Re:Pregnant?

Dear Tammy:

Woohoo! Congratulations on your new brood of babies!

Remember that a pregnant male typically remates within a day or two after delivering his latest brood, so keep a close eye out on the proud papa for the next couple of days and you may get to witness the exchange of eggs, which is a fascinating spectacle and will give you a much better idea of exactly when to expect the next brood of babies. And, of course, if you can witness the actual mating, it leaves no doubt as to which of the females your stud has bonded with, so you’ll know exactly who both of the parents are.

It sounds like you did a very nice job of getting the newborns set up in a basic nursery tank. The ones that have developed the visible bubbles are unlikely to thrive, but the ones that are already hitching and orienting to the substrate should have a good fighting chance.

Newborn Mustangs and Sunbursts (Hippocampus erectus) are typically able to accept newly hatched brine shrimp (first instar Artemia nauplii) as their first food, but the survival rates improv dramatically if you can start them out with larval copepods for the first few days of life. It’s unlikely that you’ll have any consistent success getting the fry to accept Cyclopeeze until they are at least a few weeks old. When they are old enough, you will find that the frozen Cyclopeeze is excepted much better than the freeze dried Cyclopeeze.

If you contact me off list, Tammy, I will be happy to provide you with some much more detailed information on the best types of nurseries for keeping the babies away from the surface, and for feeding and rearing the fry (the files are too large for this forum). You can contact me at [email protected] with your e-mail address, and I will send you the additional material as soon as possible.

In the meantime, you may find the following articles on rearing Hippocampus erectus to be especially helpful:

<http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/seahorseCulture.shtml&gt;

<http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/erectusfry.shtml&gt;

http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles.shtml#propagation

<http://www.syngnathid.org/articles/raisingFry.html&gt;

Fry Development Cycle – From Egg to Horse
<http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/fry.shtml&gt;

Best of luck with your first attempt at rearing, Tammy! Here’s hoping that our seahorses provide you with many more healthy broods in the months and years ahead.

Respectfully,
Pete Giwojna