Dear hold your horses:
Okay, I’ll be rooting for you and your ponies! Chances are excellent that they will get it right the next time and successfully transfer at least a portion of the eggs.
I would also like to invite you to participate in Ocean Rider’s new training program for seahorse keepers, which will help prepare you for the challenge of raising any babies that may be forthcoming when your pair of seahorses successfully complete the mating ritual. One entire lesson in the training course is devoted to courtship and breeding, and the following lesson is devoted entirely to rearing the young, so the information in the training course may be very useful for you.
This basic training is very informal and completely free of charge. Ocean Rider provides the free training as a service to their customers and any other hobbyists who are interested in learning more about the care and keeping of seahorses. It’s a crash course on seahorse keeping consisting of 10 separate lessons covering the following subjects, and is conducted entirely via e-mail. There is no homework or examinations or anything of that nature — just a lot of good, solid information on seahorses for you to read through and absorb as best you can, at your own speed:
Aquarium care and requirements of seahorses;
Selecting a suitable aquarium for seahorses;
size (tank height and water volume)
filtration
aquarium test kits
Optimizing your aquarium for seahorses;
lighting
water movement and circulation
hitching posts (real and artificial)
aquascaping
substrate
Cycling a new marine aquarium;
The cleanup crew (aquarium janitors & sanitation engineers);
Water Chemistry
optimal parameters
water quality & water changes
aquarium maintenance schedule
Feeding seahorses;
Compatible tank mates for seahorses;
Courtship and breeding;
Rearing the young;
Disease prevention and control;
Hippocampus erectus
natural history
professional rearing protocols
Acclimating Ocean Rider seahorses.
If you are interested, I will be providing you with detailed information on these subjects and answering any questions you may have about the material I present. I will also be recommending seahorse-related articles for you to read and absorb online.
In short, the training course will teach you everything you need to know to keep your seahorses happy and healthy, and it will arm you with the information you need in order to tackle rearing when the big day finally comes.
As an experienced seahorse keeper, I’m sure you’ll breeze right through the lessons, HYH, and complete all 10 lessons by the time any babies arrive. If you would like to give the training program and try, just contact me off list ([email protected]) with your full name and some additional details about your seahorse tank (size and dimensions, filtration and equipment, tank inhabitants, and how long the aquarium has been up and running), which we need for our records, and I will get you started on the first lessons right way.
Best wishes with all your fishes, HYH! Here’s hoping your pair of ponies prove to be very prolific and produce plenty of progeny for you in the months ahead!
Happy Trails!
Pete Giwojna
Ocean Rider, Inc. is an Organic Hawaiian-Based Seahorse Aqua-Farm & Aquarium that Follows Strict Good Farming Practices in Raising Seahorses and Other Aquatic Life.
