Feeding Seahorses on Vacation

[ThePurple12]

Hi,

I'll be on vacation for a week in the beginning of August. I have 2 erectus and no tank sitter I can think of, but I guess I could find one if absolutely necessary.

My question is, can I just dump 100 or so live mysis or maybe 50 ghost shrimp in the tank? How long would they last before getting eaten?

Thanks.

 

[Doctorgori]

You can “just dump” 100 mysis? Where the heck can you get affordable mysis and in quantity? I know sachs wasn’t exactly cheap .

But to answer your question, I feed about a cube per horse per day (very roughly), I’m guessing they can eat 50 easily/day. Hopefully someone else can clean up that guesstimate

Can you get disease free feeder guppies? I keep both mollies and guppies in 1.026

...enjoy your vacation and b safe

 

[NashobaTek]

Well Marine Depot sells mysis frozen in a 208 cube box. Lol how many cubes would you need to" throw in" to cover a week?? It's only $38.00 for the box.

 

[ThePurple12]

You can “just dump” 100 mysis? Where the heck can you get affordable mysis and in quantity? I know sachs wasn’t exactly cheap .

But to answer your question, I feed about a cube per horse per day (very roughly), I’m guessing they can eat 50 easily/day. Hopefully someone else can clean up that guesstimate

Can you get disease free feeder guppies? I keep both mollies and guppies in 1.026

...enjoy your vacation and b safe

Sachs is kinda affordable, $35+shipping for 100. I might go with saltwater grass shrimp instead.

How big are your seahorses? Mine are 3-4" and I've been feeding them each 10 individual frozen mysis per day, which is half a cube. They seem fat enough.

No feeder guppies locally, maybe online.

I will try to be safe- we're going to Florida...

 

[ThePurple12]

Well Marine Depot sells mysis frozen in a 208 cube box. Lol how many cubes would you need to" throw in" to cover a week?? It's only $38.00 for the box.

Right, but I'll be gone and can't add frozen food to the tank. If I did, it would all rot and kill the seahorses... unless I don't understand your post?

 

[NashobaTek]

Can you get a friend or neighbor you can trust to add the cubes during the day?
Or better yet what about a big order of bigger pods or adult brine shrimp, live food for the week.

 

[ThePurple12]

That's exactly what I'm wondering- will live food last for a week, or will it all get eaten in a day?

There might be a neighbor I could get, but I'd rather take care of it myself.

 

[NashobaTek]

@rayjay might be able to answer the question better, I know they have a lot of sh experience.

But I would think a few adult brine shrimp might reproduce during the week.

 

[rayjay]

No I don't have the answer as I always get someone trained to do what needs doing when I'm away.
Adding freshwater mysis, ghost shrimp etc is no good as they won't last long enough in salt water. Brine shrimp will live but only until they get caught up in filtration or eaten, most to the filters. Brine shrimp even under lab conditions will take about 8 days to get to reproducing stage and the nauplii would then be too small to be of any nutritional value even if the seahorses would go for them, which most won't due to the small size.
I have some homemade devices that primarily work with ice blocks that can get me by for about 3 days but it takes some experimenting to determine just how much ice to use in the devices as each tank is different.

 

[MeMyFishandI]

Maybe see if there’s a dog walking company that would be willing to branch out and pop a cube in to your tank once a day. I did that once, they charged me $10/day.

 

[Doctorgori]

Sachs is kinda affordable, $35+shipping for 100. I might go with saltwater grass shrimp instead.

How big are your seahorses? Mine are 3-4" and I've been feeding them each 10 individual frozen mysis per day, which is half a cube. They seem fat enough.

No feeder guppies locally, maybe online.

I will try to be safe- we're going to Florida...

I got 4 adults from Alyssa that are gigantic, 8” they gotta be right at that species size limit. I have a male Reidi same length, less mass ... My adults I raised from fry are big but not as big as Alyssa’s

You probably can’t put enough shrimp in there for a week, I‘d guess they mow throw hundreds in a week. Live brine shrimp should be gut loaded for a few hrs. Baby food; peas, sweet potatoes, dans feed, et. You might try a mix: get a 1/2 box of BBS, gut load and stuff the seahorse, then put in the mysis. A weeks might be pushing it

 

[ThePurple12]

I got 4 adults from Alyssa that are gigantic, 8” they gotta be right at that species size limit. I have a male Reidi same length, less mass ... My adults I raised from fry are big but not as big as Alyssa’s

You probably can’t put enough shrimp in there for a week, I‘d guess they mow throw hundreds in a week. Live brine shrimp should be gut loaded for a few hrs. Baby food; peas, sweet potatoes, dans feed, et. You might try a mix: get a 1/2 box of BBS, gut load and stuff the seahorse, then put in the mysis. A weeks might be pushing it

8 inches!!! Nice!

I think I'll buy 200 mysis shrimp from Sach's and add them to the tank. If they all get eaten, seahorses should be fine without food for a couple days, right?

 

[NashobaTek]

Keeping Seahorses in Aquaria #6 - Dealing with Travel and Sickness

Photo by @robert_au Our previous article on Keeping Seahorses in Aquaria focused on how to feed and nourish your ponies. This, our final article in this series, will address how to deal with time away due to travel and also how to handle disease...

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