To get me back into the swing of things I've had a redesign, which I think makes Seahorse Adventures look much more welcoming.
So, what's been going on in the weeks since I last posted? Well, as the title says I've pretty much got babies (of the aquatic kind) coming out of my ears at the moment. On top of this, my display tank (DT) is falling apart and so I've moved all of my adults into a temporary home while I prepare for a new tank which I will talk about in my New Tank pages.
Seahorse Fry
The latest brood of H.erectus is the result of a pairing between Ed and Cow, which I'm a little disappointed with as I had hoped that he would continue to pair with Lily. I had been hoping that one of my grown up babies, Dizzy, would pair up with Cow. The get together between Ed and Cow did happen whilst Lily was out of the tank so, I'm optimistic that Ed will go back with Lily now that they are back together - although the flirting with Cow does continue! It has to be said that he is a bit of a cad and will flirt with anything that swims!
The babies, are 3 weeks old today, at least a proportion of them are. Ed's labour lasted 5 days with most babies being born on day 1 and day 4 so for arguments sake, they are three weeks old today.
I have lost a significant number of babies and put this down to two things. 1. I tried a new method in the first couple of weeks which didn't work for me. 2. The weather got the better of me on a couple of days when I just didn't appreciate how warm the tanks had got.
I painstakingly counted the babies by hand on Friday when I did the last 100% water change and had 115.
Method
The babies are in an 8 gallon rectangular tank, with a filter and two airlines placed at opposite corners of the tank. Each time that I do a 100% water change I add some Fluid Filter, and tetra phyto. Formalin has also been added on days 1, 3 and 5, then as and when required. The fry are fed with enriched baby brine shrimp between 4 and 5 times a day. Frozen food will be added to the tank this week to try and entice them to start taking frozen food as soon as possible. I will add cyclopeeze and shaved mysis.
I really should stick to this method as its what has worked best for me in the past.
Here's some pics that I took yesterday.
H.Zosterae
Since my last post we have also had quite a few dwarf seahorse (H.zosterae) babies born. The wonderful thing about the dwarfs is that they feed on the same food as the adults, so they can stay with their parents as they grow.
They are so hard to get a good picture of because they are so small and hide really well, but I love this picture because of the little face in the middle that looks like Maggie Simpson!
