Melosu58`s seahorse diary

[roka64]

Great pics! How big are they?

 

[melosu58]

Maybe with the tail about 4 inches.

 

[roka64]

Maybe with the tail about 4 inches.

Does that mean they are babies or a little older? I'm just curious.

 

[melosu58]

I dont know but I posted at a few places and we will see.

 

[roka64]

Sweet, thanks!

 

[melosu58]

I fed them some mysis today and they snicked them down pretty quick. One day down hopefully many to follow.

 

[MsBeanCtr]

This is really an excellent thread melosu. Very informative.....keep the pictures coming!

 

[kimberly]

What type of sh did you finally end up getting? And if you don't mind, how much did it set you back ($$)?

 

[melosu58]

I`m still trying to find out on the ID. They cost me 34.00 a piece. I got two. Here are some close ups I took today.

 

[vsnsofadrgn]

good to hear that they are eating well!

 

[melosu58]

2 more recent pics. They seem to be doing quite good and they love to eat mysis shrimp. One thing I have found out is that they love calerpa to hang onto.

 

[lando]

WOW MIKE!!! They look great. Makes me think of maybe starting a new project...I will give my wife your number and you can help me out of this one!

 

[melosu58]

Be glad to help. LOL

 

[kimberly]

Hoping to get some more updates from you on this project. I believe someone else (STARFYRE?) posted she was getting some seahorses too. I think I read a post that she was going to, or all ready had baby seahorses.

I am cultivating a 90g corner tank (about 30" tall) but am real unsure about being able to handle the multiple daily feedings (work does interfere with life sometimes). Thinking about setting up another 55g just to breed critters (copepods & stuff) as a food source.

So for us less adventurous (aka super cautious) people out there - please let us know how your endeavor is going.

Thanks

 

[melosu58]

So far so good Kim. You really dont need the live food unless you want the extra work. I feed mine twice a day with frozen mysis and they eat very good. You want to make sure that you get captive bred ones as the wild caught ones will only eat live foods and to me that is one headache you dont need. I think you would do good at it. Just follow mine and starfyres learn as we go threads and if you have any questions just PM me. Have a good one.

 

[melosu58]

Little update here. Having what looks like the starting of some cyano. I`m feeding twice a day. I dont see how I can feed less to SH`s. I went on down to the LFS and bought a few things. I got a better bulb then the one I had which was just a regular flourecent. I also got me 10 narsirus snails to stir up the sand in there as it is surely needed. I believe I have enough flow as the mysis just swirls around in there time after time until eaten. I also got a tiger cowrie even though that has nothing to do with the cyano. One last thing I did was to get a bag of chemi pure. It`s the resin in a bag that works better than GAC. Hopefully all these will help. I will post a pic or two in the next few days. It`s a new experience to me because I have not had any type algea in my reef tank in over 7 yrs now. I guess it`s time to put all that talk into practice. First thing up is more frequent PWC`s. Thanks

 

[Sadielynn]

You may find that the best treatment for the cyano in your SH tank is to manualy stir it weekly and run a tandum filter ... however you could look into a couple of cleaner shrimps to help eat the uneaten food ... you could also look into perhaps dropping the power behind the rock work to also agitate it up some. The other thing is perhaps a bit of purigen and some phosguard (running the phosguard 1 week a month ) may also help ya out a bit

 

[SkinnyPete]

As far as uneaten food goes, some folks train their horses to a feeding station. I couldn't find the pic, but recently I saw a photo online from someone who built a feeding station - a small wide plastic dish suctioned to the glass, then a clear acrylic tube, like the ones used for undergravel filter powerheads, running from the top of the water down into the cup. He placed a small strip of eggcrate on the side of the cup, where the seahorses hitch to feed. To feed, he dumps defrosted mysis into the top of the tube and it slowly sinks down the tube into the cup. With the pumps off, the food mostly stays there - the seahorses eat out of the dish and then he sucks up the uneaten food using a turkey baster. It's really a great idea. Some people use big oyster shells as feeding stations instead of plastic cups so that it isn't such an eye sore.

Something to think about. I'm starting a big seahorse tank next week (converting my 110g tall tank) and I'm going to try to set-up this type of feeding station. I'll try to send or post pics when it's done.

- Skins

 

[SkinnyPete]

If anyone cares - here's a whole article on feeding stations and training your horses to them.

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_2/cav2i5/seahorse_feeders/seahorse_feeders.htm

 

[melosu58]

Thanks Pete. Great info. I`ll check into it. I hope you are able to use some info from this thread on the start up of your SH tank. Alot of people contributed. I did add a pouch of the chemi pure to my filter Sadielynn. And yes Pete, post some picks of the whole process. Maybe even do your own SH thread.