Seahorses??? 2 pregnant males!!!

[Mickadee]

about 3 weeks ago my mom went and bought 2 small horses from a local shop and one wouldnt eat and the other after about 2 weeks got a bacteria infection and passed. today she came home with 3 more seahorses much larger then the first (4 to 5 inches the first was only about 1 inch at most). The new horses are eating frozen foods there is one female and 2 males both the males are pregnant, after calling and talking with the guy at the store they have had the horses for little over a week now and have eaten from day one. There was another female that didnt make in through the shipping. I only had a 5 gallon tank that was setup for the smaller horses so I had to put them in my 50 gallon reef the flow in the tank is low and there isnt a lot of corals that will pose a problem for the horses(excpet the anemome which the clown protects he doesnt attack just flash his tale around to show is a bad spot to go LOL)


The question is what chance would the seahorse babies have when born in a reef and what is their gestation period??
it would be hard to collect the babies out of the tank.
the tank also doesnt have a overflow or anything (standard undrilled tank) for them to get stuck in the powerheads are all foam covered.. if this helps...
any info will greatly be appreaciated.
thanks
Mike

[Doug1]

MIKE, sorry that your mom brought home sea horses without being ready for them If you have them seafely setup in the 50 now, hopefully they will be OK esp if they are eating frozen food, but long term survival may be a serious issue . The chances of raising any of the pony fry at this point is pretty much nil.
Hopefully Jenn or one of the other Sygnathid folks can jump in with better ideas : Good Luck

[Mickadee]

here is a picture of the female the males I havent got a real good picture of yet..

[Mickadee]

here is one of the male that is wrapped around the base of the colt coral the only halfway decent pic of him

[Mickadee]

I was hoping that I could (maybe with luck) raise the babies but not real sure. all 3 are eating prepared foods and live foods the tank has a lot of coepods and such in it so the natural food source is there for them if the want it. they have eaten frozen mysis and brine shrimp since I added them to the tank this morning. I have a smaller 5 gallon tank setup for the others that she got and it is still setup. when they hatch out I might try to get as many as possible and move to the smaller tank and try from there. at least it might give them some sort of chance.

I am still going to do my best with what I have to try to get as many of them to survive. on another note she had no idea that they were pregnant I noticed it when I look at them and told her. she has promised not to do this again, but when I first setup the 100 gallon she did it then to back in July.

thanks
Mike

[Mickadee]

here is a couple of pictures of the male

[Mickadee]

and the other one
and another question is does anyone know the name of these guys??

[JennM]

I couldn't get the images to load on slow dialup and they even gave me grief on the cable connection -- but my cable connection is acting up this morning.

I'll forgo the lecture about horses in a reef tank, except to say that there are many dangers there. They aren't smart enough to stay away from stinging corals and anemones, and sooner or later one will wander into one, even though the clown stands guard. My suggestion to you is to get them out of there and into a more appropriate tank as soon as possible. A 5 g is too small, I prefer the AGA 20 Extra-High or 30 Extra-High. The 20 XH fits the footprint of a 10 g but has twice the height and horses love this. Slap an Eclipse top on there and you're good to go. (Of course make sure it's cycled first...)

The yellow female looks to me like H. barbouri. She has lots of cerri and a very slim dainty profile which is typical of this species.

The males I'm not sure. They look a bit like H. erectus, BUT the tiger-striping on their tails tell me H. comes. If they originated at the same shop, and they came from the same source, then it's probably H. comes. Both are Indo-Pacific horses many are collected in PI and many of those are improperly caught, so if yours are fat and happy, you're lucky. (Shakes head at shops that sell "generic" seahorses...)

Now, about those babies... I haven't attempted H. comes fry, I can't remember if they are benthic or pelagic -- either way the odds are stacked against them in a reef tank. If the fish and corals don't get them, and the filtration doesn't get them, if they are pelagic young, they will probably get stuck on the surface of the water, if they are benthic, and you can collect them, you might have a chance.

Either way, if you can collect any of the fry, here are a few suggestions: First off, don't net them or pick them up in your fingers to remove them. Either scoop them out in a cup of water or get a turkey baster and slurp them out. If they gasp air, they are done. Get a 1 gallon fish bowl, (or bowls, I had 4 of them on the go at once) glass, the kind with flat back and front, and silicone a piece of airline tubing in with the open end halfway down the arc of the side to here: --> (_) Anchor Hocking bowls are available at P*tsm*rt and there is a convenient seam down the middle of that curve that nestles a bead of silicone quite nicely. Once the bowl is filled with water, a gentle air bubble from a pump will turn the water in a counter-clockwise motion (unless you're looking at the bowl from the other side *g* ). Use a valve to control the flow of air, you don't want it too strong, but you do want it strong enough to keep swimming fry in the center of the bowl, along with the food, and break surface tension at the top.

I use a golf-ball sized piece (or smaller) of LR with a strand or two of Caulerpa for them to hitch on (if and when they can hitch - if they are pelagic this can take several weeks).

I feed newly hatched artemia you'll need at least one hatching daily although I never did more than 2 hatchings, some do 4. I never had enough fry to justify that many hatchings of artemia in a day. Some also use rotifers but I can't say I ever saw a fry eat a rotifer.

After all of this don't be heartbroken if you don't have stellar results. In all my attempts, I only got one fry of H. erectus parents, to 6 months and he moved into my horse tank at the shop and vanished after a month or so there Curiously I was successful with him in the bowl by NOT doing frequent water changes and letting the water grow natural phytoplankton (greenwater). I have a feeling that the artemia gut-loaded on the phyto and made themselves more nutritious. Once the horse was a few weeks old it was big enough for adult artemia which I culture on my back step in nasty natural phyto

As for gestation -- horses vary by species and even by water temp (warmer water accelerates gestation a bit) and they range from 14 to 31 days. Since you don't know when they got pregnant it's kind of a mute point but if the LFS had them a week, assume they were a few days or more in transit from the collector to the wholesaler to the LFS, they could be due iminently.

For more information, visit www.seahorse.org and www.syngnathid.org

Regards,

Jenn

[JennM]

By the way, your pix finally loaded for me.

Your "female" is a male. You'll notice in your picture, there is a small patch of smooth skin on the abdomen. It's small, but it's a pouch Perhaps he's not had any broods yet (lol no stretch marks!) or has not had a mate in some time, and the pouch can become not-so-obvious, but it's there.

Females have a distinct ridge where the abdomen stops and the tail starts.

Jenn

[Mickadee]

humm intersting reading thanks Jenn. I found a tank for them just getting it to cycle and all that good stuff so I can move them into there more permanat home. The yellowish one you say is a male the photo doesnt show it all that good but there is a ridge that goes all the way down and where it looks like in the picture that there is a pouch it a slant toward the ridge thats in the middle. kinda hard to tell by the picture though. but hey I could be wrong. if it was up to me I wouldnt have gotten them because I think they are WC but now that I have them I want to try my best at keeping them alive.
The store that sold them will not take anything back once it leaves there store(atleast thats what they have told me the last time I tried to return something to them).
I have a few breeder nets from my FW tanks that I will put them in when I see that they are about ready to have the babies(if I can catch it that is). the yellow is the only skinnier one the other 2 are fat and sassy but they are all pigging out on pods and frozen mysis and brine. on another board isomeone said that they may have bubbles trapped in the pouch I dont think this is the case with the darker males the have gotten a lot fatter and the pouch is solid not mushy. so everything points to pregnant atleast what I have been able to obtain.
I will get some bowls to see what I can do with the babies when they arrive and go from there. (atleast I can say I tried.)
I will let ya know what happens in the next few days.
and thanks jenn
Mike

[JennM]

Well the pouch looks pretty plain to me. Females don't have a smoothing of skin on the abdomen, I outlined it in the picture. I'll see if I can find a good female shot to show th difference. Often males have small pouches if they aren't pregnant so it's easy to miss. He's thinner because of his species, H. barbouri are a longer, leaner horse than H. comes.

As for the pregnant papas -- in a breeding net they aren't going to be able to pump and move freely to labour and deliver the babies. They need to thrash around a bit, and the babies usually fill the water column. It's quite a sight to see. You'd be better off moving them to the 5 gallon but since you don't know exactly when they are due, it's a crap shoot to guess when they should be moved.

Best cover any filter intakes because the fry will get sucked up.

IMO the Kriesel style fish bowls are the best way to go -- believe me I've tried every manner of MacGyvering a tank, spray bars, sponge filters, dividers, the lot and nothing worked like the simple fish bowl for seahorse fry.

Jenn

[Mickadee]

I looked at the 2 again and even the males have a little bit of a ridge but small I looked up some pictures and its really obviouse now ( of course LOL). that I have 3 males.
I have a couple of different bowls like what you are talking about that I used with my betta babies last spring ( boy now that was a challenge).only had one that made it to adult out of maybe 200+. they are another that the babies had to have live brine for the first few weeks of life along with the paradise fish which I have raised aswell.
what do you think about moving the male that is the most pregnant (the one in the picture) to the 5 gallon tank I keep all my tanks at the same temp ph and salinity and its been setup for about a month from existing stuff out of my reef tank. and keep him in there untill the birthdate (which looking at him wont be to much longer ( i would say within a few days really).and then move him back to the other tank and the babies to the bowl.???
does that mae any sense at all?
thanks for the help
Mike