like to see a bit more movement in their reefs.  Seahorses can be kept with peaceful species of fish but there are risks to doing that and I am now tending to prefer to keep mine in a dedicated specie tank.

[Derrick1980]

37 minutes ago, vlangel said:

They are very charming and interesting in their own special way, (mostly how they interact with each other).  They are ambush predators by nature however so unless they are courting or are youngsters playing in the flow, they tend to spend a lot of time just hitched in their favorite spot.  That can be boring to many aquarist who like to see a bit more movement in their reefs.  Seahorses can be kept with peaceful species of fish but there are risks to doing that and I am now tending to prefer to keep mine in a dedicated specie tank.

Yeah any case I've seen seahorses they have been in their own tank.  I never would have guessed they are predators.  What do you feed them?

[vlangel]

11 hours ago, Derrick1980 said:

Yeah any case I've seen seahorses they have been in their own tank.  I never would have guessed they are predators.  What do you feed them?

Mostly they eat frozen mysis shrimp or live feeder shrimp.

[vlangel]

The ponies are doing very well.  I am feeling pretty good about Ruth.  She gets right in there at chow time and actually gets more than her share.  Except when they are eating (its every horse for himself then), they all treat each other so nice.  

 

Delilah seems to look up to Ruth and Eve with a sense of awe and respect.  She treats Samson more like a peer but they do hang out together.

Samson is the smoozer.  He hangs with all the girls, caressing them with his tail and changes colors but Eve is definitely the one he puts the moves on for.  Ruth and Eve are best friends.  Its so cute how they interact.  I love having a herd.

[Weetabix7]

3 minutes ago, vlangel said:

The ponies are doing very well.  I am feeling pretty good about Ruth.  She gets right in there at chow time and actually gets more than her share.  Except when they are eating (its every horse for himself then), they all treat each other so nice.  

 

Delilah seems to look up to Ruth and Eve with a sense of awe and respect.  She treats Samson more like a peer but they do hang out together.

Samson is the smoozer.  He hangs with all the girls, caressing them with his tail and changes colors but Eve is definitely the one he puts the moves on for.  Ruth and Eve are best friends.  Its so cute how they interact.  I love having a herd.

 

LOVE seeing updates like this, and especially love hearing how well Ruth is doing!!!!

 

You make them all come alive for us with your descriptions of how they interact. 

The interactions sound more complex and varied with the new Ponies in there now, so happy for you that you are getting to experience this. 

[vlangel]

I noticed that my caulerpa in my sump has not been doing well for about the past week.  Since my ATO quit working reliably I thought the caulerpa just got burned from the sump light when I let the sump water get a little low.  I don't think that was the problem so I checked some parameters yesterday.  

 

PH and alk are fine.  Nitrates are zero however, and I didn't test phosphates but its probably very low or zero also because I have very little film algae on the glass even after a week.  I guess I may be doing too many water changes for Ruth's health sake, and maybe I am starving the caulerpa.  The fuge is after my skimmer too which isn't helping the caulerpa.  I weeded out all the poor looking caulerpa and I am ok with being low on caulerpa.  The other macro algaes in the sump look ok.  I don't want to slack off on WCs for Ruth's sake but I also don't want to starve my coral.  I decided to turn the return pump off for half an hour and feed the DT some small particle invert food, then I turned the pump back on and will do a WC.  That way I can keep the water quality up but feed my gorgs and polyps.  I will let you all know how that works out.

[debbeach13]

Some times it is so hard to balance it all out. Sounds like you have a solid plan.

[vlangel]

On 5/3/2017 at 9:08 AM, debbeach13 said:

Some times it is so hard to balance it all out. Sounds like you have a solid plan.

Yes it is.  Hopefully this will work out.

I am still working on the food bowl situation. At present, with the 4 ponies, they tend to get in the food bowl like a hot tub and then swish mysis everywhere with their tails. I am trying to come up with better hitches for them. It would be nice to get the food bowl off the ground too. I am thinking of using a magnet to have it part way up the glass.

[vlangel]

This is a FTS from earlier this week with the food bowl situation.

This is my new FTS with hopefully my remedy to the pony hot tub!

[vlangel]

The new food bowl with ponies trying it out.  It works pretty well but they still do the hot tub thing, especially Samson and Delilah.  The soft hitches are nice cause I know they will not get injured by them.  I am not sure what it will look like with algae all over it.