keeping bbs alive

[rasher2nd]

Greetings,

I am having trouble keeping bbs alive longer than a day. It dies very shortly after being removed from the hatchery. Our fry is only eating 2x a day if that!

I have several hatcherys going now to help the situation but what can I do about keeping the bbs alive? Some of the fry turns 3 weeks this monday and the bbs will not cut it anymore.

I've read all I can on seahorse.org and there is not much on keeping it alive. Thanks for your help.

Rick & Shelly :love2:

[dragon_slayer]

water quality is the biggest issue, mix a large container of water and use part of it to hatch then exchange it out shortly after hatching and do partial water changes to keep water quality up. the BBS also require continuous feeding, live phyto is a good choice.

hth
kc

[rasher2nd]

Greetings,

Ok so after hatching in a hatchery I can put them into a 2 gal tank I have hear doing nothing?

Should I add a air stone?

h2o change every other day of about 20%?

Thanks for your help.

Rick & Shelly :love2:

[dragon_slayer]

Originally posted by rasher2nd
Greetings,

Ok so after hatching in a hatchery I can put them into a 2 gal tank I have hear doing nothing?

Yes, but make sure the water temp is the same as the hatchery, and the chemistry should be the same as you hatched them in water from the same mixture right?:)

Should I add a air stone?

yes but you want it to only cause a slight current in the tank, not a rolling boil.

h2o change every other day of about 20%?

maybe more, depends on what your feeding and how quickly water quality drops, it's a hit/miss kind of thing where you have to see what works for you.

Thanks for your help.

Rick & Shelly :love2:

your welcome
kc

[seahorsedreams]

Should I add a air stone?

I wouldn't recommend an airstone. Yes they make beautifully fine bubbles and you can get excellent flow with them. But its these same fine bubbles that will wreak havoc with your artemia. Artemia cannot tolerate fine bubbles since they can lodge in the swimming appendages and kill them. These swimming appendages have fine hairs on them that captures particles of food from the water and then transport them up to the mouth. If there are bubbles trapped in the appendages they will not be able to collect food and will die. Also artemia can actually ingest fine air bubbles which will wipe them out as well.

HTH
Renee

[Seahorsewisprer]

Rasher, if my day to hatch falls on a busy day, and i don't have time to add the newly hatched to my continuous hatcher, I add a few drops of declorinator. Prime is seachems version, I think.

I wonder if something else could be going on, though. My naupuli live for days in the hatcher bottles. Could somebody be spraying furniture polish or cleaning supplies? Or maybe some bacteria? Bad eggs?

Are you enriching them? When I used Kents zoecon, my bs died after a few hours, but with BSDs selco, they live 'till I throw 'em in the 2 gallon...

[rasher2nd]

Greetings,

First of all dragon_slayer, seahorsedreams and aerosmith THANK YOU so much for your help. You have helped our fry make it to another day...

Update - Since the first response things have improved greatly. The bbs born on Saturday evening were put into a 1 gal bowl and survived long enough to provide 3 feedings! Sunday's batch is still swimming in the 1 gal bowl and scheduled to be put into the 2 gal tonight. Those will be fed algae paste and hopefully make it to 2 days for the older fry. I will continue to put the newly hatched fry in the 1 gal for now and then transfer into the 2 gal for grow out.

dragon_slayer - I will pull the airstones out the 1 & 2 gal tanks and keep the rollin to a minimum. Water quality is optimal and remain so…

seahorsedreams – The airstones are gone so the bbs should hopefully do better. I did not know about bbs and fine bubbles…thank you for the info.

Aerosmith – Prime on busy days for bbs tank if no h2o change is available. There is nothing unnatural affecting the bbs after birth. My hatch rate is great and I get a good portion each day. It’s just getting them to live till the next day and beyond. The paste I will be using to feed them is from brineshrimpdirect – Tahitian blend, will that be ok?

I think I have taken enough of your time. Thanks again for the help. There is a seahorse fry named after each of you (dragon_slayer, seahorsedreams & Aerosmith)…now if I can only get them to adulthood. Any additional pointers are appreciated.

Rick & Shelly :love2:

[Seahorsewisprer]

You are always welcome! Tahitian Blend is a mix of a few algaes, and they recently began adding a product called NatureRose that might help with pigmentation. It does have a really strong microalgae, Pavlova, which is very nutritious and Tetraselmis, which has a natural antibiotic. I've read quite a few breeders on here that say that using different algaes is best, because they all have differing levels of DHA/EPA, Carbs, lipids and proteins. So, I think it is a great choice! Have you already placed your order? You might consider getting some of their Selco, a fatty acid supplement. I use all their supplements, inc the spirulina powder, because I live close and have gotten quite a few samples of different stuff. I'm not sure about their other things: golden pearls, dried rots, ect......

Isn't raising these fry rewarding? I've really beeen enjoying watching them grow! Do yours seem to grow in spurts?

[rasher2nd]

Greetings,

Seahorses are the awesome!

With that out of the way yes they seem to grow in spurts. We have 3 broods in our nursery, each about a week apart. The 3 week olds are so much bigger than the 1 week olds, but they are all sooo cute and sooo small.

Ok back to the subject at hand. So yesterday I added a lil green water to my bbs before feeding to the fry. 30 mins later the bbs was all dead on the bottom! So much for thinking I know what I'm doing. What would have caused this. They were all swimming and looking good then BOOM, green water death. The new bbs hatched this morning looked good so the fry got fed but I'm worried about enriching the bbs after 1 day.

What color should the fry be? We have some black, gold & black/gold. We have some decent pics but I don’t know how to post them here. The gold fry are beautiful!!!

Thanks in advance for the help.

Rick & Shelly :love2:

[dragon_slayer]

when they hatch they still have the yolk sack from the cyst and should be red/orange as they eat this and do not acquire other food they become opaque. they will turn the color of what ever your feeding them so have fun with that :)

as for the sudden death, could of been shock from the food such as pH changes when added, salinity, toxins, etc........if the phytoplankton was alive you could of suffocated them all with the excessive O2 demands in such a small container.

kc

[rasher2nd]

Greetings,

Here are a couple of the fry you are helping us keep alive. We all thank you!

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/66707fry-1_gold_rc.jpg

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/66707fry-2_close_up_rc.jpg

Thanks again!

Rick & Shelly :love2:

[Seahorsewisprer]

Perfect! Strong work!

[rasher2nd]

Greetings,

Our brine shrimp process is crashing! First Icould not get it to live past 24 hours and NOW i can't get it to hatch at all. In the last 3 days only 1 batch has hatched...and our fry are in need of food. This has only been happening since we moved and I am wondering what i've done or are doing wrong.

The hatch rate is horrible. Even after 36 hours I have nothing but unhatched eggs.

Does anyone know a good source I can order some bbs from or something equally nutrious to feed our fry until the hatcherys start producing again? I have 2 going that I started again this morning and I will start a 3rd tonight.

I think Aerosmith mentioned she keeps a continuing bbs culture...does anyone else do this and if so how does it work?

Thanks for the help.

Rick & Shelly :love2:

[Seahorsewisprer]

I wonder if it could be temp related? Same eggs, right? I have a really bad hatch rate in the winter in our cold basement w/o a heater....

[rasher2nd]

Greetings,

I don't think temp is playing that much of factor here, but I am probably wrong. I used to do the bbs inside at our apt but since we moved the lil lady prefers that I do them in our garage. It has been warm lately, so I think the garage and hatchery light should be ok...but...maybe it’s too warm?

I just don't know. All I know is that I feel guilty because our fry can't eat. I know it's very difficult to keep seahorse fry and if 1 lives it is considered a success but if they all die than I will feel like a complete failure.

I tried some Cyclopeeze with the little bbs that I am getting but with no luck. They look at it and even follow it a bit but no snicking…I will try again tonight with the last of my bbs.

LOL...who new that something so small could cause such a big problem in my head. I actually lost some sleep last night worrying about the lil fry...

Thanks for your time and help.

Rick & Shelly :love2:

[Seahorsewisprer]

Could you set up a continuous culture in the house and tell her it's a fish tank full of pets?

[rasher2nd]

Greetings,

What exactly does a continuous culture require...just incase I get the guts to try?

I got some bbs to hatch last night finally. Both hatcherys were full and it looks like I may be back in business...but time will tell. But a constant culture sounds like less work and much cooler...I have a whole garage for this kind of thing now!

Look forward to your response.

Rick & Shelly :love2:

[Seahorsewisprer]

You could use any glass container, bigger is better! A 10 gallon tank from walmart would be killer!

Brine shrimp reach adulthood in about 2 weeks, then they start producing offspring. If there is not enough food available, they make eggs, but if there is food, they produce live bbs.

You can get a sponge filter to keep the water adequate. I don't, but I use live phyto for food. If you use algae paste, spirulina powder or something else (gotta be small!), you might need one. I use a small piece of acrylic tubing to remove the detritus on the bottom of the tank once in a while.

I have 2 airlines in my culture, a larger tank than my 2 gallon might need more. The water just needs to move enough to keep the shrimp moving.

You still will need to hatch bs, I think. The culture will not supply enough food for a healthy batch of seahorse fry! I feed newly hatched bs to my reidi fry only for the first few days, the I use the cultured stuff. I have different sizes of SHs in the same nursery, though. When I hatch, as soon as I can tell there are no shells in the hatch, I throw it in the culture. I also add a few drops of Seachems Prime.

My husband routinely kills my newly hatched bbs when I'm at work (He has forgotten to turn the air back on 3 x's!), but so far, the culture has survived his lapses! The culture is a great back up for bad hatches.