Seahorse feeding station is finally a success!

[Anonymous]

I thought they'd never figure it out! This is the first snick he took at the patented Shell Station®!

 

[Anonymous]

Sweet! What a great idea!!

 

[Anonymous]

This is Peggy, short for Pegasus. We had a little episode involving an air line tube whipping out of the tank suddenly, with this little girl attached (temporarily .... until she ricocheted off the wall and went flying ...). She's okay now, just a little traumatized by the whole airborne experience.

 

[Anonymous]

> ...the patented Shell Station®!

Is there a 5% gas rebate?

Nice Peggy.

 

[ozadars]

wow very nice seahorse , also this shell station is very clever :wink:

ok if people started showing off their seahorses i also got something to show, here is my pipefish

 

[Anonymous]

Wow, Ozadar! That's really beautiful! Very "Cat in the Hat"-like! I have two Janns pipefish in my tank. They're eating frozen daphnia and Sweetwater Zooplankton. What does yours eat?

Pictures of my pipefish are in this thread:
http://reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=39125

 

[ozadars]

thanks greennights,
your pipe and horsy is also very cute.
Mine isnt eating anything but copepods. Im trying to teach him to take frozen brine but no luck

 

[_ShotgunShrimp_]

do your seahorse feed right out of that? what do you do just drop some thawed mysis in it?

 

[Anonymous]

Shotgunshrimp (Love your nick, by the way!!), so far it's hit or miss with the feeding station. Sometimes they'll go over there and snick right from the shell, sometimes they ignore it and eat whatever is floating around. I just take a major pinch of thawed mysis in my fingers and drop it in there. Some floats out, but most stays in. I started by just leaving the station stuck there, no food in it, for a few days. They I'd put food in it and "lead" a seahorse over to it by lifting it from its perch and letting it wrap its tail around my finger, then transferring it over to the shell. Hopefully they'll grow accustomed to this method, so I'll be able to cut back on the huge amount of shrimp I have to feed the tank. I really overfeed now, just to make sure they're getting enough. The bristleworms love all the extra food!

Of course, I have to feed the rest of the critters, too, so there's always daphnia or brineshrimp (for the pipefish and clowns) floating around at feeding time, too. Maybe that's what confuses them.

 

[liquid]

greenighs: how long you been doing seahorses?

Shane

 

[Anonymous]

Shane, I got my first seahorses over the summer, from Ocean Rider in Hawaii. It was my 2003 New Year's resolution to start keeping seahorses, because I'd always wanted to as a child. I'd only kept goldfish before, so I did lots of homework. I started researching marine aquarium keeping on January first, set up my first 15-gallon for a pair of clowns in February, and had the 65-gallon tank up and running by April. I let it settle in a good long time, read up on seahorses, asked tons of questions on Seahorse.org, and haunted local fish stores, pestering the proprieters with questions until I felt confident. Finally, I got my two pairs of Hippocampus erectus in August.

In October, I lost one female when I was away for a weekend. She was very shy and never fed well before, my guess is she was weak to begin with and skipping a day of feeding did her in. The other three are very healthy and active. No mating yet, though.

I'll be ordering three more in January, hopefully, and hope to give raising fry a shot, for my 2004 New Year's resolution!