I’ve been off of work since Mid-November due to a “mystery illness” that has stolen all of my energy and ability to function like a normal person. I have pain, I have days where I can do stuff for an hour or two, and days where I can only lay in bed. Most of my time is spent reading, sleeping, or watching tv. Or, browsing the internet on my phone too, since I can do that from my bed.

This has absolutely impacted my ability to take care of my fish, and its something I never considered when taking on a household full of sensitive fish like seahorses. I can’t keep up with tank maintenance, and barely get everyone fed. Sometimes they miss a feeding. Or, like yesterday, when I came down with the stomach flu on top of everything, nobody got fed and I didn’t start new brine shrimp hatching. Fortunately, I think feeding a lot on the days I can and feeding a varied diet helps if I don’t skip too many days. But fry are sensitive, so I lose the young very easily.

I also lost a bunch of my 10 month old H. erectus a few weeks ago. They’re overcrowded and I’ve meant to move them to a multi-tank rack system. But that needs massive maintenance and reworking of equipment before I can do that. They were doing fine until I stopped cleaning them weekly. SO I lost 5 or 6 of them. I’m trying to keep up more but still just failing.

Its been a frustrating experience, and I don’t know what I can do. I keep plugging away at water changes as I can, but I’m falling further behind. I’ve enlisted the help of my husband for some things, but he doesn’t know this like I do, and he’s overwhelmed with having to take over the rest of the house duties I can’t handle. Were I in a position to pay someone to help out, I would. But disability payments through work are spotty at best, and I’ve been too tired to follow up and try to get the rest of the payment. Even then, its only a fraction of my paycheck, so money is really tight – which also doesn’t help. I think if I could splurge a bit I could get some additional tanks and filters to make things better. But I can’t.

And I’ve been getting sick for a long time before my medical leave, it started some time ago, but since this summer I’ve been broken really down and exhausted, so even then I was behind on things. I had planned to revamp huge sections of my fishroom, but I’d get sick so frequently that I’d spend a weekend in bed. Working was all I could do, and towards then end I could barely do that.

I don’t know what this means, other than as a cautionary tale for those of you out there. What is the answer? I don’t know, no one can predict getting sick. I guess I keep plugging away when I have the energy, and cross my fingers that the doctors figure out what is wrong and how to fix me soon.

Seahorses

I’m very frustrated with my progress as of late. The most recent batch of H. comes are doing terrible, I’ve lost a good number of them despite using the same protocal for the oldest batch. Part is due to being behind on water changes their first week – but even then they didn’t seem to thrive from day one. They had very little interest in copepods, so I tried bbs early. This created overgrown bbs. I did a water change at about day 7 and moved them to a larger fish bowl kriesel (2.5 -> 4 gallons) but that didn’t help; they didn’t want to eat, and bbs overtook that tank too. I’ve probably got 20 left.

I’ve been remove the immature brine shrimp by hand, and have started feeding it to the oldest group, which I suppose is a small upside. But I can’t remove it all. I’m going to try a big water change again later today (after I’m “officially” awake) and see if I can’t completely remove the brine and prevent them from going back in, but this batch just looks terrible.

The 8 weeks old (or is it 9?) are doing okay, but I feel like they’re not as aggressively eating or growing as fast as they should be. I’m sure its due to being at that age/size where they need larger foods, but I don’t have enough to keep up. I tried to order live mysis last week, but Christmas caused shipping to be delayed and so they were all DOA. I was going to try this week again but I’m broke, broker than broke. They’ve been moved to a 5 gallon aquarium because their fishbowl broke (it was old and brittle and cracked during a cleaning). I only have a sponge filter in there and I can’t help but think that’s part of the problem. They’re not getting enough water movement, but I’m nervous to try a power filter, even a mini one. I may anyways.

Pipefish

I’ve had poor luck with the 2 recent batches of pipefish too, dead at 5-6 days, which suggests starvation. But earlier trials this fall went better with the same exact food. I’m leaning towards broodstock nutrition and have been amping up the food I’m feeding that tank. Its probably been a bit neglected as is, as I’m focusing so much on the seahorses. I did notice a significantly larger brood being held by the male this past time, though I didn’t collect any young. I’m hoping that is related.

I also started adding nutramar ova, which I can’t believe how much the fish go for. I had a pack before and the fish were completely disinterested in. I think it must have been bad, because now they’re crazy for it. Even my mandarins can be seen picking it off algae where its fallen. And my orange spot filefish is crazy for it. I am just disappointed in the price, because its easy to go through. And there doesn’t seem to be alternatives out there. I guess I’ll have to make due for now.

Well I got lucky today. I went to the fish store I love to look at some tigertail sesahorses only to realize they’re not tigertails they’re Hippcampus trimaculatus. They had two. Good size as well, about 5″. They were eating ‘meh’ in the store but I decided to see how they’d do anyway, and they ate frozen mysis right away.

I thought I had lucked out even further and gotten a male and female, but upon closer observation, the “female” looks at though it might be a male that has just started pouch development. I would think they were too big for that but maybe not. And it sort of looks like it has a keel. I’m hoping I’m wrong but I wouldn’t be quite so lucky to find an uncommon species and also get a pair. I’m going to keep an eye out though, hopefully the store will get more and be females. I’m probably not that lucky – but I can hope.

update: 01/20/2012 – The female did turn out to be female. Sadly I lost the male due to an infection in the tail. That is the problem with “net pen” raised seahorses, they just are not as hardy as captive bred ones. I knew it was a risk, but I lost anyway. The female is still only doing so so – I’m crossing my fingers she’ll male it and I’ll be able to find a male, but its really unlikely.

Well unfortunately the 5 day old batch of  bluestriped pipefish have all vanished. I’m hoping it was just because there were only five so the odds were against them. I’d rather not see the other brood perish so quickly. They went from alive to gone in a few hours, so I’m thinking starvation though don’t know for sure.

I’ve tried one batch with just parvocalanus, and one with just euterpina and neither survived. But I know they must be able to eat them because I did have a few batches that went longer. It could be the water quality too, probably should have tested but I didn’t.
I’m crossing my fingers for the youngest batch, they’ve got both copepods.

Harvested a bunch of bluestriped pipefish larvae tonight. I did some things different to see if I could get more larvae – assuming predation was the reason i didn’t get more, i moved the snagger to the other side of the aquarium, just to the other side of the coral rack the pipefish like to sleep under. I also turned the lights out for 20 or so minutes before adding the collecting light. Then I went to bed and got up at 2:30. I did catch more than the weekend batch, but still only about 20.

I also caught a million hermit crab larvae, which was a surprise. I mean I’ve caught a lot before but this was A LOT. I tried to separate the pipefish from the crab larvae with a turkey baster but it seems to be stressing the pipefish so I left them together. I’m hoping they won’t cause a problem. I also need to try and harvest them for my baby tigertails since they produce so many.

This brood I want to try mixed foods again, euterpina and parvocalanus.

The batch from 4 days ago seem to still be doing well, but I think I have to get past 6 days to make sure they’re not starving.

Its been a while since I posted, not because I haven’t been doing anything but because I’ve not had time to update about what I have been doing. I’ve had very little success with the blue striped pipefish. I did a small number to 21 days, but lost them, most likely due to water quality. I gave up for a while, but then tried again a couple weeks ago, and lost them all on day 6.

I’ve had miserable luck collecting them too, A couple weeks ago I only collected 10-20. 4 days ago none, and tonight, 4-5. I don’t know why so few. I suspect fish are to blame, though I’m catching a ton of hermit larvae. I’ve been turning on the fry collection light as soon as the lights go off, but I think I’m going to try something new and wait an hour before flipping on the light. I may try moving the larval snagger too. Otherwise I’m at a loss.

Last night was a much better attempt to collect pipefish. I managed to collect a bunch last night. I don’t know what a bunch is, they were too small and fast to count. It could have been 20 or it could have been 100. My bluestripe pipefish pair were kind enough to start sleeping underneath a coral rack I have, so I was able to put the larval snagger right next to them. I did that last time too but only got 4. This time they must have all decided the light was good.

It was approximately 1hr 20m after the lights went out that they had hatched. Or rather, I checked at 40 minutes, and nothing, and at 1:20h they were all in there. This will be useful for later.

I put the new babies into the same container as the last brood, since they’re really not that far apart in age. And with only 2-3 of the 4 left, it was hardly worth starting a new tank. Now, I guess I just wait and see how they do.

The first brood of tigertail seahorse fry have made it to one month, much to my amazement. Their are 19 left. Out of 34, well I’m pretty proud of myself, especially considering how notoriously hard this species is considered to be.

Unfortunately, 1 month doesn’t mean the hard stuff is over. In fact its only beginning in many ways. Soon, they’ll start to lose interest in super small foods like newly hatch brine shrimp and copepods, but still be too small to offer adult brine shrimp. The interm food will be a pain and I can lose a lot if I can’t find a good middle sized food.

When I do start transition to frozen, and I’ve started a bit with cyclop-eeze, keeping the tank clean will get even harder. I’ll have to add more than they’ll eat in hopes of interesting them, and then clean whatever falls to the bottom.

I’ve begun adding hermit crab larvae from my reef. I have collected a small number at night and they’re about twice the size of bbs, so I’m hoping it can be a transition food. I’m also working to get moina salina back to production amounts, and will probably start having to grow some half sized brine shrimp. Still, I’m hopeful.

Size compared to my pinky.

Seahorse Knot

Bigger seahorse knot

Q: Why am I up at 2am?
A: to try and collect bluestripe pipefish larvae.

I have a pair that have been breeding for a while, but for a variety of reasons haven’t tried to raise the young. I figured it was time. The last time I tried, I had a pair, but nothing to feed them. When I got the copepods I needed, by the time I got production up, the pair decided to go and die on me.  (The tank went through a mini-crash and I lost half my fish. I still am not sure why, one day half the fish were dead, but the water tested fine.) I did get a few to try and raise with the copepods, and I even got one to 12 days, which meant it was eating.

Now I’m going to put a concerted effort into attempting to raise them. I have a breeding pair, I have two species of copepods with very small nauplii.

The biggest stumbling block I have now is that they’re in a reef type setup, so I have to use a larval snagger. It doesn’t work great. This time I caught 4. I’ll check it again in the morning. The most I ever caught in a single night was 12. However, on a good note, they have more every 3-4 days. And eventually I’ll either move this pair or get another pair in a breeding tank, once I finish building out a few things in my fish room.

I didn’t even bother trying to take a macro shot- these guys are SO very small. They are seriously no bigger than a hair, and about a 1/8 of an inch long. I think. Everytime I walk away, I think they’re bigger than they are, then I see them again and realize how wrong I was. I could never get then to eat rotifers, even s-strain, so I am trying copepods, with the assumption they’ll eat the nauplii (the adults are just too big). Right now, I’m mixing Euterpina acutifrons and Parvocalanus spp. It’s weighted more towards Euterpina, but that’s only because I had more of them.

Here is to hoping I wake up in the morning with hundreds more.

A bluestripe pipefish pair. Photocourtesty of Andreas März

Tigertail Seahorse brood number 2 was born last Sunday on 9/11. Why are they terrorists and not patriots? Because the little bastards were born the morning after a night of insomnia, and I wasn’t about to just let them be while I went back to bed to try to get more sleep. Plus, the lack of sleep made me move at about half the speed I should so it took hours to set them up and collect them all.

There were a lot more this time, and they were born all at once. I thought the leaking babies was kind of weird the first time around, it must have been new fatherdom. There were also a lot more. I haven’t counted, I’m a bit too intimidated to to that, but I’m guessing a hundred or more.

This time around, I’m trying a few things different. I modified the fish bowl kriesel design so there are three airline tubes instead of one, two in the corners and one in the center as usual. My hope was to keep more floaters off the surface. As far as water flow is concerned, this has worked well. However, its a PITA to clean and to access the bowl with all the tubing. My next attempt will be with a home made bubble wand (hopefully with some bluestripe pipefish fry first, but that’s another post for another time).  The downside with the bubble wand is that I won’t have specific control over the output of each hole, so if that is problematic, I’ll likely move to external holes drilled into the side and then siliconed to heck to prevent leaking. That would likely still mean a few too many air hoses, but at least they’ll be outside the bowl, not at the top where I need to gain access.

I’m also trying antibiotics – specifically erythromycin. I want to try something to keep the bacteria down. I’m sure I’m going to get some flack for it from some seahorse enthusiasts, but I’ve talked to more than a few breeders of other fish who often guiltily admit they didn’t have any success, or at least not much success until they started using antibiotics. The issue with antibiotics is twofold – one, the risk of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria being created, and two, the fish you raise may not get sufficient exposure to bacteria, thus be more prone to infections. However, the issue in raising fish is that EXCESSIVE amounts of bacteria accumulate because of the high-bioload. My hope is to knock back the bacteria proliferation for a little while.

I chose erythromycin because of its bacteriostatic properties -i.e. it slows the growth of bacteria. I also chose it because a lot of bacteria show some resistance to it, so casual use hopefully won’t cause any more weird resistant strains of bacteria and keep the newer drugs still potent. The downside to it is that its largely only effective on gram-positive bacteria, and only minimally effective on gram negative. (Much documentation claims it has no effect on gram-negative bacteria. That’s not true, it’s just minimally effective because it isn’t as readily accumulated by gram negative as it is gram positive bacteria).  The upside is that I have a hypothesis that the problem isn’t pathogenic bacteria just too much bacteria that becomes problematic at high quantities. If that is the case, this will help keep things at bay. The downside is that some of the more virulent strains of pathogenic bacteria, i.e. vibrio spp., are gram negative, so I may end up suppressing the bacteria that could out compete the harmful bacteria.

So far, I seem to be noticing far less twitching than the older brood did at this age. However, I’m also still using formalin, and that is probably helping too. I also might just be seeing what I want to see because there is still some twitching and I’ve made no attempt to quantify it. I won’t really know how effective its been until I see the survival rates in a couple weeks. A few have died, but in a brood this large that’s not unusual. Actually I only spotted one dead, but also at this size, when they die, they disappear very quickly so my hunch is a few of the ones that weren’t strong and were hanging out at the bottom early on have died and I just haven’t seen the bodies.

I’m doing 100% watch changes every couple of days, and doing hot water rinses of the fish bowl to also help keep the bacteria down. I netted them to move them *gasp* but they seem no worse for the wear.

They started eating bbs yesterday, though I’m still offering copepods, and unlike the first brood, I’m going to try to keep up the copepods for a while. I’m still a bit concerned because some don’t look like they’re eating either, but based on the first brood, the young aren’t excessively hungry so don’t always get the fat bellies I’ve seen in other species. In other words, its possible some are eating, just not super belly full eating. Now that they’re starting to consume bbs, I can hope to see based on color.

H. comes a few hours after birth.

Also, props to Felicia McCaulley for her advice and help with figuring out the macro photo thing. I still have a long way to go before I’m even close to as good as her, but they are much better than they were!