Quote:
|
Originally Posted by spazz
my wife fell in love with sea horses and pipe fish. at some point in time(1-2 years) after i do alot of reasearch on husbandry i would like to have a 120 seahorse/pipefish tank. does any body have any good places to get them from? has any body had a goast pipe fish? i seen on on the internet that looked awesome. it would be great if they could be kept in a tank with seahorses. is there any websites on seahorses/pipefish?
here is one that i fell in love with.  |
I have a great deal of experience with wild seahorses and pipefish.
The ghost pipefish pictured here (Solenostomus paradoxus) is very beautiful, but a
challenge to maintain. Most are imported from Sri Lanka or Indonesia. Typical size is from 2-4", with 8" being the maxium size. (I have yet to see one over 5").
This fish is very finicky when it comes to feeding. I would set-up the aquarium with low light, but enough to grow some
macro algae such as caulerpa. In otherwords, you want your aquarium to be one giant refuguim that will naturally grow mysis and copepods. I would also learn how to culture live enriched artemia (brine shrimp) for your basic food stuff.
I would wait for the tank to become heavily infested with mysis and copepods. (about six months from set-up)
Water flow should be fairly slow.
Cover ALL pump intakes and screen off your overflow.
Feed using a turkey baster. the fish will learn to associate the baster for food. Once the are accustomed to the baster, you can start using some frozen mysis and artemia and the fish will not notice the difference. This will work on all seahorses and most pipefish.
If you decide to proceed with these pipefish, (hopefully not to start with) try to get them in a pair. They seem to acclimate better into captivity this way.
I believe in Captive raised specimens, but do not know of anyone currently producing these fish. Try some captive raised seahorses first, before you try this challenging and demanding species.
Hope some of this helps,
Shaun
