hi from england

Dear lucycat:

Howdy, Lucy! Welcome aboard!

It’s great to have a successful breeder on the forum, and if you are able to raise the very challenging Hippocampus reidi fry consistently, I’m sure we can all learn a lot from your methods.

Long renowned for their bright color phases, prolific breeding habits, and huge broods of difficult-to-raise fry, Brazilian seahorses (H. reidi) are one of my personal favorites. They are famous among seahorse keepers for two things: brilliant colors and making babies. The Brazilian breeding machine is the most prolific of all the seahorses. They have a well-deserved reputation for churning out brood after brood every two weeks with relentless regularity, and hold the world record for delivering ~1600 young in a single brood But with that many fetal fry crammed into one incubator pouch, the inevitable tradeoff is that the young are born at a considerably smaller size than most seahorses. They also go through a lengthy pelagic phase, drifting freely with the plankton for up to 1-2 months, which makes H. reidi fry notoriously difficult to raise. So you have done very well indeed to have 20 H. reidi juveniles between the ages of 2 weeks and 20 weeks old. Keep up the great work!

If you contact me off list, Lucy, I will be happy to send you detailed species summaries for H. reidi and H. barbouri that discuss successful rearing protocols that have been developed for these species on this side of the pond.

In the meantime, please feel free to read through the posts and add your thoughts and comments as you wish. You can search through the archives for information on any particular topic that may be of interest.

Best wishes with all your fishes, Lucy!

Happy Trails!
Pete Giwojna

Dear Lucy:

Sure thing — I’d be happy to send you some detailed information on successful breeding protocols for Hippocampus reidi and H. barbouri that have been developed by aquarists on this side of the pond. Just shoot me an e-mail at the following address, and I will reply with the information (the files are too big to be posted on this forum):
[email protected]

Also, please tell us more about the new fry food that is working so well with H. reidi babies in the UK, Lucy. No doubt regarding keepers here in the States would like to hear all about this fry food since, as you are no doubt well aware, anything that makes the newborn and juveniles easier to feed is a real bone for the home breeder.

Best of luck with your prolific ponies and all of their progeny, Lucy!

Happy Trails!
Pete Giwojna

Dear Lucy:

Okay, I I think I know what you’re talking about now. I believe the company you are referring to is ZM Fish Food & Fishroom Equipment, also known as Zebrafish Management Ltd., which is based in the UK.

And the dry food that is working well for your Hippocampus reidi and H. barbouri fry and juveniles must be their ZM Fry Food, which is semi-buoyant when first added to the aquarium so that it stays suspended in the water column longer and simulates live foods. The ZM Fry Food includes shrimp meal which acts as a odor attracted to help stimulate a strong feeding response, as well as stabilized Vitamin C & Vitamin B-12. But what I really like about the ZM Fry Food is that it’s available in a number of different particle sizes, which are suitable for fry at different stages of development.

For example, the ZM-000 Fry Food has particles that are less than 90 microns in diameter and can be used as an alternative or supplement to live rotifers for fry that are too small to accept newly brine shrimp, such as your H. reidi fry.

Likewise, the ZM-100 Fry Food has particles from 80-200 microns, making them a little smaller than most newly hatched brine shrimp. That would make them a possible alternative or supplement for newly hatched brine shrimp (1st instar Artemia nauplii).

The ZM-200 Fry Food (150-200 microns) is similar in size to newly hatched brine shrimp, and can be used as a substitute for Artemia for fry that are a little larger and ready to accept 2nd instar brine shrimp.

And the ZM-300 Fry Food (300-500 microns) could be offered to the juveniles when they are ready for slightly larger food, and so on.

If seahorse fry will actually accept the ZM Fry Food, that would be a tremendous boon for seahorse keepers, especially the home breeders. Offering these particle foods to the newborns and young seahorses would be much more economical and convenient, sparing the hobbyist from the hassle of culturing rotifers and copepods or preparing copious amounts of newly hatched brine shrimp on a daily basis. So please keep us informed on the progress of your H. reidi and H. barbouri juveniles and how well they are eating the ZM Fry Food, Lucy.

Thank you very much for bringing this easy alternative to our attention — this is a very exciting development if the seahorse fry readily eat the dry foods and show good growth and survivorship on such a diet.

Best wishes with all your fishes, Lucy!

Happy Trails!
Pete Giwojna