Dwarf Seahorse Idea

[Alex Hutton]

I am in the process of making a dwarf seahorse tank out of a Marineland either 3 or 5 gallons. The problem I'm running into is feeding the little guys. I understand that the norm is to feed bbs and bs, however, I also understand that in their natural habitat they eat mostly copepods and mysid shrimp. My idea is to gut the back of the Marineland tank and keep a ball of cheato (treated for hydroids) in the back with some dry rock rubble to act as a refugium for pods. Since I suspect the number of pods would not be sufficient I would dose phyto-feast to boost the population. The cheato would be a source of nutrient reduction as well and water changes of about 20% could be done either weekly or monthly depending on the nutrient levels. In the display, I would grow Caulerpa and some other macro algae's, I'm also considering doing one photosynthetic gorgonian. Tank mates would just be a few snails and maybe a cleaner shrimp or something of the sort. I would also mod the tank to have much much lower flow than the stock pump. It would either be lit with diy Cree leds, an AI Prime or a kessil A80.

 

[jaws789832]

I am by no means an expert, but before I released my ponies into my 5 gallon tank, I loaded up on pods. I fed phyto to the tank every day, I don't have any live plants but I do have live rock. Before I put the ponies in the tank was covered with pods, crawling on the glass and the rock. 2 weeks later not a pod to be seen, even on the live rock (which is portioned away from the ponies). They pretty much eat all day and I don't think in a tank that small you would be able to keep a pod population up to keep them fed. I still buy pods about once a month from algae barn and put in there but I have to feed bbs 4 times a day to keep these guys looking good.

 

[rayjay]

It's been tried many times but not successful in the long term. I culture copepods and I am unable to culture enough to feed more than just a pair of dwarfs on only copepods and even at that, my cultures gradually deplete so that I don't have enough for even one pair without using enriched bbs.
The cultures produce more pods than you can produce in the aquarium as the producing adults are not all being consumed when you use an appropriate mesh size for harvesting.
I think the longest term experiment I've seen over the last decade plus was a hobbyist on seahore.org who had a VERY large tank for just a few dwarfs. My memory isn't sufficient to remember how long that has been running for now, or, if he has changed things for the better. You might be able to search the dwarf forum there to find that thread and others than can help you in your quest.

 

[Alex Hutton]

Thanks for all the advice! Not being an adequate food supply was my main fear, if I had the room I would love to set up a huge fuge for them to reproduce in but unfortunately, I do not. So it seems the only option is to culture enriched brine shrimp. Does anyone have any easy/ self-sustaining with just food input way to culture them?

 

[jaws789832]

Unfortunately, no to that as well. Its a daily process you will have to endure if you choose to keep dwarf ponies. I have tried to culture brine long term but in the end something always crashes them making it not worthwhile. I hatch baby brine everyday, and take another day to enrich them (which is also important). Mine are also eating frozen OVA but I think its because once a day I throw some in with the brine and they don't know what they are eating just grabbing things out of the column.

That's my brine station. First one is enriching vessel. second one is hatching vessel, third is saltwater being . oxygenated. Every day I scoop out of the enrichment vessel, sieve out the remaining and the hatching vessel. Place them in the O2 vessel and add enrichment. clean out the two empty vessels and fill them with salwater. Add decapped eggs to one and start the whole process over the next day.

 

[vlangel]

It's been tried many times but not successful in the long term. I culture copepods and I am unable to culture enough to feed more than just a pair of dwarfs on only copepods and even at that, my cultures gradually deplete so that I don't have enough for even one pair without using enriched bbs.
The cultures produce more pods than you can produce in the aquarium as the producing adults are not all being consumed when you use an appropriate mesh size for harvesting.
I think the longest term experiment I've seen over the last decade plus was a hobbyist on seahore.org who had a VERY large tank for just a few dwarfs. My memory isn't sufficient to remember how long that has been running for now, or, if he has changed things for the better. You might be able to search the dwarf forum there to find that thread and others than can help you in your quest.

Ray, I looked up that thread on seahorse.org not too long ago and it had not been updated in a long time. I wonder if that tank is still up and running? If I remember it was a 40 gallon breeder and like you said, it only had several dwarfs in it. The thread I think ran for about a year.

 

[Bonfish]

I would avoid the cleaner shrimp for sure, it will out compete the sea horses for food. If you want something the scavenge the uneaten good I would consider some nassuris snails. I had a real easy time culturing tiger pods and rotifers for my sea horses. 5 gallon bucket with air stone and cheap compact fluorescent light. Room temperature and I fed phytofeast every time the water became light green. Dumped the bucket every few days to week and replace with new saltwater. I had hundreds of tiger pods and thousands of rotifers.

 

[rayjay]

You shouldn't have to hatch more than once a week or so. You will still have to enrich each day, but most people can at least keep the nauplii alive for a week so just take out what you need and enrich them each day.

 

[Alex Hutton]

I'm very interested in your pod culture Bonfish. Did you keep dwarfs or a larger species? it was my understanding that tiger pods were too large for dwarfs mouths. I would love to be able to do this method if possible. I am now thinking I could do a separate 20 or 30-gallon Rubbermaid container with rocks or something to act as pod or rotifer hotels and shake them in the tank every day for food for the little guys. Am I on the right track or should I just do the brine shrimp hatchery?

 

[rayjay]

You will almost certainly find that copepod density in a 20-30g bucket will not be sufficient other than for maybe a pair at best.
For me, tiggers were not eaten by my dwarfs, and for my regular seahorses I had the problem with frequent tiggers getting on the seahorses and stressing them.
As for rotifers, like brine shrimp nauplii, they are useless without being enriched first, and, because they are even smaller than brine shrimp nauplii, it takes an inordinate amount more of them to be of any sustenance so I only use rotifers for feeding newborn pelagic fry of seahorses like H. reidi.
Feeding copepods in addition to using enriched brine nauplii as the staple food supply is the best way to go for the dwarfs.

 

[Bonfish]

I was using the cultures to rear hippocampus reidi. I had pretty good luck and I did use baby brine, rotifers, tiger pods, and copepods. I fed them phytofeast and to enrich I used selcon and vibrance from ocean rider. I had great success with this method for the fry. Ocean rider is a great resource for everything seahorse. I spent hours on the site.

I used 5 gallon buckets with a single airstone which were easy to clean and observe the cultures. Plus I could easily see the change in color after the phytofeast was depleted. I then used either a turkey baster or a sieve to collect the food for the sea horses.