Dear Anna Marie:
It’s good to hear that you’re new seahorses are settling in well and that you’re looking forward to phase 2 — a healthy interest in courtship and breeding!
Yes, indeed, you do need to set up a separate nursery tank or rearing chamber for seahorse fry. A bare-bottom set up generally works best because it facilitates cleaning and maintenance, and more importantly, it will minimize problems with hydroids. It’s always best to avoid live sand and live rock for your nursery tanks, because the combination of live rock/live sand and copious feedings of the newly hatched brine shrimp (Artemia nauplii) the newborns eat is a surefire recipe for a deadly outbreak of hydroids, which will wreak havoc on the fry.
In general, you should maintain your nursery tank at exactly the same parameters as the main tank the adult seahorses are living in so they won’t have to acclimate to different conditions when they are born and transferred to the nursery. Once they are safely in the nursery, seahorse fry that go through a prolonged pelagic phase sometimes benefit from reduced salinity, as will be explained in the discussion threads about rearing seahorses I have listed for you below.
If you look up the following online article, Anna Marie, it will explain how to set up a basic nursery for your seahorses and how to culture the live foods the newborns need to eat::
Click here: Seahorse.com – Seahorse, Sea Life, Marine Life, Aquafarm Sales, Feeds and Accessories – Nutrition – Feeding & Rear
http://www.seahorse.com/FAMA_-_Freshwater_and_Marine_Aquarium_magazine/Horse_Forum_-_Nutrition/ Nutrition_-_Feeding_%26_Rearing_the_Fry_-_Part_IV/
In addition, the following threads on this discussion forum are also devoted to raising seahorse babies and should have a lot of information you will find useful in your quest:
Click here: Seahorse.com – Seahorse, Sea Life, Marine Life, Aquafarm Sales, Feeds and Accessories – Re:I had Babies!! – Ocean
http://www.seahorse.com/option,com_simpleboard/Itemid,/func,view/catid,2/id,1299/#1299
Click here: Seahorse.com – Seahorse, Sea Life, Marine Life, Aquafarm Sales, Feeds and Accessories – Re:Babies – Ocean Rider Cl
http://www.seahorse.com/option,com_simpleboard/Itemid,/func,view/catid,2/id,1316/#1316
Click here: Seahorse.com – Seahorse, Sea Life, Marine Life, Aquafarm Sales, Feeds and Accessories – Re:suitable Fry Container
http://www.seahorse.com/option,com_simpleboard/Itemid,/func,view/catid,2/id,863/#863
Please let us know if you have any other questions about preparing for any seahorse fry that may be in your future, Anna Marie!
Best of luck with your seahorses and their future progeny!
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.
