Dear ecogirl:
I would love to see some pictures of your new Sunbursts! You can’t post photographs on the discussion forum, but you can put them up at the photo gallery instead. You’ll have to create a folder to put them in, but then you can display as many photos as you like. (Leslie Leddo has more experience when it comes to digital photographs, so she can fill you in all the details if it’s not self explanatory.)
By all means, start getting some colorful photographs of your Sunbursts in your reef tank right now, and save the best of them on your hard drive for the next photo contest. No contests are currently underway, and I’m not sure when the next one will be scheduled, but the photo contests happen quite regularly. At least annually, I believe, so the next one should be coming up before long. If you go to the photo gallery, one of the folders there contains past photo contest winners, so you can get a good idea of the type of pictures that have been well received by the Club members and highly esteemed by the judges in the past.
A well-established 46 gallon reef tank with compatible corals is an excellent system for seahorses! Since you are now an experienced seahorse wrangler, I’m sure you’re already aware that it’s a good idea to target feed your seahorses, or perhaps train them to use a feeding station, in order to reduce wastage and uneaten Mysis in an elaborate environment like your reef tank. That will greatly reduce the leftover shrimp as opposed to scatter feeding, which will help safeguard your water quality and cut down on the nutrient loading in your reef system.
But you may not be aware that some of the seahorse-save corals make great natural feeding stations. Toadstool corals (Sarcophyton sp.), for example, are ideal for this if they have the right shape, and seahorses readily accept them as their feeding trough with very little training needed. I wrote an article in Conscientious Aquarist about feeding stations recently that you may find to be of interest, ecogirl. It discusses all the different kinds of feeding stations, including natural feeding stations, in some detail and is well illustrated with lots of Leslie’s colorful photos. It’s available online at the following URL:
Click here: Seahorse Feeders
<http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_2/cav2i5/seahorse_feeders/seahorse_feeders.htm>
Best of luck with your new seahorses, ecogirl! When you get your copepod cultures going, it sounds like your reef system will be teeming with !pods, which should make your galloping gourmets very happy.
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.
