I have seahorse babies !WHAT DO I DO?

[ggomez]

JustDavid & Armando HELP! HELP!
Are your seahorse babies still using your incubator?
I am definitively not prepared to raise these babies.
So far I only counted 1 dozen & I'm sure there's allot more coming.

My Fiance says they are bi-racial babies (some are black & some are white)

I'm willing to give them up for adoption if you guys want to raise them.
Hopefully next time I will be prepared & be a responsible father.

Guys your advice will be gladly appreciated.

Thanks,
Gilbert Gomez

 

[Armando]

Gilbert Congratulations. I have my nurseries filled with David's seahorse babies. I am not sure exactly how long they need to stay there before I can more to the bigger tank. Which species are the parents?

 

[JustDavidP]

He he he... I just emailed you Gilbert...with my DIY Kreisel plans. Best of luck! Even if you don't have it done on time for this batch, you will be ready for the next. IF you don't want to try to raise this batch, let us know. Between Armando and I, we could parse them out. I'll have more room for new fry as of tomorrow...because...

Armando... I'm now moving my 3 week old fry to a partitioned 5 gallon tank tonight. 1/3 of the tank holds LR, Macro, Heater and a Mini Cascade Filter. The other 2/3 has fake plants and bare bottom. The partition is very thin acrylic with two 3" holes cut through and covered with mesh. The 3 week old fry are now 2CM and need both more room and filtration than the Kreisel can provide.

They also pay no attention to rotifers or BBS < 24 hours old anymore. They want the gut packed 1 day or older BBS. I've been using phytofeast and selcon to load them.

Pics tomorrow.

Dave

 

[Armando]

Armando... I'm now moving my 3 week old fry to a partitioned 5 gallon tank tonight. 1/3 of the tank holds LR, Macro, Heater and a Mini Cascade Filter. The other 2/3 has fake plants and bare bottom. The partition is very thin acrylic with two 3" holes cut through and covered with mesh. The 3 week old fry are now 2CM and need both more room and filtration than the Kreisel can provide.

Sounds like a nice little tank. It's great to have a neighboor handy with acrylic!

 

[ggomez]

Thanks to DavidP's step by step instructions I now have a 5 gallon incububator (kreisel) & so far I only have 1 dozen seahorse babies in 1 of the 2 small plastic bowls inside the 5 gallon. I did a skiptons run & picked up some rotifiers & green water. The horsies are eating the rotifiers & tomorrow I'll start the 2liter coke bottles & brine shrimp eggs.
But what do I do with the green water & rotifiers? Do I need a heater for them? David gave me a quick rundown while I was on the highway, & he explained that the rotifiers eat green water, & that I need to start hatching baby brine shrimp. I guess I need to go to seahorse bootcamp seminar.

Thanks,
Gilberto

 

[Armando]

you seem to be on the right path. you can find great information on this RC sticky:

Microfood culture: phytoplanktons, Rotifers, ciliates, Artemia, and copepods

 

[ggomez]

Thanks Armando, I briefly looked at the site, it seem like brain surgery.
I'll take a look at it after work tonight & I'll probably be calling you guys.

More babies this morning at-least 50 more,

At the moment I'm just dropping rotifiers for them to eat.
I am not sure how to feed the rotifiers the green water.

 

[JustDavidP]

Gilbert,

As long as the cultures of rotifers are in room temperature, you need only to keep a small air flow going to keep them suspended. No need for light or heat. The greenwater you have (unless it is home cultured) is probably DT's or Phytofeast and should be kept in the bottle, in the refridgerator in between uses. If you've grown your own, you should keep the culture going in a tank/bottles with airflow and should be kept warm to keep the culture 'growing'. If they are cool/cold, you won't have a 'bloom' and such.

Also, remember to feed the rotifers! I culture mine in 2 liter bottles. Every morning and every night, I shoot 1ml of phyto into the containers. Basically, you want to turn the water a light tint of green. After that, watch how long it takes to clear. For me, it takes about 8 hours. When it is clear, I feed again. Finally, as your rots start to reproduce, you'll need to split the cultures or they will crash. Failure to feed will cause them to stop developing and make cysts. That culture too is headed for a crash.

Do you have any mysid and/pods in a sump or refuguim? Smallish ones can be siphoned or slurped with a turkey baster and shot directly into the kreisel too! In the corners of my bowfront, I have collections of HUNDREDS of baby mysid that are just a bit larger than a newbie BBS. I siphon them off once a week and put them into the kreisel and the new tanks set up as grow outs. Hopefully this will start a culture in the grow outs. Otherwise, in the kreisel, they are just Shrimp McNuggets

Pics of the new grow out coming soon!

D

 

[JustDavidP]

Gil...

Read above! and keep those babies split up at least 50/50 for now. I ended up building two systems because IMHO, the ideal would be 2-40 per bowl at this stage. 1/2 of that in a months time etc. I've actually seen a 'pecking order' in my 3 week old fry. Some of the larger fish have 'turf' in the bowl that they protect and feed from. When smaller ones come by, they get chased! Again, keeping them as thinned out as possible is a good thing!

Armando, although my handy acrylic working neighbor taught me a lot, I made both this grow out system and my sump all by my newbie self

Dave

 

[JustDavidP]

OH... and Gilbert... keep watching the fry. Any that are floating on their sides, or seem like they are just NOT going to make it should be culled and euthanized. Better to do it fast than to have them starve to death. Most often this is due to too much air in the swim bladder. Otherwise, other health issues can cause the same slow death.

Dave

 

[Armando]

Dave I've seen one or two of them curling the tail and sort of scratching their backs. It sounds funny but that's how it appears. Have you noticed this? Could it be an infection or something? I saw it after feeding only so I assume is a brine that touched their backs so nothing to worry about.

 

[JustDavidP]

No...not funny. That's exactly what they are doing..scratching (a precurser to a greater problem). Two things to look for:

Ammonia levels?? Keep them under control. I actually put Caulerpa Serrulata in the tank area of the kreisel to help with this. I also use AmQuel twice a week (on days with no water change) and do a 50-75% water change every other day. Ammonia will cause irritation much like an itch before it starts to BURN them. Remember, ponies are not scaled fish. They are very sensitive to water conditions! I also use a Seachem Ammo Alert card in the tanks. It takes a couple/few days for the card to season and work properly, but they do work and are somewhat in check with the reagent tests I use. Remember too that the BBS hatcheries are probably chuck full of ammonia. Rinse the critters before using them!

Second...yes...bacterium. This is one reason why some use decapped brine shrimp. Supposedly, the caps could harbor bacterium that could cause problems for the fish. I use standard eggs with cysts and have no problems. Others say that you should run UV sterilizers on fry systems too, and avoid introduction of live rock, macro etc... I don't buy into it...BUT.. when I do see the ponies itching, I use 1/2 the recommended dose of Formalin in the system. It seems to work wonders. Just moments after the dose, they stop itching. If you think it is bacterial or parasites, you may also opt to lower the salinity in the tank. Do it slowly.

Dave

 

[Armando]

thanks for the info. I believe the ammonia levels are low because I am doing almost daily partial water changes and I'm feeding very carefully. I've seen only one or two of them scratching so it is not too bad. My ammonia alert dried out so i need to get a replacement. i'll put some macro tonight that is a good idea. I probably could drop a little Formalin as well. Need to check if Skiptons has Amquel..

 

[JustDavidP]

Here's an Ammo Alert Card in action... the center disk shows it is 'safe'. This was taken after a water change (note the salt all over the glass). Otherwise, I'm typically in safe to alert zones.

Seems like my 3 week old fry are checking the card regularly

Dave

 

[ggomez]

So far my children are doing good, none of them have dropped dead.
Thanks for the "how to keep seahorses" bootcamp training David.
I am lucky that skiptons is just a few min away & they have rotifers & green water. This weekend I will attempt to start my rotifier & greenwater culture.

At what point does this batch get big enough to eat regular baby brine?

 

[jango]

My Fiance says they are bi-racial babies (some are black & some are white)

Nothing wrong with that we will all be one race again anyway.

as for Dave....

F-ing awesome...That was the easiest thing to absorb that I have ever read in my years of reef keeping...


oh yeah and...i bet if you keep raising them eventually you will start using uv...

 

[JustDavidP]

Nothing wrong with that we will all be one race again anyway.

The ponies will change colors all day every day. Notice when the lights are out, they will get lighter in color. When the photoperiod starts, they will darken. Some will have stripes, some will be solids. When I introduced some live rock rubble and hitches into the 1 M tank, they changed color and matched the rock.

F-ing awesome...That was the easiest thing to absorb that I have ever read in my years of reef keeping...

Thanks, but which post/information are you referring to? FWIW, I've been keeping a notebook of sorts on H. Reidi. I've also been compiling other information and seeking approval (from authors on Seahorse.org etc.) to use it in creating a pamphlet to give to those who take my babies. When it is done, I hope to post some of it here so others can learn from my mistakes and hopefully, my future successes.

oh yeah and...i bet if you keep raising them eventually you will start using uv...

UV technology has become relatively cheap. I've been reading about it but have some concerns about any negative affects it may have on the natural planktons, juvi pods and mysid etc. We shall see.

Dave

 

[Armando]

After listening to Eric Borneman and Anthony Calfo at MACNA and again Calfo in our last meeting, I'm convinced that UV is pretty useless in our systems. Bacteria attaches to all sorts of stuff in the tank and it's very unlikely that it will "give it up" and float directly to the UV tube screaming "I wanna die!" Well that's my "enhanced" version of what they said

 

[JustDavidP]

Armando...I agree!

Again, I also have a concern about the beneficial 'stuff' that could be zapped by the UV systems. I'd not hesitate to use it on a 'sterile' fish only kind of system with synthetic decor etc. (to include my koi pond) but WOULD think twice about using the technology on a 'biologically' engineered system.

Dave

 

[jango]

Hi Dave got to love my 3am posts..
#1..That was me just stating beliefs about humans and what we will become if we don't destroy everything...but again great info on the color change...

#2..Every post was very informative and super easy to follow. That is a great Idea, if it is written in the same style these posts are I would like one just to read...

#3..uv does not have to be run all the time. I know you don't want a sterile system but partial use would give you a cleaner system.