Saturday 24 November 2012

Boring Fish!

Yesterday, I was browsing through some forums and came across a relatively common theme; "seahorses don't do much", "seahorses are sedentary", "seahorses are boring". Au contraire! Another vast misconception.  In my experience, if seahorses are acting in this manner than they are trying to tell you that something is amiss.  That's not to say that they should be dashing around the tank constantly like Dory on speed, but to describe them in this manner is a little inaccurate.  Seahorses are a naturally inquisitive, active, playful creature and can often be found circulating the tank looking for prey (or flirting with each other, of course!).

Any seahorses that pretty much sit in one spot all the time most likely have an issue with the environment they are in; flow to high, tank mates causing stress, water conditions off kilter or in the worse case, illness.

If a seahorse is not truly captive bred they may not be used to life behind glass, so this can also be a cause of stress.

Friday 9 November 2012

Gosh, it has been a while since I last posted and for that I do apologize!  Things have been busy with baby seahorses, juvi's and dwarfs and other exciting things which I will tell you about at a later date.

The baby seahorses are now approaching two months old and its funny because I really didn't think they were quite that old yet!  It just goes to show how important diaries/blogs are! We went through quite a lengthily phase of losing babies and I addressed all of the normal things; food, maintenance, water quality.  I was stumped.  Then my husband suggested that the water could be getting too cold for them of a night.  I never normally have a heater in the tank as the higher temps encourage bacteria growth.  However, anything was worth a try.  Since adding the heater, we haven't lost a single baby! So, it just goes to show that at times you really do have to review everything that you do and just because something has always worked before, doesn't mean its going to work again!

Thankfully, they are eating frozen now so hopefully they will start to fill out and grow quite rapidly.  I've been trying to take some decent pictures but the little darlings won't stay still long enough!  I have set myself a task today to try and take some decent pics and if I manage to, I will post some.

I'm currently looking into getting another species; I think I've made up my mind which one.  Its a species that I have had before and the fry are much harder to raise.  So, my first task is to source a suitable pair and then the second is to condition them for breeding.  Wish me luck in my task :)

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