Babies Everywhere!!!!

Dear Kris:

Woo hoo! Congratulations on your unexpected brood of babies! I’m happy to hear that all of your diligence and patience over the years has finally been rewarded!

The newborns probably are not going to have any interest in freeze-dried krill that’s been crushed up, so your best bet is to get your brine shrimp hatcheries cranked up into high gear. Providing the newborns with plenty of newly-hatched brine shrimp (Artemia nauplii) and copepods, if you can possibly manage it, should be your top priority.

A breeder net can make a serviceable emergency nursery for small broods of fry, and I know several hobbyists who use them for rearing dwarf seahorse fry. They tend to get a bit dirtier than bare-bottomed nurseries (uneaten brine shrimp and fecal pellets will accummulate on the netting and cling to the mesh) so you’ll need to be diligent about siphoning the netting clean of such wastes and debris, just as you would be when cleaning the glass of a bare-bottome nursery.

Many hobbyists who used these breeder nets for rearing fry keep two of the nets, one which is in use as a nursery, and a clean spare which they transfer the fry into when the breeder net that’s currently in use gets too dirty despite the siphoning. The dirty net is then cleaned and disinfected thoroughly and held in reserve until the other breeder net needs to be replaced. The two breeder nets are then switched back and forth as often as necessary to assure that fry are always contained within a reasonably clean enclosure.

But if there are more than a couple of dozen fry, you would probably be better off setting up a separate nursery tank. The link below will take you to an article that discusses how to rear them in greater detail (H. erectus babies are suitable for the "easy" rearing method outlined in the article). It will explain how to set up a basic nursery tank and culture the live foods you need to feed the newborns:

Click here: Seahorse.com – Seahorse, Sea Life, Marine Life, Aquafarm Sales, Feeds and Accessories – Nutrition – Feeding & Rearing the Fry
<http://www.seahorse.com/FAMA_-_Freshwater_and_Marine_Aquarium_magazine/Horse_Forum_-_Nutrition/Nutrition_-_Feeding_%26_Rearing_the_Fry_-_Part_IV/&gt;

If you contact me off list, I have a great deal of additional information on nursery tanks and rearing that I would be happy to share with you. You can reach me at the following e-mail address any time: [email protected]

In the meantime, if you search this forum for topics such as "fry feeding schedule" or "kriesel nurseries" or "rearing H. erectus" you will find that there is a lot of useful information right at your fingertips as well. There is a rectangular window in the upper right-hand corner (just above the page numbers) on the forum with the words "search forum" in it. Just type the word or phrase you are looking for into that window and press "Enter" on your keyboard, and the results of your search will pop up in just a few moments.

Best of luck with your baby boom bonanza, Kris!

Happy Trails!
Pete Giwojna

Post edited by: Pete Giwojna, at: 2007/04/11 21:39