I was always fascinated by fish and when my girlfriend was looking for a class pet for her third grade class (she is a teacher) we saw those aqua babies things at the local target.  She bought one and I wanted one but I wanted the bigger tank but the only thing that came in it was a frog.  I saw a nice looking tank with a dead frog so I got a discount.  I cleaned it out and went to PetCo to buy a small fish for it.  After feeling sorry for the fish I bought a larger 2 gallon tank with an undergravel filter and my addiction exploded from there.  For my birthday, my girlfriend bought me a complete 37 gallon acrylic aquarium, hood (Eclipse) and stand.  I learned about the biological cycle and added some hardy fish, most of them made it.  Not too long after, one of my fish (it was a freshwater) had babies and I learned how to care for them (they were Mollies).

After that, I started seeing other fish I liked, and I setup another tank at work for a spotted puffer (Puffy).  He was the office pet until I decided I wanted him at home so I moved my freshwater fish and put Puffy and more puffers in the 37 brackish tank.  I considered myself fairly successful and my knowledge grew a little and then I wanted a bigger challenge of a saltwater tank.  I started small, a 10 gallon with live sand, LR and I modified a Lee's protein skimmer to fit.  I had a hangon filter for mechanical filtration.  My first saltwater animals were damsels, one brown seahorse, a couple horseshoe crabs.  I have no idea how the seahorse survived after know what I know now but he was still the best seahorses I have had to date.  I lost the whole tank during a move to my new house.  Now that I am fairly settled again, I started by learning wild caught seahorses are not the way to go and that raising seahorse fry is the most challenging I have ever encountered with this hobby.  After doing a lot of reading on the .org site, I bought some fry and I am trying to raise them to adults.  My wild caught had 13 fry and I lost the remaining four to hydroids after almost 5 weeks.  I know the percentages are low but I had to try again and this is were we are now with my tanks.

Curious H. erectus fry staring at H. procerus babies getting acclimated.
Photo taken June 20, 2003.

Sleeping baby H. procerus.
Photo taken July 6, 2003.

5.5 gallon fry tank.
Photo taken June 20, 2003.

• no other photos at this time.

• Unknown brand, 16"X8"X10.5", 5.5 gallons.

Cover/Canopy and Stand:

• Glass hood, incandescent hood with fluorescent screw in 13 watt bulb.

Heating:

• Marineland 25 Watt located in the right rear wall.

Thermometer:

• Unknown brand, located on left front wall.

Special Features of Main Tank:

• None.

• PetCo air driven filter, cut to fit Fluval foam used instead of paper/charcoal element.

Filtration System Modifications:

• Using foam instead of standard filter.

Powerheads:

• None.

Skimmer:

• None.

Cleaning Regime:

• 20% water change every week.

• Luminar 13 watt fluorescent screw-in bulbs in incandescent hood.

Daily Photo Period:

• 15.5 hours per day on a timer.

• Some algae removal.

• 20% Water change.

• Water chemistry check.

Monthly Maintenance:

• None

Other  Maintenance:

• Weekly water changes, glass cleaning is all, nothing major.

• 1.019-1.021 and trying to stay closer to 1.019.

• 8.2 to 8.3.

Additives and Buffers Used:

• Kent Marine 8.3 Buffer.

Nitrate Range:

• Unknown.

Water Quality and Chemistry Testing Regime:

• Bi-weekly.

• Aquarium Pharmaceuticals test kits
• Intel Play microscope for looking at the small weird stuff

• 1 lb live rock.

Substrate:

• 6 lbs of Coralife sand seeded with live sand from main tank.

• Plastic plants.

• H. erectus and H. procerus, mixed, 10 fry remaining and lost track of who's who.

Length of Time these Seahorses Have Been Kept:

• 3 weeks.

Temperature Range for Our Seahorse:

• 76 to 78 degrees F, although during warmer days the air conditioner is running and maintains 78 degrees F.  Before turning the air conditioner on, I saw it reach 80 and since then left the air conditioner running to keep the tanks cooler.

Acclimatization Process:

• The way I did it was probably not "by the book" but since I knew where the seahorses came from I assumed it was ok.  They sat in a bag of tank water of about an hour to equalize the temperature, I opened the bag and allowed the bag to sink under the surface of the water and let the seahorses swim out on their own.  I removed the bag with the water in it.  They took anywhere from 15 mins to an hour to swim out on their own.  I would not do this if I received them from the LFS and I did a thorough inspection of the bag before doing so.

• The fry's diet ranges from newly hatch baby brine shrimp, Instar II (Selcon enriched, sometimes Zoe is added), Cyclopeeze added on occasion.

Nutritional Supplements Used:

• Selcon, Zoe, Garlic Xtreme.

Number of Feedings per Day:

• Two, one in the morning and one in the evening.

Feeding Station and Feeding Tools:

• General feed baby brine shrimp washed with RO water in brine shrimp net.

Feeding Method:

• Varies by time, available hatched food on hand.

• None.

• None.

• None, the tank was cleaned with Panacur before adding the seahorse fry.

• None.

• None.

Dealing with Problem Algae:

• Scrape and vacuum debris.

Sump:

• No sump is used.

• No sump is used.

• Unknown brand, 16"X8"X10.5", 5.5 gallon.

Cover/Canopy and Stand:

• Standard glass cover.

Heating:

• 25 watt Marineland, right rear wall.

Thermometer:

• Unknown brand, left front wall.

Special Features of Hospital Tank:

• None.

• Hang on Whisper filter, no skimmer.

• Screw in fluorescent 13 watt bulb.

• No rock or substrate used.

• Fake coral, fake plant.

Health Problem #1, H. barbouri:

Symptoms:

• Popeye.

Diagnosis:

• Popeye.

Medication Used:

• Melafix.

Tank Maintenance During Treatment:

• As directed on bottle.

Outcome of Treatment:

•  Successful.

 

• Complete tear down and rinse and let dry.

Quarantine Tank:

• Quarantine tank has become the H. erectus and H. procerus fry tank.

• None, went from FW dip straight into tank.

Why and for How Long New Seahorses are Quarantined:

• Two weeks and treated with Paragon II.

• Daily 10% water changes.

Maintenance While Quarantine Tank Is Not in Use:

• Maintenance done only in when in use.

Type of Water Used:

• Purchase Catalina Saltwater, RO and Kent Marine Buffer used to lower specific gravity.

Equipment Used for Water Changes:

• Homemade water pumping station with 11 gallon reservoir.

This is my first attempt at raising seahorse fry in a fully established small aquarium.  I had used a bowl for my first small batch of 13 premature fry (father died giving birth) and I thought I would try again by purchasing fry from seahorse.org members and try raising them in a stress free (from water changes) environment.  The results are still yet to be seen.