Dawn's 56g memorial seahorse tank!

[vlangel]

All 3 seahorses are back in the display tank. It feels good to have them all back together again. They seem happy too.

 

[vlangel]

Having the ponies back in a bb tank shows me again just how much wastes seahorses give off. They are poop factories!
I have upped their feeding from 2-3Xs to always 3Xs and sometimes 4Xs a day in hopes of building up their immune response.

 

[vlangel]

My sump for the seahorse tank is in the basement. So was the controller for my jabao 6000. It has a feed setting on it for 10 minutes to allow the seahorses to eat and then it automatically turns on. Its great except that I have to go down to the basement to push the button.

Today I decided that I was going to move the controller upstairs. The problem was the fitting was too big where the pump end of the wire plugged into the controller and would not fit through the hole with the tubing. Originally I tried to use a dremel to make the hole bigger but that was an inadequate tool for the job. Also my flex plumbing had multiple unnecessary elbows from days gone by when the sump was under the cabinet. I decided now was the time to change all that too, especially since I bought 12 ft of tubing just for that purpose. ( I had put it off because plumbing always intimidates me, ha ha! ). Anyway I removed the old tubing, fished the controller wire from the jabao up through the hole and then put the new flex tubing from the overflow box to the drain compartment. I can hardly believe it but nothing leaks, the controller is under the cabinet and I could actually run the jabao at 100% with the new tubing (and its reasonably quiet!) Today is a victory!

 

[vlangel]

2018-11-13_12-36-08 by Dawn Gilson, on Flickr

Here is a pic of the seahorse tank.

 

[Chrisfish]

Beautiful as always

 

[vlangel]

Here is a video of feeding time. Samson was less interested because this was the last meal of the day.

 

[vlangel]

I have had to learn so much about seahorses the hard way. I keep thinking that I am able to compensate and overcome certain constraints until I actually do it and find that it really is not the best way to keep ponies in the long term.

This is my 2nd time to go bb and a simpler aquascape and now I am wondering why I ever changed the first time! It is so much easier to manage husbandry and I can see what I am removing from the tank. Feeding the ponies by broadcasting it in the water column is easier than luring them to a feeding dish and they seem happier hunting it down, rather than taking turns snicking in the dish.

Once is learning, twice is stupid. Ha ha, guess what that makes me? Anyway, for me I think this is the way I will keep ponies from now on.

 

[vlangel]

Baby seahorse came with my order. by Dawn Gilson, on Flickr
This little gal was in with my ghost shrimp order. She has probably been without food for 4 days or more so her chances are dismal. All the same I am gonna pick up some copepods and start my bbs hatchery to give her at least a fighting chance.

 

[Chrisfish]

Baby seahorse came with my order. by Dawn Gilson, on Flickr
This little gal was in with my ghost shrimp order. She has probably been without food for 4 days or more so her chances are dismal. All the same I am gonna pick up some copepods and start my bbs hatchery to give her at least a fighting chance.

Wow Dawn, talk about fate , if she’s gonna live you’ll be the one to make it happen

 

[vlangel]

Wow Dawn, talk about fate , if she’s gonna live you’ll be the one to make it happen

Thanks Chris. I have her in my original baby seahorse nursery that can hang in my 30 gallon tank. It has a few fake plants for her to hitch to. I added some tigger pods and started the bbs hatchery. Now its just wait and see what happens.

 

[MamaLovesHerReefTank]

Thanks Chris. I have her in my original baby seahorse nursery that can hang in my 30 gallon tank. It has a few fake plants for her to hitch to. I added some tigger pods and started the bbs hatchery. Now its just wait and see what happens.

How's the baby doing today?

 

[vlangel]

How's the baby doing today?

Well she is hanging in there. Unfortunately our power had been off since Thursday night so my bbs hatchery has been off and on. I have a power inverter that we ran off a car battery to run powerheads and par bulbs over the tanks. I could run an air pump for the hatchery and I used a battery light. Unfortunately the house although not frigid was not warm either with just our fireplace. Also my decapped brine cysts are years old so don't know how viable they are. I bought 2 bottles of trigger pods for her. Our power finally came on a bit ago so hopefully those bbs will hatch. She needs a high density of food pronto.

 

[MamaLovesHerReefTank]

Sorry you're having power issues. Praying things turn around for you and your bb starts hatching. I know you'll do everything in your power to try and save her.

 

[vlangel]

Sorry you're having power issues. Praying things turn around for you and your bb starts hatching. I know you'll do everything in your power to try and save her.

Thanks, the outage definitely complicated things but my bbs finally hatched and I have been offering it since last night in large densities. This morning I syphoned out most of those and added freshly enriched bbs. I never see her snick so I don't know if she is eating. Thank you for the prayers. I believe God cares about the tiniest of creatures.

 

[vlangel]

Here is a 10 second YouTube video of this tiny gal. Could perhaps @rayjay or @Lucie let me know if this is a dwarf seahorse. I feel ill-equipped to keep her but I have not been able to find her a home. I am hatching and enriching bbs. I am changing her little vase 2Xs a day (about 2/3 at a time).

 

[rayjay]

Just guessing but with what appears to be cirri already on it, that to me would indicate dwarf because I've never seen juvenile standard seahorses that size with cirri.
I don't like the fact it shows no interest in the live food surrounding it, especially when you say you haven't seen it eat yet.
Being most likely to be wildcaught, it may not recognize brine as a food. The copepod route would be more likely to work as long as they are appropriately sized.
Personally I've never had much luck with tigger pods as they usually irritated my seahorses by jumping on them at times, and, my seahorses for some reason didn't see them as food very much.
You could contact the company you got the ghost shrimp order from as this probably isn't an isolated incidence and may know for sure what it actually is.

 

[vlangel]

Just guessing but with what appears to be cirri already on it, that to me would indicate dwarf because I've never seen juvenile standard seahorses that size with cirri.
I don't like the fact it shows no interest in the live food surrounding it, especially when you say you haven't seen it eat yet.
Being most likely to be wildcaught, it may not recognize brine as a food. The copepod route would be more likely to work as long as they are appropriately sized.
Personally I've never had much luck with tigger pods as they usually irritated my seahorses by jumping on them at times, and, my seahorses for some reason didn't see them as food very much.
You could contact the company you got the ghost shrimp order from as this probably isn't an isolated incidence and may know for sure what it actually is.

Thank you very much for the reply rayjay. Yesterday I thought she looked fatter and her belly looked orange-ish, which might indicate that she is eating the bbs. If she does not eat it I am afraid she will not make it.

I would have to order copepods and she has been with me a week tomorrow. If she has not eaten in over a week most likely anything I would order would not arrive in time. Also, we are a family of modest means and I can not afford to order copepods to feed her and I have not had success in culturing them.

I am doing the best for her that I can with what I have. I feel sad that she was displaced from her home. I am glad to hear that you think she is probably a dwarf and not a greater seahorses specie. Raising a greater seahorses would create a new set of problems for me, like where to keep her. I would not put her with my CB and risk them getting sick but I would not like setting up a tank for her either. I could not find folks to give my hand raised seahorses to 4 years ago because no one wanted to do the work necessary to keep them. I finally sold them to a pet store where Felicia, (an acquaintance of Tami Weiss) worked. We drove 2 hours to check it out and it looked good. Maybe I should contact them and see if they would like this little dwarf? They take my fry when my erectus have them.

Anyway, I really appreciate you answering me rayjay. You know a lot more than I do about seahorses in general but I really knew nothing about dwarfs.

 

[vlangel]

The little seahorse is a dwarf. She does not act like my erectus fry did at all. They would chase food and she never does. Also she has not grown at all in 3 weeks.

All that aside, she seems to be doing very well.

 

[vlangel]

2018-12-09_04-27-51 by Dawn Gilson, on Flickr

Eve seems to be slowing down. She used to be a ghost shrimp snicking machine and was a very effective hunter. Now she just isn't fast enough to catch live shrimp. She still has a good appetite but its sad to see her only catching mysis that floats within reach and not chasing pieces anymore. She waits for the 'low hanging fruit' so to speak.

 

[Lucie]

2018-11-13_12-36-08 by Dawn Gilson, on Flickr

Here is a pic of the seahorse tank.

For a second i thought "what the heck is that seahorse"