Frustrated with floating fry

Doctorgori · Oct 10, 2019

Ok I watched both of Dans YouTube vids at least twice... probably just being dumb but for whatever reason I can’t seem to prevent floaters....

I’ve tried to practice cleaning up the bbs changing water every 12hrs .... green water might be a lil cleaner and less ammonia but sample size not big enough ...
Any procedural suggestion appreciated

Doctorgori · Oct 23, 2019

bump ...if anyone has a process for feeding seahorse fry bbs please share ....

currently my 2 males seem to birth every 2-3 weeks right now, so I usually get about 50-70 fry per birth ...my survival rate is poor as i only have about 15 sub adults from 4 batches

rayjay · Oct 24, 2019

For me personally it took quite a while to be successful. As everyone seems to raise them a bit differently I think it's mainly a case of tweaking your own system to eliminate problems.
I started with H. reidi which produce pelagic fry and a bit more complicated but found that increasing the air flow rate so they CAN'T sit at the top helped, but also CLEANLINESS of the system and food was critical also.
I'm concerned about your comment "and less ammonia" as you should NOT have ANY ammonia present.
You also mentioned that your "greenwater might be a little cleaner" and that makes me think of possible nasty bacteria problems that MIGHT be associated with whatever is keeping it from being clean.
I cleaned AND sterilized EACH fry container (I used twelve 4L wide mouth jars) AT LEAST every other day, daily when I had problems of any kind. 100% new water and nanno each time.
I used nanno in each container and lighting 24/7. I also added ClorAm X as a safety measure just in case ammonia wasn't totally consumed by the nanno. Aeration was by open ended air lines and sufficient to keep the fry in motion and unable to stay at the surface. They had no problem snicking up the pre-sterilized enriched brine nauplii even with this heavier aeration.
In later years when I was rearing H. erectus, I also used Mic F probiotics and that seemed to help somewhat.
Now for feeding brine nauplii, my personal method was to sterilize the cysts first, either by decapping them, or as I later evolved to, sterilizing them first by hydrating for a half hour to "round" the cysts and then bleaching them for a few minutes before rinsing well in cold water and then placing in the hatching container.
I would leave them for 48 hours in order to have them grown to the second instar stage where their digestive tract is completed and they can then eat. Before enriching them I would use peroxide to again minimize bacterial influences, and then enrich for two twelve hour stages with new water and new enrichment for each stage.
Before feeding them to the fry I again used peroxide after the enrichment process was completed.
Lastly, I believe too that AGE of, and CONDITION of the adults, especially the male, may contribute to the viability of the fry they produce. I found that the earliest fry produced by the males didn't survive as well as after they produced a few more batches.
To help with the adult conditioning I used enriched live adult artemia to boost their nutrient levels which I feel increases their immune systems and general health which most certainly can't hurt when it comes to birthing their offspring.

Doctorgori · Oct 24, 2019

rayjay said:
I'm concerned about your comment "and less ammonia" as you should NOT have ANY ammonia present.
You also mentioned that your "greenwater might be a little cleaner" and that makes me think of possible nasty bacteria problems that MIGHT be associated with whatever is keeping it from being clean.

Exactly, and yes the ammonia should = 0 ....My thinking here was the green water is both food and processes some nitrogen at least while the bbs are going through to the next instar stage (knowing they can't feed for the 1st12-18hrs) ...but maybe I'll go clear for the 1st 24

rayjay said:
I cleaned AND sterilized EACH fry container (I used twelve 4L wide mouth jars) AT LEAST every other day, daily when I had problems of any kind. 100% new water and nanno each time.
I used nanno in each container and lighting 24/7. I also added ClorAm X as a safety measure just in case ammonia wasn't totally consumed by the nanno. Aeration was by open ended air lines and sufficient to keep the fry in motion and unable to stay at the surface. They had no problem snicking up the pre-sterilized enriched brine nauplii even with this heavier aeration.
In later years when I was rearing H. erectus, I also used Mic F probiotics and that seemed to help somewhat.

yes my hands always smell of bleach

, I thought I was pretty diligent with cleaning bbs hatcheries, fish bowls, nets et ....but apparently not effective in eliminating bacterial issues ... I've also been a lil paranoid about 100% H2O changes as I got a bunch of floaters once following a 100% water change (probably misplaced blame) ... I was doing a 50% H2O with a drop of Formaldehyde per gal for day 1-3 ...now I'll go 100% ...thanks

rayjay said:
Now for feeding brine nauplii, my personal method was to sterilize the cysts first, either by decapping them, or as I later evolved to, sterilizing them first by hydrating for a half hour to "round" the cysts and then bleaching them for a few minutes before rinsing well in cold water and then placing in the hatching container.
I would leave them for 48 hours in order to have them grown to the second instar stage where their digestive tract is completed and they can then eat. Before enriching them I would use peroxide to again minimize bacterial influences, and then enrich for two twelve hour stages with new water and new enrichment for each stage.

...anyway, I was decapsulating fully, but here recently I rehydrated the cyst for 1hr then bleached right up to just to the "beige" stage before proceeding with hatching...sounds like you aren't fully decapsulating either ... I was wasting too many cyst going full decap ...
.....
I separate and FW rinse the BBS then place them in nanno for 24hrs, then 24hrs in Dans feed .... then 10 min in peroxide...FW rinse then feed ... You doing 12hrs per H2O change during the enrichment stage? I gotta be doing something wrong still

rayjay said:
Before feeding them to the fry I again used peroxide after the enrichment process was completed.
Lastly, I believe too that AGE of, and CONDITION of the adults, especially the male, may contribute to the viability of the fry they produce. I found that the earliest fry produced by the males didn't survive as well as after they produced a few more batches.
To help with the adult conditioning I used enriched live adult artemia to boost their nutrient levels which I feel increases their immune systems and general health which most certainly can't hurt when it comes to birthing their offspring.

that had to take a minute to stop in and reply, I can't overstate how much I appreciate you doing so ....I am going to shamelessly copy your process as mine isn't working so good...

I got my 2pr from Seahorse Savvy back in Feb this yr ...I'm guessing they are about 1yr old now (nice fish BTW)

...my current issue with conditioning adults is my fish are only partially trained to eat from a feeding site....too much pest caulerpa and its biofauna seems to interest them for too much of the day and some days they partially ignore the mysis ...I'm removing most of the algae now ,not sure if this is counterproductive but maybe I can get a better handle on conditioning the adults properly

Again thank you for taking the time ... I'll post pics of my setup in a few if anyone has opinions or suggestions

rayjay · Oct 24, 2019

Yes, the nanno WILL process some ammonia and that is why my fry tanks were lit up 24/7 to aid the process.
I would NEVER add Instar I nauplii to a fry tank because they have a tough carapace that is extremely hard for the fry to digest, as well as they don't have the needed DHA component in their egg sack but will have it if you enrich them first with Dan's Feed.
I had good yields with decapped but for me, I found it easier to separate the nauplii from more of the crap when I merely sterilized them. Decapping seemed to leave a lot of crap in suspension with the nauplii. When sterilizing I don't do it until there is ANY colour change, just a few minutes with bleach and then do the rinse and place in hatching container.
I never use nanno for Nauplii unless it's just to grow them out. I leave them in the hatching container so it's about 24 hours to mostly hatched, and another 24 hours to reach Instar II stage, and then I enrich. (total 48 hrs in hatching container, no food or enrichment)
When enriching, I use new water and enrichment after the first 12 hours as the enrichment in the water promotes nasty bacterial growth so I'm reducing the problem when I renew the water and enrichment. I also SEEMED to have lower yields back when I used to go a straight 24hrs with NO change and I think it's because in time, the enrichment seems to coat the nauplii, killing them off. I could see the apparent coating under the microscope after they were in the enrichment for about 14-16 hrs.
I'm just an average seahorse keeper that has been at it a bit longer than some but when it comes to brine shrimp, I've been at it for about 25 yrs. I used to sell to some of the local stores around me so I was raising them on a large scale.
My brine shrimp page hasn't been updated in a long time now as I'm getting to old to figure out how to make some types of changes but it can give you some idea of what is involved in raising brine shrimp to adult if you wish to try. I did it because here in Canada we don't have a source to buy live adult artemia.