Raising Seahorses, do you really want to?

I have always wanted to raise seahorses since I was very young. Now in my late 40’s I had the opportunity. Time to do some research.

I started with lots and lots of reading. As with most subjects there is a ton of information on the net, but some if not most of it conflicts with each other.Well common sense should kick in, and get in contact with the professionals and get the real information and then compare it to what you find on the net.

There is a lot of good information out there, my course with Pete G. (awesome and the best!!!) taught me a lot. Now as usual he can’t cover everything, no one can or should be expected too. I took my research from the net, did comparatives, kept the good and trashed the rest. Looking at all these different sources, tanks, styles of rearing, techniques…..well you get the idea. Find what you can that relates to you and what you are doing and go with it.

Now I could not find the tank I really wanted, so with my research I built one, built my filter system, my sump/refugium, and plumbing. Put in all the rock, sand and plants and cycled my system. Couldn’t wait until the day I could order my seahorses!!!

I have found through trial and error that you can build or put together off the shelf a good tank and system that is almost maintenance free. You have to watch it, test it and never let it go unmonitored but once you get it right, it turns in to a real little Eco system that is a marvel to watch. I do water changes every 2 weeks, about 20%, grow chateo in my sumps with live sand and starfish hermit crabs and snails in there too. My water stays right where it should be for temp, nitrates, nitrites and ammonia also O2 level.

While waiting I continued to research and learn all I could. Now I realize that I missed so much. I did not really look into rearing food, sicknesses, diseases to watch for and the symptoms….well that bit me hard, more on it later. Make sure during your cycling to continue to study and learn. Especially read through the forum. Try not to get surprised by something, the hectic actions and worrying to try and correct it take their toll on you.

Anyway I ordered my seahorses finally, tank mates and started my little community…Now tank mates is a delicate subject. No one really knows what a fish or crab or even snail will do so for the first few months really pay attention to what is going on in your tank. Watch from across the room in a chair at times. See I got a blenny who actually was attacking my seahorses, but only when it could not see anyone in the room. I lost two to sickness from infection from the bites……even though a chart and advice from several sources said it should be OK, watch your tank.

My next problem came from doing a seahorse rescue from the LFS. One seemed OK and the other GBS. Well I built a really nice compression chamber, order diamox and he recovered. The female seemed fine, put her in a quarantine tank, shorter time than I should. I moved them both into the main tank, 5 days quarantine and no fresh water dip. I lost 8 of my seahorses to a sickness that crossed over with these two. It was horrible day by day they stopped eating one by one till they died about a week after they stopped eating.

So, keeping my chin up antibiotics and M. Blue managed to say 3, two erectus and 1 redi. Well I ordered a couple more redi to bring my tank back up to 5, and all is well now. I have had a few scares from seeing a seahorse miss a meal here and there. I do attribute it to that I do daily feed the rest of the tank mates in the same tank live brine. Yep raise those too, best thing I ever did. Not really any cheaper, alot of work but you don’t get any unwanted pests or sicknesses from brine shrimp you raise.

Now for a gift I was told a friend ordered me a few seahorses, I was thrilled because I was enjoying the ones I have now so more would be good too. Well when they arrived I opened the box to find pipefish, Yeah!!! and 6 dwarf seahorses??????????? Well it so happens I had a book on them, proofed by Pete G. and I had seen some other information on the net. However the bad thing was I had to build a whole new tank, and FAST!!!

Well it took me 5 hours to design a pump and filter system, build it, modify a tank, luckily I have live sand in my sumps for back up when needed, some gorgonians too. Anyway I had almost everything at home but had to run to Petco and buy some BioSpira tank starter. Works great and with the tank running only an hour the dwarfs were put in and did just fine.

They in fact did so fine that only a few days after arriving the first fry appeared from both the dwarf seahorses and the pipefish. I left the dwarf fry in with the adults, keep an eye on them but the nice thing is since I already raise live brine, for the first 4 days they are food for the dwarf’s and pipefish. Dwarf’s are very prolific if you did not know, I started with 6 adults back in November, now I have 14 adults/young juveniles and 24 babies running around. They breed fast, 10 days gestation and grow amazingly fast.

I do recommend the Dwarfs, I find them very easy to care for, feed and raise the fry. The bad thing is they only live a year. However in that one year if they breed every month, you will have a tank full of them !!!!!!!!!!

Now my erectus have had fry this past week, yep I was surprised !!!! I had seen the males pouch and thought I have a week at least……I was wrong. I came home to about 60 or so fry in the main tank getting swirled around. I have no idea how many went down thru the overflow box, or maybe eaten by the Longnose Hawk Fish……..

Well here we go, I wanted fry but not the surprise!!!!!!! So to Petco and bought a $4 plastic goldfish bowl, small pump and nylon mosquito net. I had to make a nursery tank and fast. I had read (yep still researching more and more all the time) how to make a bowl nursery inside a main tank. No acclimation or anything and you have the buffer of the main tank and sump. Sounded pretty good and I had all the stuff (yeah it is hard to believe but since I made my first tank and all the modifications to it. I keep a host of PVC, CPVC and pumps both air and water and well just a lot of stuff for emergencies and surprises!!!!)

So I made a tank in a tank and so far a week later it is still doing fine. I followed some advice from a Seahorse farm about weeding out the fry, got rid of the floaters (only 6) and the sinkers (10) and the weak feeders. I have had only 11 just die so far. Now it has only been a week but I hope that I can save at least 4 pairs from my first brood. I hear that on the first most people loose them all, and after 3 to 5 attempts they get one or two. Well I don’t think I am any better than anyone else but I am doing my best to keep as many from my first brood as possible.

So I sit here tonight after starting yet another BBS batch to feed the erectus fry and the dwarf’s. Doing more research on raising fry…taking a break to write the way too long statement to say really just one thing

Yea, I really do want to raise seahorses and I love it!!!!!!!!!!!

Follow your dreams, even if they were only childhood dreams.

by David

David and Sheena
San Jose , CA