Dear Tom:

Dear Tom:

You are very welcome to any information or suggestions I can provide to help you restore your Hippocampus reidi to their former glory, sir.

I do think providing them with some colorful hitching posts (bright red or orange tree sponges – real or artificial – would be ideal) may help, as will assuring that the seahorses receive plenty of carotenoids and xanthophylls via the Vibrance.

However, be sure to keep in mind that the best way to increase the amount of Vibrance the seahorses are ingesting is not to enrich the frozen Mysis more heavily. When enriching frozen Mysis with Vibrance, only a very light dusting of the enrichment powder is appropriate, Tom. Any excess amount other than a light dusting that you add to the thawed Mysis will only rinse off in the aquarium water and do more harm than good. The excess Vibrance that washes off before the Mysis can be eaten will increase the levels of dissolved organics in the aquarium, which is undesirable, and, as you know, anything that has a negative impact on the water quality will not help to restore the pony’s usual bright colors. Quite the contrary…

As we discussed in my previous post, the best way to get additional Vibrance into your seahorses is to gutload feeder shrimp with the Vibrance enrichment powder, and then feed the gut loaded shrimp to the seahorses immediately thereafter. The ponies will eat the enhanced feeder shrimp greedily, ingesting the Vibrance in the process, and thereby getting plenty of carotenoids and xanthophylls in an easily digestible form.

Good luck!

Respectfully,
Pete Giwojna, Ocean Rider Tech Support