oceanrider
Active Member
i have been keeping dwarf seahorse since 1970s... lots of failures, but also, around 1990s when I picked up the hobby again, i was able to get a few pairs to mate and produce eggs.
The small babies float around, and do chase after baby brine shrimp, though not all of them do active hunts. Some are runts, and , and do not survive, at least in my tank .
I used a small 5 gallon, with osram lighting, blue actinic and daylight, and had caulerpa to both control nitrates and to filter the water. Had over 25 in the tank..
I did order two pairs, and one of the dwarf seahorse, was huge, .... dark green, about 1.5 inches...almost 2 inches ( which is rare) ....and was able to eat even medium sized brine shrimp. agree that most adults are about one inch more or lesss. That was the only time I had a larger male > And he was a dwarf.... . he got pregnant with one of the females DSH. I still remember him to this day. When he passed away, I dried and kept him in abox.
I also think it may be a bit optimistic to expect 20 seahorses in 2 weeks, though if you order lots of pregnant males that can be done.
There are lots of other phytoplankton in bottles , plus food and brine shrimp vitamins, which will increase their Highly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFA) , which are esssential for most all marine animals. I have used mashed up spirulina flakes, but dont know if it helped, but I asssumed the brine shrimp ate it and grew.
Agree with everyone on tank inhabitants. I had some small hermit crabs initially... which luckily did not harm the seahorses large ones, but it is too dangerous for the babies, so I removed them. I had a snail, but i also had macro algae....so make sure it gets fed or else you may have dead snail in a few weeks.....foulling up the tank water. Agree with removing the mushrooms and other coral....as they may compete for food and may catch and eat a few seahorses also. at most get green star polyp.
I had pipefishes, the green small ones ( not alligator pipes), which reproduced fine and I found the baby pipefishes were easily raised. Out of a hatch of about 50 babies, I raised about 30 to medium size, from half inch tiny babies, to 2.5 inch juveniles that ate large brine shrimp.
I believe that the dwarf seahorses increase mating behaviour as a response to the moonphases and increased daylight hours. I have not tested this , but find it highly likely to happen, as they start increased mating behaviours in spring. You can replicate this at home, by slowly increasing the time your lights are on .
I think it is easier to acquire copepods online or at your local fish shop LFS nowadays..... so if you can get your hands on some lettuce algae or other type, and algae feeds, then you may want to culture copepods . There was an ariticle on culturing them in 3 rd quarter 2017 issue of Reef Hobbyist
The small babies float around, and do chase after baby brine shrimp, though not all of them do active hunts. Some are runts, and , and do not survive, at least in my tank .
I used a small 5 gallon, with osram lighting, blue actinic and daylight, and had caulerpa to both control nitrates and to filter the water. Had over 25 in the tank..
I did order two pairs, and one of the dwarf seahorse, was huge, .... dark green, about 1.5 inches...almost 2 inches ( which is rare) ....and was able to eat even medium sized brine shrimp. agree that most adults are about one inch more or lesss. That was the only time I had a larger male > And he was a dwarf.... . he got pregnant with one of the females DSH. I still remember him to this day. When he passed away, I dried and kept him in abox.
I also think it may be a bit optimistic to expect 20 seahorses in 2 weeks, though if you order lots of pregnant males that can be done.
There are lots of other phytoplankton in bottles , plus food and brine shrimp vitamins, which will increase their Highly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFA) , which are esssential for most all marine animals. I have used mashed up spirulina flakes, but dont know if it helped, but I asssumed the brine shrimp ate it and grew.
Agree with everyone on tank inhabitants. I had some small hermit crabs initially... which luckily did not harm the seahorses large ones, but it is too dangerous for the babies, so I removed them. I had a snail, but i also had macro algae....so make sure it gets fed or else you may have dead snail in a few weeks.....foulling up the tank water. Agree with removing the mushrooms and other coral....as they may compete for food and may catch and eat a few seahorses also. at most get green star polyp.
I had pipefishes, the green small ones ( not alligator pipes), which reproduced fine and I found the baby pipefishes were easily raised. Out of a hatch of about 50 babies, I raised about 30 to medium size, from half inch tiny babies, to 2.5 inch juveniles that ate large brine shrimp.
I believe that the dwarf seahorses increase mating behaviour as a response to the moonphases and increased daylight hours. I have not tested this , but find it highly likely to happen, as they start increased mating behaviours in spring. You can replicate this at home, by slowly increasing the time your lights are on .
I think it is easier to acquire copepods online or at your local fish shop LFS nowadays..... so if you can get your hands on some lettuce algae or other type, and algae feeds, then you may want to culture copepods . There was an ariticle on culturing them in 3 rd quarter 2017 issue of Reef Hobbyist
