Overrun with seahorses

[cowfishpro]

Good afternoon all. Wow, I am overwhelmed with all the responses. You all are so great. I'm having trouble keeping up. As I mentioned, I work an intense full-time job.

Let me see how well I do responding to all of you kind enough to join the discussion.

Hi Charlie! Nice to meet you. I have tried Zooxae and Sea Escapes. I did visit Beyond the Reef. I'll just say, the husbandry practices are much different than when Jeff and his wife first opened the store many years ago. I'm not familiar with Fish Island. Is that in Barrington? I also tried Exotic Aquatics. I was thinking, even if I can strike up deals with stores, that won't be enough.

My prolific male, Toby, is due again any day. He popped out a couple of test babies this morning. On top of that, one of the juveniles is harassing one of the adult females. He wants to breed and won't leave her alone, poor thing!

LOL, I appreciate your kind words but all this situation was not planned. I remember thinking how thrilled I would be if I could raise a dozen fry to adults. I had no idea that I could raise dozens and dozens and dozens!

I definitely appreciate the wholesale recommendations. I have actually had someone reach out to me and we are working on an arrangement.

Jeremy, a few years ago, I was raising dwarf seahorses. I also had an over abundance back then. I tried posting on Craig's List, the pet section, requesting small adoption fee of $5 for them. My post was taken down. I was accused of being a commercial breeder and told I was abusing the point of the site. I dare not post on there again for fear of permanently losing the ability to post.

ThisIsTheWay, thank you very much. They are beautiful if I do say so myself. I'll try to get another photo posted this weekend of the whole tank. There won't be much detail since it will try to capture the entire 300 gallons.

Thanks for your thoughts Rusty. I'm hoping my partnership with a wholesale dealer comes though.

Gerdy, I have algae and macroalgae throughout the tank. I like some algae because it provides great housing for microcrustaceans (amphipods, copepods, and isopods). I admit, the regular algae likes to take over, so I am constantly trying to balance micro with macro, especially now that the population and feeding is increased in the tank. I was thinking of setting up a cowfishpro FB and follow your thoughts on receiving PMs. Alyssa asked me to send her photos so she could gauge what price I should ask. I did so, but haven't hear back yet. Can't blame her. I know she is busy with her baby.

Well thanks everyone. I know this will work out somehow. I genuinely appreciate the support.

 

[cowfishpro]

Bob, thanks for the shipping recommendation. I just can't imagine finding the time to pack up and send out so many. I'll keep the recommendation in mind though.

Thanks, Xclusive. Yes, I find when there is a lot of macroalgae in the seahorse environment, they tend to grow and keep their cirri.

RandomfFishDude, I'm new to this site. What is your post from?

 

[cowfishpro]

Tbrown, it's a small world!

 

[cowfishpro]

John, thanks for the recommendation. Reefernc02, I'm in Elgin, IL, a suburb of Chicago.

 

[Bella's Seahorses]

Hi!
My name is Jill Martin. I own Bella’s Seahorse Beauties. I have a lot of interest in my tank bred seahorses. I am on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. I am currently selling my seahorses. I have a lot of interest. I also educate people about how to keep them. Great job raising them! It is not easy, I know. Message me on one of my Social Media pages and we can figure something out. I am getting ready to start shipping mine and I am in the process of creating a website.

 

[Blackhawksfan22]

im in naperville! ive been looking for 2 myself and id be open to help ship for you if you'd be interested. i also have some people from stores close by that would most likely be interested. pm me :) thanks

 

[twentyleagues]

Wow I cant believe lfs wont take them in for at least store credit they are beautiful! I had to do this years ago with clownfish like @OrionN I found myself raising 1000s of babies. I guess I was lucky that Finding Nemo had just come out. 2 lfs in the area couldnt keep clownfish in stock and happily gave me store credit for decent sized juveniles. I have a good relationship with those lfs and have even worked part time at one of them, and have shopped at both for over 30 years. I have also bred tons of cichlids some more rare ones never an issue getting at least store credit for them. If I needed or really wanted cash they would usually do that as well but at a lower selling price typically about half of what store credit was.

Great job raising them!

 

[Skywater]

Another photo.

I would be very interested in the details of your very SUCCESSFUL tank setup, water filtration, water flow and your feeding regimen.

 

[GunnarH]

Congratulations on being such a great host and caretaker for your seahorses!

Have you considered hiring someone part time (perhaps a local teenager?) and making this a side hustle? Invest some time initially, set up an LLC, then have your new employee handle the shipping, billing, web site, and so on. It might not turn much of a profit for you, but at least hopefully not run at a loss. Your seahorses will find new homes, and your employee will make a little bit of money, so it's a win-win.

Even if you go the wholesale route, hiring someone to do the shipping and billing for you could be worth it.

Obviously you'd need to find someone who'd respect and care for the animals as much as you do, which could be a challenge.

 

[cowfishpro]

Hi!
My name is Jill Martin. I own Bella’s Seahorse Beauties. I have a lot of interest in my tank bred seahorses. I am on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. I am currently selling my seahorses. I have a lot of interest. I also educate people about how to keep them. Great job raising them! It is not easy, I know. Message me on one of my Social Media pages and we can figure something out. I am getting ready to start shipping mine and I am in the process of creating a website.

Hi Jill. What parts do you live in?

 

[cowfishpro]

im in naperville! ive been looking for 2 myself and id be open to help ship for you if you'd be interested. i also have some people from stores close by that would most likely be interested. pm me :) thanks

Thanks FakeTaxi. I responded to your message.

 

[cowfishpro]

Wow I cant believe lfs wont take them in for at least store credit they are beautiful! I had to do this years ago with clownfish like @OrionN I found myself raising 1000s of babies. I guess I was lucky that Finding Nemo had just come out. 2 lfs in the area couldnt keep clownfish in stock and happily gave me store credit for decent sized juveniles. I have a good relationship with those lfs and have even worked part time at one of them, and have shopped at both for over 30 years. I have also bred tons of cichlids some more rare ones never an issue getting at least store credit for them. If I needed or really wanted cash they would usually do that as well but at a lower selling price typically about half of what store credit was.

Great job raising them!

Thanks! This is a whole new experience for me. I'm so interested in your journey, as well. Well done to you!

 

[cowfishpro]

I would be very interested in the details of your very SUCCESSFUL tank setup, water filtration, water flow and your feeding regimen.

 

[cowfishpro]

I'll try to write up a more detailed response this weekend, but I have a shocker. My system is very basic. I don't even use R/O water, just plain suburban tap water that I mix with salt for a couple of days with a Powerhead. I learned from a seahorse breeder I knew in FL who weighed the value of R/O costs and breeding large scale. He opted to stay with tap water, so that's what I do.

 

[cowfishpro]

Congratulations on being such a great host and caretaker for your seahorses!

Have you considered hiring someone part time (perhaps a local teenager?) and making this a side hustle? Invest some time initially, set up an LLC, then have your new employee handle the shipping, billing, web site, and so on. It might not turn much of a profit for you, but at least hopefully not run at a loss. Your seahorses will find new homes, and your employee will make a little bit of money, so it's a win-win.

Even if you go the wholesale route, hiring someone to do the shipping and billing for you could be worth it.

Obviously you'd need to find someone who'd respect and care for the animals as much as you do, which could be a challenge.

Thanks for weighing in GunnarH. I truly appreciate it. So many people have been wonderful sharing their thoughts. I actually considered finding a person to help, but weighing the effort to find someone, pay the person, provide meticulous instruction, monitor the accuracy of their work, and still work my full time job which often extends beyond an 8 hour day, I just can't see how to make it work. I appreciate the suggestion though.

 

[SaltyMix]

Hello!

Today is my first day here. I currently have a 300 gallon aquarium with 5 adult Erectus seahorses. I have had these seahorses for more than a year, but I am facing an interesting challenge, so I was curious what others do.

One of my males is extremely prolific. I have raised a number of fry in the seahorse nursery and transitioned them to the 300g. The 300 now contains dozens and dozens, maybe into the hundreds of seahorse fry and juveniles of different ages and sizes.

I know that even a 300g aquarium will not host so many seahorses in the long run. I have a good amount, probably around a dozen, large enough to sell off. I'm interested in suggestions for selling without having to ship or travel. I reached out to some LFSs in my area, but the best I have accomplished is them taking my information to refer their customers to.

I work a very busy, full-time job, and I just can't ship or attend shows right now. I would have to do local pick-up. So I really appreciate suggestions. I also appreciate thoughts on how much to ask. The older juveniles are fully captive bred, born and raised in my home aquariums, and eating both Hikari Bio-Pure and PE frozen mysis.

Thanks for taking the time to read and potentially offer suggestions.

If I was closer I'd absolutely make the drive to take one or two off your hands! I was just thinking last night of doing a separate tank just for seahorses. :D

 

[jabberwock]

Congratulations on being such a great host and caretaker for your seahorses!

Have you considered hiring someone part time (perhaps a local teenager?) and making this a side hustle? Invest some time initially, set up an LLC, then have your new employee handle the shipping, billing, web site, and so on. It might not turn much of a profit for you, but at least hopefully not run at a loss. Your seahorses will find new homes, and your employee will make a little bit of money, so it's a win-win.

Even if you go the wholesale route, hiring someone to do the shipping and billing for you could be worth it.

Obviously you'd need to find someone who'd respect and care for the animals as much as you do, which could be a challenge.

I like this idea. How about take it out of the box and see if you can team with a local university. Create a business/course combining business students and biology students and let them run with it, while you care for the critters.

 

[West1]

Here for the pics but there’s only one :(
Am I the only one who wants to see what an overcrowded 300gl of seahorses looks like?

 

[vlangel]

Congrats @cowfishpro! I also raised erectus fry to juvenile stage ONCE! It was a boatload of work so kudos to you. I am glad to see that it looks like you have options. I had a hard time as well. Finally I found a lfs owner who was willing to travel 2 hours to buy my 5 month old juveniles all trained onto frozen mysis for $15 each. I had 16 juveniles. From then on I gave my newly birthed fry to that store for free.

 

[Jainc]

I see you are only about 4 hours and 30 minutes from me. What would you be asking for them? Might make the drive for a few of them. I would need to setup a seahorse tank for them first.