The Mangrove Seahorse Hitching Post
- Thread starter CaseyP
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Coral reefer
Past President
Someone gave me a new food to try today. It’s mysis shrimp in a liquid suspension that’s shelf stable until opened and needs refrigeration after opening. This is exactly what I want for my mini fridge automated feeder! Tried it this morning and at least some of the seahorses at it right away. They didn’t like the mysis feast, maybe some sort of smell from whatever they use for preservation in mysis feast? I like that it is made with PE mysis, the new stuff is smaller pieces, but I can now feed 2-3 times a day without doing anything!
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Nice! How is it in terms of fouling the water with that liquid suspension?
I've gotten mine to be on a 100% freeze dried mysis diet. The problem is it takes a long time for them to soak to the point where they don't float anymore. During that time it leeches off a lot of discoloration. When I try feeding it to them while they're still floating on the surface, the seahorses sometimes swallow too much air and have issues with their buoyancy for a couple hours.
I've gotten mine to be on a 100% freeze dried mysis diet. The problem is it takes a long time for them to soak to the point where they don't float anymore. During that time it leeches off a lot of discoloration. When I try feeding it to them while they're still floating on the surface, the seahorses sometimes swallow too much air and have issues with their buoyancy for a couple hours.
Have you tried the vacuum container trick to rehydrate?
Coral reefer
Past President
Seemed pretty clean to me
Yup tested and works using a regular syringe too. Problem is I can't auto feed that way, which is what I'm trying to solve.
Maybe I feed this way daily and when I'm out of town and using an auto-feeder, run carbon to absorb all the discoloration that leeches off.
BAYMAC
Supporting Member
I've always encouraged people to let it sit in tank water for a little bit first. The preservatives are just acids. What keeps it in suspension are just carbon sources for your tank.
Coral reefer
Past President
I did not try that, but also it wouldn’t work for my use case since I’m trying to have a dosing pump in a mini fridge pump it straight into the tank. Good to know tho and makes sense some of that could be rinsed off. Thanks!
I have a week long trip coming up so it was time to train them on an auto feeder. I bought the Avast Plank feeder which comes with a mixing tube and uses a small Sicce pump stir up the food with water and dispense when not too buoyant. It works fairly well with freeze dried mysis. The food still does contain some air pockets so after getting ejected out the tube, the food still floats, albeit a much slower rate. After mixing for 10 minutes, some of the pieces still float in the mixing tube which makes me concerned about it sitting there and fouling the water.
In other update, having a major hair algae outbreak. Maturity and manual removal may be the only option because if I starve out hair algae, I also starve out my macroalgae.
Set up a branch rock hitching post and they're learning to wait under the tube and snatch the mysis as it comes out.
In other update, having a major hair algae outbreak. Maturity and manual removal may be the only option because if I starve out hair algae, I also starve out my macroalgae.
Set up a branch rock hitching post and they're learning to wait under the tube and snatch the mysis as it comes out.
Macroalgae: after a long hair algae infested ugly phase that smothered a lot of the rock and macroalgae, most of it has stopped growing back as rapidly. I had seeded the tank with a couple bio balls from the reef tank but thinking about it more, I probably should have transferred over a lot more live rock to speed up the maturity. Unfortunately a lot of the macroalgae has melted but I'm hoping the remaining bits grow back. ICP tests came back positive on all the essential elements for plants like iron. Funny one was phosphate that came back very low. I had always assumed I was high on nitrates and phosphates because of the wild hair algae growth. Mangroves are growing albeit slowly. A couple new layers of leaves sprouted up as the days got warmer.
Seahorses:
All doing well. I got this feeding station on Amazon and it has been terrific for containing all the food. It hangs on the side of the tank and I squirt food into the funnel above.
I'm not certain yet, but I might have a pregnant male. You can see his brooding pouch puffed up, which normally looks deflated and tucked in closer to the body. I hadn't seen any courting behavior and read that a inflated pouch is also signs of showing off before courting the female. Also the first couple times trying to transfer eggs to the male's pouch, they tend to drop a lot in the process (teen noobs
). I'm keeping an eye out for growth and movement in the pouch in case these are actually eggs developing.
Seahorses:
All doing well. I got this feeding station on Amazon and it has been terrific for containing all the food. It hangs on the side of the tank and I squirt food into the funnel above.
I'm not certain yet, but I might have a pregnant male. You can see his brooding pouch puffed up, which normally looks deflated and tucked in closer to the body. I hadn't seen any courting behavior and read that a inflated pouch is also signs of showing off before courting the female. Also the first couple times trying to transfer eggs to the male's pouch, they tend to drop a lot in the process (teen noobs
). I'm keeping an eye out for growth and movement in the pouch in case these are actually eggs developing.
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Kensington Reefer
Supporting Member
I like that feeding contraption
Absolutely love this!While visiting the Frost Aquarium in Miami with family, my son got excited about seeing seahorses and wife asked if I could put them in my tank (obviously not). I took that as a green light to set up a new tank
Equipment:
Tank: IM 20 peninsula
Searched long for this as the dimensions are perfect for where the tank sits.
Lighting: Twinstar 600EA IV
Substrate: Miracle mud and oolite sand. Love that I can have sugar fine sand in this low flow environment.
Other: Autoaqua smart nano ATO, generic Axium style DC return pump
Got it started with some macroalgae from @Hella_Salty650 and mangroves from @Srt4eric . Tank is going through massive ugly phase but plants are thriving! I'm dosing cheatogro for iron, magnesium to help the mangroves expel salt, and KNO3 and KH2PO4 since there's no bioload yet to provide nitrate and phosphate.
View attachment 52456
View attachment 52457
Waterbox had a sale so I upgraded the tank for a couple reasons:
- 30 gallons from 20 gallons, 3" taller and 4" deeper. I could foresee the mangroves taking up a lot more space with their root system and macroalgae growth so I wanted to give the seahorses some more room.
- Algae was out of control so wanted to start over. The man-made Carribsea and Cornerstone rock I believe were contributors. Interesting to see how much more hair and snotty brown algae grew on the cornerstone versus the carribea given the same starting point and environment. I have some real rock in my main reef tank thats growing coraline and biofilm that I'm going to use in here instead. I'm also going to bump up the flow and add more clean up crew.
- I've always loved the clear silicone freshwater planted aquarium look so going to emulate that
Tank as of today. Transferred all the livestock over and the remaining macro. I had a massive die off but was able to salvage pieces of most of them. It's been about a week and algae growth is waaay more controlled with live rock from my main tank and none of that fake carribsea and cornerstone stuff.
I don't know if it was the added tank height but two of my seahorses are exhibiting courting behavior. They start from the bottom and swirl around each other while rising to the top. The male puffs up his egg pouch to show that he's ready.
Found two Kessil A360we suns to replace the twinstar led strip. The color isn't as nice but I'm a sucker for that Kessil look. I blame @robert4025 and his nice show room.
I don't know if it was the added tank height but two of my seahorses are exhibiting courting behavior. They start from the bottom and swirl around each other while rising to the top. The male puffs up his egg pouch to show that he's ready.
Found two Kessil A360we suns to replace the twinstar led strip. The color isn't as nice but I'm a sucker for that Kessil look. I blame @robert4025 and his nice show room.
That looks fantastic! Nice upgrade.
Caught the seahorse couple engaging in courting behavior. About every other month they'll do this dance and be really clingy to each other. Last week in the morning, I noticed two tiny squiggly things swimming at the surface which turned out to be baby seahorses! Unfortunately by the time I ran to get a net and container I couldn't find them anymore. There wasn't an explosion of baby seahorses so they're not quite successful yet. I haven't caught them in the act of transferring eggs but supposedly they drop a lot of them during the first couple attempts. I may move the male to a separate tank or isolation chamber if I can time the gestation period or see the signs of imminent release.
Notice the male presenting his pouch to show that he is ready to receive eggs
Notice the male presenting his pouch to show that he is ready to receive eggs
Coral reefer
Past President
I should hopefully have apocyclops pods for you in the near future if you are able to collect them!
