Baby seahorses

[Panacea]

I just came home from the LFS with a few baby seahorses. I think the lady said that they were born yesterday. The parents were big black seahorses and when I asked the species type she told me that they were "big black seahorses":( . Anyway, I have had a 12 gallon eclipse system that has been up for a bout 4 months. It had a damsel and a sally light foot in it until now. I took them out.

She said that I could feed these guys frozen baby brine shrimp three times a day and that they will do fine. These guys arent much bigger than the brine and I thought live food was almost mandatory for WC horses,,,,of course these are technically captive bred. These will be my first horses, I have a reef tank. I have been reading and looking for the right horse for the eclipse, thats what I bought it for. I covered the intake with a mesh bag with charcoal to keep the little guys from getting sucked in.

Suggestions please?

[Panacea]

Some of you might be upset that I started out with babies, I dont know. But the tank that they were in was not what I would consider pony friendly at all. At least I have something in my tank for them to hang on to and can pay the attention to them that they will need.

[BlAcK_PeRcUlA]

I'm no expert and am researching for my own horses but I think that the frozen brine wouldn't be adequate nutrition. The only seahorses I know of that can live in brine alone is dwarfs. Even the dwarfs need freshly hatched brine with the yolk sacs still attached this makes them more nutritious.

You should look into getting some PE mysis shirmp which is very good. Also, Check out this board for lot of information, they help me a lot. http://www.seahorse.org/forums/

[Panacea]

Thanks for the quick post. I also just posted this same question at seahorse.org. Thanks again.

[skipm]

Without knowing for sure what kind of horses you have I tend to agree with David, the horses will need more han BBS to survive. Do you have any live rotifers available to you? I think that they would be more suitable to start with. Maybe one of the people that have successfully bred different types of seahorses can share some better tips that may be helpful to you. I wish you the best of luck, Skip

[WaGuy82]

All I can say is you must have day old baby brine shrimp and they must be live. Are the babies able to hitch? They will definitely not eat frozen. You have much better luck concentrating them in a small container. One gallon or less would be ideal. That way the food concentration is higher.