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Hippocampus Erectus breeding


jamescstein

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jamescstein

Since December of 2017 my wife has been raising Hippocampus Erectus sea horses.

 

We bought a pair from Sacs Systems Aquaculture (http://www.aquaculturestore.com/) . When pruchased both were a dark brown/black color. The female now spends most of her time cream colored and has quite the elaborate cirri with some white patches and the male is usually dark brown with some light brown/white patches here and there, his cerri are also much less pronounced.

 

IMG_1206_zpshneb84je.jpg

 

This is a picture of the two of them together.

 

The adults are currently housed in a 70 gallon tank with a 30 gallon sump. Also in the tank with the horses are 3 dragon faced pipefish. A pair of Yasha gobies, a trio of Tagoroa gobies, a pair of Gumdrop Coral Crouchers and 2 Randalls Pistol Shrimp (may or may not be a pair).

 

Our first release of babies was on February 7, 2018 and have had a release almost every 14 days, 2/22, 3/10, 3/27, and 4/12. We either missed a release or they took a break the last month. The male, is currently holding babies and we really don't know he got the eggs so the next release is anybodies guess.

 

We lost the first batch of about 25-30. The second batch started with around 40 and we still have 18-20 of those left. The 3rd we lost all of them. The 4th we have around 55  of those remaining and the last batch we lost all of them.

 

We've currently got about 75 babies some a month and a half and some 3 1/2 months old.

 

When first released we usually keep the babies in a 1.5 gallon plastic pail with an airstone and cheato.  These get fed baby brine several times a day exclusively.

27524040987_299e9a8d8a_k.jpgUntitled by James Stein, on Flickr

 

As they get older, a month or so, we've moved them into a 20L that has a divider. 1 side is marco algae and the other horses and cheato. There is a air lift pump that moves water from the

macro side into the horse side and a hole near the surface with a screen on it for return flow to the macro's. These get get a mixture of baby brine and other 'non-live' foods.

40586137740_2096a69ed2_k.jpgUntitled by James Stein, on Flickr

 

We just recently moved, them all into their final growout tank where they are fed mostly non-live food, with the occasional enriched adult brine as a treat.

40586148390_3914329124_k.jpgUntitled by James Stein, on Flickr

 

The final grow out tank is a 30 gallon over a 20L. It is a bare bottom tank with cheato, the 20L underneath has various macro algae's in it.

This is the setup before it was finished and filled. Return is a cobalt MJ Mini 606 wide open.

39536653814_1c987bc138_b.jpg20L by 29 stand by James Stein, on Flickr

 

 

You can read more details on her page on her Marine Breeding Initiative page http://www.mbisite.org/Forums/tm.aspx?&m=100924&mpage=1

 

This is one of the coolest looking babies we currently have, it is from the 4th batch of babies and is around 2 months old. It is roughly 1in from head to tail.

 

41651553264_50f3a02076_z.jpgSeahorse baby by James Stein, on Flickr

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1 minute ago, jamescstein said:

My wife has been raising Hippocampus Erectus sea horses.

 

We've currently got about 75 babies some a month and a half and some 3 1/2 months old.

 

This is one of the coolest ones. It's one of the younger ones.

 

41651553264_50f3a02076_z.jpgSeahorse baby by James Stein, on Flickr

Very cool. 

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17 minutes ago, jamescstein said:

My wife has been raising Hippocampus Erectus sea horses.

 

We've currently got about 75 babies some a month and a half and some 3 1/2 months old.

 

This is one of the coolest ones. It's one of the younger ones.

 

41651553264_50f3a02076_z.jpgSeahorse baby by James Stein, on Flickr

 

15 minutes ago, WV Reefer said:

Very cool. 

It’s no Fonzie though. 

DE09751E-851A-4E89-A41C-9E535B0DA014.gif

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jamescstein
52 minutes ago, lobster876 said:

any chance of getting some of these? 

 

The long term goal is to sell the babies. That partiuclar one though will probably wind up in a pair to see what other interesting patterns can come out.

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jamescstein

New batch of babies this morning.

 

28697273458_c2fc08176d_k.jpgUntitled by James Stein, on Flickr

 

Here is a question I haven't really found a good answer for. What is the smallest size you think someone would be willing to buy a seahorse at? Not a dwarf, but an Erectus that gets to 6-8 inches when fully grown.

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lobster876

if you found a person who was willing to grow tanks with the seahorse probably 2-3 inches would be my minimum. Although it all depends on the person and wether or not they are willing to hatch bbs

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jamescstein

Well my older ones, are about 1" 1" 1/2 and eating ova, frozen bbs, frozen copepods, and frozen mysid (very small) so no live food needed.

 

Sounds like they have a bit of time left to grow out.

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  • 3 weeks later...
jamescstein

Another batch of babies this morning. Some current picks of the groups and yes, we are having a bit of a green water issue in the tanks. Getting better, you can actually see now.

 

Curren't 'older' horses. Mixed ages - eating prepared foods

41119883860_12fab8af28_k.jpgUntitled by James Stein, on Flickr

 

2 weeks old - eating brine and copepods

42211901354_ea56363017_k.jpgUntitled by James Stein, on Flickr

 

Born today - eating baby brine

42881242532_3481bd3c80_k.jpgBorn today - 6-20-18 by James Stein, on Flickr

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  • 3 weeks later...
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jamescstein

We seem to keep missing the babies. It's been over a month since we've had any, the male is obviously pregnant, just other things must be eating the babies before we find them.

 

Since there is nothing new to report, here is a picture of the progress on the 'mixed' teens group.

 

42941503904_4d3378ac4b_z.jpgUntitled by James Stein, on Flickr

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  • 2 months later...
1 hour ago, Christopher Marks said:

How has the seahorse breeding project been going over the summer @jamescstein? Hope you're well!

It’s been going well. We lost a few batches here and there but we’ve started selling on eBay and to a LFS.  We’ve actuallly got babies having babies now.  Some of the “teens” are over 6 months old and at least 2 if the males have full pouches. 

 

 

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