Re:Death of volcano shrimp

Dear Lawrence:

It’s good to hear that your red feeder shrimp have arrived and acclimated nicely to your holding tank.

Yes, sir — the frozen Mysis relicta from Piscine Energetics are superior to other brands of frozen Mysis a nutritional content, size, and quality. They typically thaw out beautifully as individual Mysis with all their appendages and body parts intact, and these extremely lifelike frozen mysids are therefore normally eaten with gusto by seahorses of all kinds.

It’s unfortunate that your seahorse did not take to them immediately, but I have noticed that seahorses can be very selective when it comes to the size of the prey they prefer. The jumbo PE Mysis relicta are indeed quite large, and if your pony is accustomed to eating smaller Mysis, he may balk at the jumbos simply because of their size.

Fortunately, the Piscine Energetics frozen Mysis relicta is now available graded for size. You can get the usual jumbo Mysis relicta or smaller Mysis and, in your case, Lawrence, you may have better luck with the smalls since your pony may prefer smaller prey. Some seahorses are very particular in that regard, and tend to reject food items that are significantly larger or smaller than their preferred range of prey. For example, I’ve seen some seahorses that rejected the smaller Hikari Mysis with great disdain, yet which greedily gulped down the jumbo Piscine Energetics Mysis relicta. On the other hand, I’ve had small seahorses turn up their snouts at the jumbo PE frozen Mysis because it’s too large for their liking, and attack the small Hikari frozen Mysis with great gusto.

If that’s the case with your finicky pony, you might try ordering some of the small Piscine Energetics Mysis relicta and feeding the larger ones to your other fish, or you can pick up a package of the much smaller Hikari frozen Mysis at your LFS for your pony instead.

Best of luck with your new seahorse setup, Lawrence!

Happy Trails!
Pete Giwojna