Dwarf Seahorse Nano

How long have you had this tank running? Everything I've read tells me that sea horses are almost impossible as a long term project. What do you do if you go out of town?

 

Ah well then there is absolutely no point in me doing it now Thanks.

 

One of my coworkers actually volunteered to come in daily to feed the seahorses and hatch brine shrimp - which was AMAZING. Otherwise I'd have to bribe one of my friends lol I'm going to leave a very detailed manual about how to care for them, and I'm usually only gone for 2 weeks, so if they aren't getting enriched it's not a -huge- deal for 2 weeks - I just want to make sure they are getting enough food period. It's just like having a dog. Plenty of people have pets that require care every day and manage - the only additional issue with fish is that they need to be in their aquarium and someone has to actually come over, but I've got it covered

 

I actually ordered a variety of "Pods" which looked to be mainly amphiopods, too big for the dwarfs to eat - but maybe that means they might reproduce and have babies for the dwarfs. I really want to order some Tisbe to seed though. I'm just being cheap right now. Next month

I definitely think pods are great for the seahorses because that's their natural food - but in order to feed them pods to live on, I'd have to be culturing a ton of them. Instead I'll seed to see if they can get an occasional snack maybe. Or eat them all lmao

 

Its easy to focus gut loading the bbs instead, so many things could be offered to bbs that are a few days old to see what they will take. Id try feeding them cyclopeeze, that's my first bet. Id even blenderize cyclopeeze as fine as possible to get them small enough for the bbs to uptake.

or maybe a selco addition to their water they are maturing in, that's a start. just something fun experiment with. I bet brine shrimp would eat DT's phytoplankton as well, maybe even fry food meant for freshwater fry, the powdered kind of food. tons of ideas come to mind, anything that increases the protein loading or nutrient diversity (such as phyto) in the gut of the bbs will directly help the horses. I would not be suprised if simple gut loading was all that is required to tip the balance back in favor of the keeper using them as the sole source of feed.


People with successful seahorse tanks set them up in ways that maximize the lifespan, some losses along the way are normal in this weak little creature. but if one has taken steps to prepare for hydroids and they are willing to hatch brine + keep the water changed/clean, they are fulfilling every requirement the seahorse masters list online at seahorse.org so I support the effort.​

 

very interesting thread! I am following along. I have always wanted to do dwarfs! You have an amazing set up there!

 

At the moment I am using Dan's feed, which combines a lot of different enrichment that works for his dwarfs. I tried feeding frozen cylopseez - and I even got a few to try it, but it is so messy and they really don't care for it. And it stinks to high heaven lmao. I think if you combine enriched brine shrimp, newly hatched bbs, and some rotifers/copeopod/shrimp larvae snacks it'd be ideal. I wish I could remember where I saw all of that info on the nutrition of all of the food hobbyists try. It was kind of depressing because nothing on its own is best for them. The best thing if you could feed them one thing would be the enriched bbs in my opinion. I don't think it's required all the time, but they really do need to get some of those nutrients in to stay healthy. I'll look for that page and post it here sometime. It broke down all of the various foods for them, including frozen I think.


Thanks Schmackmel!

 

As dwarfs won't eat frozen products for long, you are left with enriched brine shrimp as the best alternative because it is to hard to grow enough pod life for them to survive. You can seed the tank to provide extra for them as Dan Underwood does with putting mysids in the tank for the dwarfs to feed off the mysid young. Brine shrimp are not a natural food for seahorses of any species, but they sure beat the heck out of any alternative live food when considering how fast and numerous they grow.
Brine shrimp will eat anything that is appropriately sized (micronized) as they are not selective feeders. Dan's Feed is the best I've found for an all round balanced nutrition.
There is a misconception that brine shrimp have no nutrition beyond the egg sack that they rapidly consume. However, it is fact that GSL cysts produce brine shrimp with protein levels higher than most foods you feed your fish in a reef tank. They are lacking however, in the fatty acid profile (huffas) but that is easily handled by enrichment.
Don't use enrichment for regular feeding, especially the emulsions like Selco and Selcon which kill off the brine shrimp if left for longer than enrichment times, or, if just a little too much is added.
DT's is too expensive for using as a food for brine shrimp and for a decent nutrient profile using phyto you need to culture some more difficult micro algae than nannochloropsis and for me it's not worth the work when I can make a feed with spirulina powder and a little Algamac 3050 (fatty acid profile) blended in water and stored in a fridge in a pop bottle, feeding lightly as needed. This gives the artemia a nutrient head start which is improved upon with Dan's Feed.
When growing brine shrimp out before enrichment, I can hatch a batch and use that batch as they grow for a couple of weeks before the artemia get too large for the adult dwarfs. Dwarf fry however need the smaller nauplii.

 

Got 4 more today - did a 4 minute freshwater dip, and the pregnant male of the 4 had 4 babies 1 died, 1 is lost, and 2 are safe in the breeder box. There may be more. He had them while I was at work today.

 

Cool, that is awesome that you had babies. Sorry that 1 died though.