ughhhh I have some work to do!

[vlangel]

It sounds like you have come up with a pretty good tank for them. I am really glad you added the rigid airline tube because they very well could have needed the added O2. I commend you for going to such extreme length for creatures you were not expecting. I feel like you have done as much as anyone could.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Yes, excellent work! Funny they wound up in such a perfect place.

 

[jaws789832]

Day 2 and both are still alive. I did a 10 gallon water change today and fed them twice with baby brine and OVA. The pipefish is eating great. He chases down the brine and sucks them up. The pony just sits on her perch and waits for things to swim by. Not much action there lol. She doesn't swim much, but is in a different location every time I leave and come back. The Pipe fish escaped the little pen today and was roaming around the bigger tank. Didn't look like he was enjoying himself though because the current was a bit too strong for him. he was being blown around and struggling to get anywhere. I sucked him up with a turkey baster and put him back in his pen and he latched on to a hitch and stayed there for a bit. I bought a couple of small, colorful plastic plants today to try and encourage the pony to explore a bit. The zip ties were at the bottom so that's where she was staying mostly. It worked. she moved up and hitched onto the plants and now is in the middle of the tank. She actually looks pretty good too. Seems way more alert and always looking around and staying more upright.

How do you enrich the brine shrimp. do I just pour some phyto in the hatchery, does that enrich them? I have phyto and selcon, that's it. Do I need to get something else or is that good enough? What can I use to cover the overflow in the the main tank. I obviously cant keep them locked in that little acclimation box forever so I should start looking for fixes for the tank. I have an old 10 gallon sitting around with a HOB filter and a canister filter that I was thinking about setting up for them so I can drain the AIO and set it up with a sump. Before I do anything though I want to make sure they are going to survive and be healthy.

Thanks for all the help you are giving me. My wife is fascinated by the pony but she doesn't want to get attached just yet. No confidence in my abilities I guess. Probably because. a while ago I had purchased a couple of fish that had velvet (for real cheap) with the idea that I was going to cure them. Unfortunately that didn't turn out too well and she was mad because she got attached to the cute little buggers.

 

[vlangel]

If the little seahorse is a dwarf seahorse, they are primarily ambush predators. That means that it will stay hitched until foods drifts by it. That is why you need to put a lot of food in the acclimation box.

Then you need a way to flush the acclimation box to remove most of the food after they are done eating.

I wonder if you can suck up bbs in a turkey baster and just target small amounts right to the little seahorse? That is impractical with a whole herd but could maybe work with just one.

When it comes to enriching it is best to use a product like Dan's Feed from Seahorse Source. However in your situation I would not buy that for just 1 seahorse,so the phyto is good. Selcon can be tricky because it is likely to breed bacteria that can get in the bbs and then the intestinal tract of your little seahorse. If you use it, you will need to sterilize all containers, and utensils used in the enriching process after each enrichment.

When enriching bbs, you need to wait 8-12 hours from when they were hatched for them to develop mouths. They can be fed immediately after hatching because they have a yoke sac that they are living on until their mouths develop and that is nutrtious. However once that is depleted they need to be rinsed in RO water and moved to a container with clean salt water. There you can add the phyto or whatever you are enriching with. They need 12 hours to assimulate the enrichment into their tissues, then they should be rinsed again and placed in a new clean container with new salt water and enriched a second time. Once that is done they are optimally enriched. When I raised erectus fry I had fed some bbs after the first enrichment because I was going through so much bbs and my babies needed to eat something. Cleaning and sterilizing is really important however to prevent bacterial infections of the gut.

You can keep newly hatched bbs in the fridge a couple days until you are ready to enrich also to save on hatching every day.

 

[jaws789832]

That is what I have been doing. I have a Julians Thing that I suck out all debris that form on the bottom of the little tank, after about 1 hour after feeding. Its not perfectly clean but it seems to be doing the job. I am kind of hoping he is not a dwarf (but I am thinking he is). They stay so small and seem like a lot of work. Problem is I am a fireman so I am at work for 48 hours straight. My wife wont deal with the brine shrimp so the poor little guy wont have anything to eat for that amount of time. I can probably talk her into dropping small pieces of frozen OVA in there but the tank wont get cleaned out for those 2 days either. Wonder if I should drop 1 nassarius snail in the tank to clean the bottom up. Nassarius like sand though and there isn't any in the acclimation tank so he would probably climb up and over the top anyways. I go to work tomorrow. I was thinking about putting a squirt of the decapped brine eggs in the tank and hopping they hatch to give them a steady supply of food.

 

[vlangel]

I would not bother putting decapped brine eggs unless you are doing it for the pipe. I doubt the little dwarf would go after them as they would probably be too few and far between.

Your work schedule is going to complicate things for sure. I can't even think of a solution off the top of my head.

 

[jaws789832]

My thought was that some of the decapped would hatch. The first day when I got them and added some, some of them hatched about 20 hours later. Plus the pony does seem to peck the OVA off the floor (and maybe the decapped). Just thinking its better than nothing. On a brighter note. Today I saw the pony out swimming around. He was looking really good and really strong, So I am assuming he is getting his little belly full somehow. He is adorable but man he is small LOL. He is not too much bigger than the mysys shrimp that I got him with. The tank is actually looking really good. Its amazing what a couple of water changes will do LOL.

 

[Larry L]

Where did you get the Mysis from?

 

[jaws789832]

I got them from Aquaculture Nursery Farms. Its kind of funny actually. I placed an order for a pods pack about 3 months ago, which came with 3 types of pods, phyto, and mysis. When I ordered it, they ran out of mysis so I was put on backorder, and they finally came in. They didn't forget about me and sent them out and now I have a pony and pipefish. The mysis didn't fare so well though. Out of the hundred I was supposed to get, probably only about 20 made it and with me scrambling to get the tank ready for the other, after a short acclimation I just dumped them into the DT and they became a tasty little treat immediately for my fish. Oh well, I was hoping to culture some but I ran short on time. Maybe next time.

 

[Raymond Gathright]

pins and needles....

 

[BluewaterLa]

Following along
How interesting and awesome you got pipes and seahorse as hitch hikers in a bag of mysis
Pretty sweet

 

[jasonrusso]

Still doing well?

 

[jaws789832]

Not sure as I am at work right now. Before I left Yesterday morning I put some enriched brine shrimp in the tank, and my wife will feed them the Ova every evening so hopefully the pull through. I ordered one of those Toms in tank brine shrimp hatcheries hoping that when I go to work that hatchery at least will supply them with some live food. The more I read on the pony, the more I think he needs a more suitable home, so I think when I get home I am going to set up a small nano. Who knows, if this little guy pulls through, maybe I will order a couple more so I have me a little herd of dwarfs. I will give an update tomorrow when I get off work.

 

[jaws789832]

Got home from work this morning and the pony seems fine. Still hitched onto the zipties. Seemed to eat a few brine when I put them in so that's a good sign. Problem is I cant find the pipe. I didn't disturb the tank too much so he might just be hiding in the acclimation tank somewhere but I am betting he got out again and is either in the main tank hiding in the rocks or sand, or got sucked into the overflow. Right now I am just going to do the wait and see philosophy. Since the Pony seems to be doing good I am in the process of setting up a more suitable home for him. I have an old 5 gallon tank that I am going to divide into 2 sections using an old tank divider that I have. About 1/3 of the tank will be the pony's home. I will keep it bare bottom and silicon some small fake plants to the bottom for hitching posts. I will also put the in tank brine feeder in this section and I have a jbj refugium light that I was going to attach to the side. The theory is the brine shrimp will be attracted to the light on the side of the tank so the food won't just all swim to the top, and I will try and strategically place a plant for hitching close to the light. The other 2/3's of the tank will be skimmer, filtration and heater. I am still debating on filtration. I have a couple of HOB filters of various sizes and I also have 2 canister filters sitting around. I know the canister filters would be better but they are a pain to clean, and I am someone that if something is a pain I put it off, while the HOB's are easy to clean but aren't as efficient.

OK now for another dilemma. After I got the new tank set up and running I was going to purchase some more ponies for it. I read that these little guys are very social creatures and like to interact with each other (and mate), so I didn't want Seabiscuit to be lonely. Turns out that the dwarf seahorse is being put on the endangered species list and its illegal to buy, sell, trade or OWN them. They aren't there yet but its in congress for review and if it passes not sure what my options will be. Doing a search for them online I can still buy them at a few places but the biggies have stopped selling them already. The BP oil spill I guess wiped out their habitat on the Florida coast so that is why they might be endangered. I guess the question is 1.if you already own them before they are endangered are you grandfathered in? and 2. if you aren't grandfathered in what are you supposed to do with them? Since I live in New Mexico and the closest coast is about a million miles away, and I don't think they would do very well in the Rio Grande, I don't and won't have very many options.

 

[monimo]

So I bought some mysis shrimp just to see what they looked like and to see if my fish and tank would support them (I like bio diversity). I acclimate the shrimp and pour them into a net then into a holding tank so I can get a look at them. Low an behold, there are 2 baby seahorses and 3 pipe fish in with them. 1 of the seahorses looks like its on the way out and the other seems to be ok. 2 of the pipe fish are doing bad but also 1 looks pretty good. Problem is my QT tank wasn't set up because I wasn't expecting any fish so now I am scrambling to get something up and running. They are so small though I am pretty sure they don't have a chance in hell but I am going to try and save them.. I have some decapped brine shrimp eggs that I hope they will eat until I can hatch some brine shrimp. I also have some OCVA that I feed to my mandarins. so I might try that as well as soon as I get them in the tank. Right now I am expecting the worse but hoping for the best.

WHITCH STORE DID YOU GET DIS i wanna have cheep pipe fish and sea horses!!!! whitch type r they to i dont know sea horse much but i know my pipe fish r hey banded 1 or reg green

 

[monimo]

if you need help looking for some sites i can help

 

[monimo]

What will he eat. Mine is about half the size of the ones with the ruler

i belive they look like there ready to eat brine shirmp fry or somehing like banna worms some thing tiny

 

[monimo]

Not the most impressive pipefishs but i love them.

Lucie how many gallons i always see green pipe fish when i go fishing i just dont know a good tank size for them
tank size is 30g with o bllue damsils whitch imma starve because there like betas and they fight way to much

 

[jaws789832]

I got them from Aquaculture Nursery Farms. heheheh I don't think they meant to send me a pony and pipe though so I wouldn't count on it happening again LOL. plus the mysis are kind of pricey at 49$ for 100 so I wouldn't exactly call them free, but since I ordered it as a package I think it was 89$ for tisbe, tigger, amphipods, phyto and mysis, which I thought wasn't too bad a price. I like trying different venders to see who gives the best service and the best deals.

 

[jaws789832]

I just threw some more brine in and he ate a bunch of them. I kept the tank dark and shined a flashlight close to him and the brine all followed the light so he had a really good smorgasbord. I was happy to see that, but still no sign of the pipe