Bad news for sea horses

[sorseress]

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2412759.ece

 

[cthulhu77]

We are fast approaching a "event horizon" in regards to the keeping of many marine animals...soon, no longer will any be available. Personally, I have no problem with this...I feel research should be done strictly in the field, not in the aquarium.

 

[Cairnos]

Hang on, no stomach? How does that work?

 

[Jean]

food in mouth, down oesophagus............out!

'horses have terrible digestion, food stays in for such a short time, they don;t extract much nutrition from it. So you need to feed high quality food and often. One of the biggest headaches (along with getting crabs for the octopus and octopus proofing the tank!) in our aquarium is when we have a storm or during winter when plankton is scarce.......we have trained them to take frozen krill and we catch and freeze them in fairly big numbers during summer !

J

 

[DWhatley]

Jean,

Do you have the leafy's? If so do they also eat the krill? I think they are my most favorite ocean critter. Neal says I couldn't work at the aquarium because I couldn't pass their tank without stopping for an hour

I find it a little strange that all the aquariums that keep them have a tank that contains only artificial plants. I mean ONLY these plastic plants, nothing else. One of the write-ups said that, "pound for pound" they are the most expensive animals to keep in the aquarium. I don't think ours have done well though as I am sure there are fewer of them than I saw during my visits last year. I don't know what makes them so difficult to keep and why a more natural environment is not used. Oddly enough, they are one of the critters that made it through the flooding and subsequent power outage in New Orleans.

 

[Jean]

Jean,

Do you have the leafy's? If so do they also eat the krill? I think they are my most favorite ocean critter. Neal says I couldn't work at the aquarium because I couldn't pass their tank without stopping for an hour

I find it a little strange that all the aquariums that keep them have a tank that contains only artificial plants. I mean ONLY these plastic plants, nothing else. One of the write-ups said that, "pound for pound" they are the most expensive animals to keep in the aquarium. I don't think ours have done well though as I am sure there are fewer of them than I saw during my visits last year. I don't know what makes them so difficult to keep and why a more natural environment is not used. Oddly enough, they are one of the critters that made it through the flooding and subsequent power outage in New Orleans.

We don't get leafy's in NZ. We get spiny sea dragons but they're deep water and we can't pressurize our tanks (on account of them being 75 years old and the concrete and glass would shatter!!!).

We ALWAYS have fresh weed in with our 'horses and last year spent quite some money putting in a new tank for them. We also have mussel farm christmas tree rope in with them, both as a substrate for the weed and for the horses, they seem to like it!

They just seem to be super sensitive, however ours do OK, we have them breeding and feeding well. The next step is to train them to give birth during the day so we can stop Dad from eating the babies

When this does happen we release around 90% of the babies and raise the rest.

J

 

[Brock Fluharty]

Seahorses do not eat their babies. Maybe I misunderstood something, but seahorses will not eat their own fry.

 

[Jean]

Seahorses do not eat their babies. Maybe I misunderstood something, but seahorses will not eat their own fry.

Sorry Brock but Hippocampus abdominalis does, I've stood there watching them do it. As do our pipefish, as far as they're concerned it's just zooplankton.

J

 

[DWhatley]

Jean!

I'll be darned! I have seen my pots flirt (but not mate) and have just thought they had not gotten it all together yet! NOW, I am beginning to wonder, surely, I would have seen some survivors though.

I knew that some females will snack on the young and then the male will join in but have read that it is uncommon and not particular to any species!

I know about the pipes and have been able to rescue a couple and am currently raising one of the two I saved at last hatching. I am not convinced either of my pots has actually received and brooded eggs but they are flirting again (I recently lowered the temp and that seems to have been a positive move) so I will pay closer attention!

My Erectus are not prone to that behavior but I have a male that can't seem to keep his eggs and the other never impregnated. According to the expert that I rely on when things go strangely, this is very unusual but he will mate and then flush the eggs. Sometimes immediately and once after 2 weeks. I haven't worried about it much as this allows the female to mate and purge her eggs, avoiding any fatal problems with being egg bound and he seems otherwise healthy. It does concern me that it may be a genetic defect and could be an indication of a more serious problem in the wild (my erectus are wild caught vs the captive bred Pots).

THANKS for the new info!

 

[Jean]

Hi D,

The pots are more than capable of polishing off the entire brood! We always cross our fingers that the wee ones will be born during the day so we can rescue them!

J

 

[Opcn]

Old thread I know, but Jean you should know that old concrete is stronger than young concrete, assuming no errosion is happening (i.e. that your tank is inside) it will get stronger and stronger and stronger every year, and if its been wet for 75 years is should be unfathomably hard.

 

[Jean]

Old thread I know, but Jean you should know that old concrete is stronger than young concrete, assuming no errosion is happening (i.e. that your tank is inside) it will get stronger and stronger and stronger every year, and if its been wet for 75 years is should be unfathomably hard.

True but NOT when the idiots that made it used seawater instead of freshwater in the mix, so that all the rebars etc have rusted to nothing and the concrete is.....well......crumbly. We had it tested and the guys said they'd NEVER seen concrete in such terrible condition


J