My Dwarf Seahorse Log

Crapwhereaminow · Oct 16, 2012

Hi all, I'm new to the site and new to saltwater in general.

My only salt tank is a 10 gallon with ~20 dwarf seahorses + babies, a dwarf pipefish, an unidentified nudibranch, and an unknown number of snails. I'll be using this thread to post about my dwarves and their babies.

The tank cycled for 6 weeks before adding the ponies. The ponies have been in there for about 2 weeks and seem to be doing well, eating and breeding. I got to witness my first birth today, one of the males arrived pregnant and finally popped today. There's 10+ babies floating around the tank right now, we'll see how they do. I also caught my favorite male "flirting" with a girl yesterday morning, so hopefully he'll have babies in the tank soon as well.

Big female

Preggers male, please excuse the background. The tank's located in my kitchen :embarassed:

Favorite male and a girl

One of today's babies

Thanks for looking! I'll post a few videos in a bit

-Jessica

Chelle's Ocean · Oct 16, 2012

Hi Jessica- welcome to the hobby

Can you do a FTS? Curious about the filtration you have on this -
and to see what it looks like to have everything in the 10g.
(sounds a bit too much for that size tank...curious to see their size compared to the tank/surroundings)

Have been thinking of getting a pair - or a few pairs of dwarfs - would love to see the whole set up

Looking forward to your log

cultivatedcoral · Oct 16, 2012

Where did you get yours from? They look great.

Crapwhereaminow · Oct 16, 2012

Seahorse flirting
Seahorses flirting - YouTube

And the male giving birth (Kinda graphic I guess?)
Male dwarf seahorse giving birth - YouTube

@Chelle's Ocean
I'll definitely keep you posted. This is my first experience with saltwater, so I'm going off what I've read. These guys are so teeny that a 10 gallon is almost too big. There's a balance between the number of ponies and the density of the food swimming around. Too few in a big tank means extra food rotting or starving seahorses.
So far I haven't had any fatalities, everyone's eating and swimming around. I'll get a full tank shot in a bit, but it's a typical 10 gallon tank with a sponge filter, plastic plants, and some macro algae. In a full tank shot you can't see the ponies, they're so teeny!

Pkunk35 · Oct 16, 2012

i love these little guys! Man do they mate a lot tho.

Awesome pics and thanks for sharing!

Chelle's Ocean · Oct 16, 2012

Great video

How big would you say they are then?
Trying to 'guestimate' how many to start out with- yes I have read also about the 'too few' and there would be rotting food, but not sure of the size since really haven't seen up close and personal. The only pair I saw- was in Tampa- and it was hard to tell the exact size in the container they were floating in within their tank... looking forward to the other photos/videos- great work/Congrats on the babies

Crapwhereaminow · Oct 16, 2012

They're maybe and inch to inch and a half including tail? The babies are about as big as guppy fry.
I'll try to get a picture of one next to a quarter or something for size reference along with the full tank shot.

SeahorseKeeper · Oct 16, 2012

The seahorses look great!! Thanks for sharing the videos!!! Welcome to r2r!!! I would love to hear more about what you do with your tank and feeding habits.

Crapwhereaminow · Oct 22, 2012

Updates! There has been good and bad news in my tank. The babies have been doing well. I'm not sure if any have died, they're impossible to count. But there's still at least 5 of them floating around. They're so much fun to watch!
Sadly one of my males died, and I think it was the male that gave birth. He had contractions a couple days before the babies were born and I don't think that's normal. He was shipped while very pregnant and that might have caused complications. He was very skinny as well. I'd found him squashed up against the side of the filter a couple days ago, but he swam ok when I moved him. My water parameters are perfect, so I'm hoping it wasn't something to do with my tank that killed him. He's the first casualty I've had and I'm pretty bummed about him.

On to the pictures . . .

My babies have grown so much!

The first picture is day 1

And this was today on the same hitch. So much bigger!

Here's the full tank shot that was requested. It's a basic 10 gallon with a sponge filter, not too much to look at.

And I was also asked for a size reference. Since my male died it was the prefect opportunity to get a good picture for you guys of their adult size.
Like I said, the male was DEAD when I took this picture. I would never pull a healthy, living seahorse out of the water.

So like I said, ups and downs. Everyone else in the tank is happy and healthy. My biggest male is VERY pregnant, so hopefully there will be some more babies soon.

Jessica

revhtree · Oct 22, 2012

Looks like you are doing very well! Congrats on the success and sorry for the death.

Please keep this updated.

Oh and welcome to R2R!

revsgirl · Oct 22, 2012

Very cool pics!! Thanks for sharing!! Welcome to R2R!!

SeahorseKeeper · Oct 22, 2012

The ups and downs are not fun. I lost my male seahorse recently.

I like the tank! Please keep us updated on how the horses are doing.

oceancube · Oct 22, 2012

looking great, always wanted to give seahorses a try... basic and looks nice...

Crapwhereaminow · Oct 23, 2012

Thanks everyone!

No more adult deaths since the one male! I'm thinking a couple of the babies aren't going to make it though.
Two of them are really strong, and HUGE. Then there's about five that are decent sized, moving, and eating well. Lastly there's a couple that don't seem to be swimming or feeding too well. I guess it's part of raising babies, some aren't quite strong enough. At least one of the so/so ones is very oddly colored. It's a mottled black/brown/white pattern. I can't tell if it's bruising or normal coloration, but I'll be keeping an eye on it.

In other news my largest male is very pregnant now, and I've got another male that just had eggs transferred. You can see the little orange/pink blob in his pouch.

An interesting thing I've noticed is the texture of the seahorses. About 70% of them are spiny, very rough scales with little cirri. The remaining 30% are smooth, almost no bumps or ridges. The very pregnant male is the smoothest one, so we'll see what the babies look like in a month or so.

On to the pictures . . .

Seahorse tree! They all like to congregate on this fake plant. In the center is my favorite female, she's metallic green.

The largest of the babies, and the one that's growing like a weed. Compare this picture to the ones from a couple days ago. It's amazing how fast they mature.

A pregnant male and one of the babies for size comparison.

I added a teeny little mushroom, we'll see how it does. I've read mushrooms are ok for dwarf tanks. If I see any suspicious behavior this guy is gone.

Lastly, an updated full tank shot. I added a rock :wink:

thanks for looking!
-Jessica

SeahorseKeeper · Oct 24, 2012

Looks great!!! It's amazing how they can change colors. I think it's neat that some of your dwarves have cirri. In the research that I have done, I have found that the cirri is a type of defense mechanism they use in the wild to ward of predators. In captivity, there is no need to have cirri since there are no predators. The seahorses will absorb the cirri and it gradually goes away. Weird...

Crapwhereaminow · Oct 24, 2012

@seahorsekeeper you're completely right. One of my dwarves had a ton of cirri when she arrived. It was really neat looking, she had some huge filaments on her head. Now they're mostly gone, she's just got a couple horns left.
The smoothest ones are males in my tank, not sure if that's significant. I've read that the ponies collected from areas with less vegetation are smoother and the ones collected from densely planted areas are more likely to have cirri.
It's going to be interesting to see if my big female keeps her knobby look or if she smoothes out.

Chelle's Ocean · Oct 26, 2012

Awesome photos - thanks for the full tank shot and the size photo - without actually seeing one next to the quarter- I would never have thought that would be the "adult"- wow- I can't imagine the fun you have of seeing all the itty bitty babies when born- so tiny

Looks great

- following for more updates/information-

Crapwhereaminow · Nov 2, 2012

Updates!!!!

First the bad news, I've lost another adult. A female this time. Again, not sure what the cause was. My water checks perfect. So I'm going to chalk it up to them being wild caught. Also, not many babies from my first birth are left. The smaller ones have all disappeared.

On to the good news! My largest male gave birth!!! And I'm learning (slowly). This time I bought a breeding net and, when he looked like he was about to pop, I put the male in it. Well he gave birth the next day and I've had a MUCH better survival rate with the babies this time around. I've got about 6 that look fantastic. I also scooped up the weird colored baby from the previous group and am raising him in the breeding net as well. It lets me feed the babies more often than I feed the adults and I know they're a lot more likely to get food in there. I also kept the male in there after the birth and he seems to be doing well. Now the only problem is I have no clue how to get them out of there :embarassed:

Curiously enough there are still 2 or 3 very small and weak babies in the net. I don't think they'll make it, even with the extra feedings. I guess not all of the babies from a birth are meant to survive.

Here's the breeding net. Inside are about 8 babies from the most recent birth, one from the previous birth, and one adult male.

Here's the strongest baby from the previous birth. Compare this picture to the ones from earlier. They grow so fast!

I don't think I ever posted any pictures of my dwarf pipefish. Here it is, makes a really nice tankmate for the ponies. As you can see there's not much of a size difference. It's funny when the ponies "ride" the pipefish.

And some random additions. Since my mushrooms are doing so well I decided to try a few other things. So far so good.

And since things are going so well with the ponies I've decided to set up a "proper" salt tank. It's a 20L with a skimmer, live rock, refugium, LED lights, and everything! It's cycling now, so updates when I do more with it.

Thanks for reading!
Jessica