No news is good news!

Just a quick update today as I really don't have much to report on and I want to work on a couple of articles.  Everyone's doing rather well at the moment and I even saw some of the three week olds eat a little frozen yesterday so that's a really great sign.  The first two pictures here show the nice red digestive tract of the fry, which shows that they are eating lots.

Over the last couple of days we've had a fairly significant die off from the 1 week olds and this is most likely to be nutritional.  I would expect that most of them weren't eating in the first few days and this has had a detrimental effect on their development.  That said, we still have a bucket load (excuse the pun) that seem to be doing OK.  The only thing I'm a little worried about is that because they are in the bucket, I can't really monitor their food intake so much.  I'll see how these guys pan out, but my priority is the 3 week olds right now.  However, I am really interested to see how they do in the bucket as I do hope to move over to a circular system in the near(ish) future.

Hard Work!

I really had forgotten how much hard work goes into raising fry and it is a bit of a shock to the system, I have to admit.  I think its harder this time around because we have the 7 month olds too - isn't that what parents say when the second child comes along?

One of the problems I have at the moment is that I'm short of tanks.  We've managed to break quite a few in recent weeks and so need to get more.  I think I want to try a different type of set up next time.....we'll see.  Anyway, I finally managed to count the fry, and we have 145 so it just goes to show how many must have been lost to other fish in the tank (probably between 200 - 250).  145 is a much better number to work with given that nursery tanks are few and far between at the moment.  In total, we've been losing between 1 - 2 a day, which I don't think is too bad at all (remember many of these were fished out of the filter, so I expected to lose a lot more than I have).

I think I'm now fully in the swing of the brine hatching again - at least having the dwarfs around means that I never stop doing it entirely.  Making sure that they are properly enriched really is the absolute key.  At the moment I'm using selco, tetra and Dan's Feed. The brineshrimp goes through three phases - Step 1.  24 hour hatch, rinse and move to clean vessel.  Step 2. Feed with tetra  3. Remove enough food from the feeding vessel for 12 hours worth of feeding, and enrich with DF or selco.

 

The babies in the pictures above have nice red digestive tracts which shows they are eating well.

This next picture shows a baby that looks to be slightly bigger and more developed.  I suspect that he is probably one of the older babies, which now will make him three weeks old (the others are one week old today)

I did take some more pictures of the 7 month old H.erectus fry but I just really can't get any great photo's.  As soon as the camera comes out, they all seem to scramble to the front blocking the view of the one that I'm actually trying to get a picture of!

I have two that are my favourites (shhhh don't tell the others) and I'm trying so hard to resist keeping them.  My husband already put first dibs on one of the boys - and we really don't need any more boys!!!!  My two favourites are a yellow girl with crazy crazy cirri.  This is a beautiful headshot of her.  I know, I know, its rubbish but honestly she spends most of her time at the back of the tank and so this was the best that I could get!

And then in this pic you can see her as she quickly scoots away (the smaller seahorse in the picture is one of her 4.5 month old siblings).

I think that the photo's don't really do them justice, so here is a video that I took of them too.  I hope you like them as much as I do.  Enjoy :)

As I've managed to spend the last few blogs talking about the H.erectus, I think its time that the dwarfs get a look in.  We're actually preparing a new tank for them which I hope they will be moving into within the next couple of weeks.  Watch this space, and I promise to blog about the dwarfs...

Babies here, babies there, erectus babies everywhere!

Wow, what a morning!

I decided to get up nice and early as I suspected that my male H.erectus would possibly give birth today.  I would get a tank ready, move him to the tank and let him do his thing there.  This is normally how I like to do it, and its always worked really well.  He normally gives a couple of warning babies so I know when he's likely to have the rest of the brood.

So, I started tank work at 8am, looked in the tank and, oh drat, a couple of warning babies!  I started moving them into a small tank, but it quickly became apparent that there were more than just a couple of babies.  Not just that, but Ed clearly hadn't delivered them all so at least I was thankful that he hadn't had the majority of them yet......at least that's what I though!  

I quickly set about getting a tank ready and moved the few 2 week olds that we had left over to an 8 gallon tank, and started moving the new babies from the DT to the nursery.  I think I managed to get about 50 by the time Ed looked like he was done.  Well, 50 for H.erectus is nothing - you are looking at more like 300 - 400, so most of these must have sadly been lost to the other fish in the tank.....at least that's what I thought! 

When I turned the filter back on, I started to get tons of bubbles, so I switched it off and took out the sponge to clean it.  I put the sponge in a bucket with tank water to give it a good old rinse, and out came lots of babies.  Sad though it may seem, normally I wouldn't attempt to rescue any babies from the filter as by this time they have probably received quite a bit of damage, so the kindest thing is to cull them.  However, these guys seemed to actually be doing ok.  I pulled 12 babies out, and put them in the nursery.

I then proceeded to check the weir of the tank and noticed more babies.  At this point, because there were so many and I find the weir difficult to get to, I had to use a siphon to get them out, I think I managed to get around another 50 in total.  Finally, I'd got them all.....at least that's what I thought!

I switched the filter back on but after a while I noticed the filter was producing lots of micro bubbles so I had to ask Ron to look at the tank.  He pulled out about another 50 babies!

2.5 hours later, and finally we had managed to clear the tank of babies.  Honestly, I really don't know how those people who let the father give birth in the DT and then fish them out, do it.  I must be missing something! It just seems to much less hassle to move the father into a nursery, and to be honest, mine never seem in the slightest bit effected by the ordeal.

Ironically, most of these babies seem to be in really good form.  So far there aren't any surface huggers, which is really very unusual.  Almost all of the last brood were surface huggers which is why we lost almost all of them.  They just weren't very strong/well conditioned babies.

These little guys have had their first Formalin treatment, which I do as a matter of course on days 1, 3 and 5 after birth.  This helps if they have carried over any ciliates of any form of external parasite from the parents or DT.

I had intended to update my blog today but just not with news of the new babies, but of the old babies.  More babies have gone to their new home and are being spoiled rotten!  I have been lucky enough to get pictures of all the babies that have been re-homed in their new homes and they all look so happy and are doing great!

I intend to keep the rest of the babies until they are around 4 inches and they will, hopefully, all then be re-homed.  Its so hard trying to resist keeping any, although Ron has a boy that he wants us to keep.

Here are some more pictures (please excuse the tanks, as these pictures were taken before their morning clean). 

This girl has the craziest cirri of all, but every time I try and get a profile or face on shot, she turns her back to me.  Little devil!

And this is the sight that meets me every morning as soon as the lights go on.  We want FOOD!!!

The girls..

The boys..

Happy New Year!

With the festive season upon us, I have been neglecting my blog somewhat so in time for the New Year, I wanted to wish everyone who reads my blog a very happy new year.  I hope that the new year brings you all happiness and health.

I actually do have quite a bit of updating to do.  The seahorse babies have had to be separated by sex as we now have lots of developed pouches and therefore much flirting is taking place.  The boys don't seem to be too fussed that there aren't any females around and continue flirting with each other regardless.

Some of the girls have now gone to their new home where I know they will be being spoiled rotten!

Feeding time is great fun now.  They all start to come to the front of the tank as soon as they see me approaching and when the food enters the water they start fighting with each other trying to get to the food first!

The other exciting news I have is this:

These little guys were born yesterday and pretty much 2 weeks to the date after mixing my male and female seahorses - let the fun begin.......again!  So, I'm back to looking out for the first good sign - orange digestive tracts :)

The Flirting Begins....

The little yellow boy is quite proud of his pouch and is very keen to find a mate already.  I've seen him flirting and dancing with another seahorse but today he doesn't seem too sure which one is his mate.  He looked quite funny this morning sitting on one of the decorations watching over the others as if he was trying to decide which one he would flirt with.

His advances seemed to be recognized by one of the other little ones who changed colour in response.  You can just about see her in this video before she changed back to her normal dark colour.  The yellow boy swam over to her but they didn't dance together.....thank goodness!

The feeding station training is going relatively well.  Some of them will now swim straight to the bowl as soon as they see the baster.  Others will hover around the bowl but haven't quite got the grasp of swimming up to the very top of it.  I will persevere and get there in the end with them!

Feed Station Training - Day 1

I guess I cheated a bit really. I just put the dish in the tank to see what would happen.  A few of them took to it straight away, which I'm certain was a fluke but most of them, as expected, just hung around waiting for the food to come to them!

Baby steps now.  I'll follow my normal routine with feed station training and hopefully it won't be long before they're all eating from the dish.

We have our first pouch!

Its funny but I find myself looking out for little markers of progression with seahorse fry; red digestive tract in newborns -  then hitching - then eating frozen - then first purple poops - and then the pouches.  This for me, really is the last step of their development and is the marker for being able to tell the boys from the girls.

They're going through food like there's no tomorrow so their development is starting to get quite rapid now - thank goodness!

I have to apologise for the quality of this picture.  I woke up to find lots of micro bubbles in the tank - which have now been dealt with - but couldn't miss the photographic opportunity, especially as this little guy prefers to stay at the back of the tank.

Latest pictures

It really is impossible to get clear pictures of the babies.  There is one that is a beautiful orange colour and every time I get the camera out he/she swims to the back of the tank!  I was hoping to get a picture of that one today, but nope off he swims to the back of the tank!  We'll have to make do with a picture that I took last week of this little one.  Its a shame as this is the one the now seems to be growing quicker than the others.

And some more pictures...

Pretty much all, bar a couple, have crazy cirri.  These guys definitely have the worst (best?) of it!

Day out at London Sea Life

Well, Ron and I had planned to meet up with my parents and two nephews today so we decided to treat them to a visit to the London Sea Life centre.

A word of warning - if you decide to visit this, or probably any other London attraction on a school holiday weekend, be sure to take snacks, water, a fold-up seat and be prepared to queue!

I should have known better, and although I expected to have to queue a little I really didn't expect it to be like queuing for the most popular ride at Disneyland!  So, an hour and a half later we finally made it to the front of the queue and made our purchase, 4 adults and 2 children.  Even with the 2 for 1 vouchers that I got, I had to steady myself with one hand on the counter when I was told the price!  I guess, I'd forgotten how much everything costs since moving out of London.

We walked around the freshwater exhibits, and saw some freshwater pipefish, although I'm not sure what species they were as I couldn't see an information sign.  

They kind of look  like alligator's, but if that's the case they were in the wrong section!

We then walked around to the touch pool where they had a number of starfish in a little rock pool type thing and where people were encouraged to put their hands in the water and touch them.  In the space of just a few minutes at least 10 different pairs of hands must have been in that water.  Sadly, the sink by the side of the touch pool was out of order and so no one was washing their hands before taking the plunge.  I wonder how safe that is for the animals?

By this time, we had been walking around the exhibition for around 15 minutes and  just before going through the Ocean tunnel (leading to the seahorses) we stopped so that we could sign the Save the Shark petition, and my youngest nephew, Ciaran, could draw a picture of a round, yellow shark!!  Just as we were about to head through the tunnel the fire alarm sounded and we were all evacuated. NOooooo!  Thus, my mission was ruined

On the way out we managed to share a few moments with a rather friendly ray who wanted to say hello!  How sweet!

I have to say that I am so proud of my little nephews who are only 5 and 7 as they refrained from putting their hands in the water when the opportunity arose.  The youngest one pointed out to me why it wasn't good for the fish :)

Regardless of not being able to see the seahorses, we still had a fun day! 

Tiny, tiny dwarf seahorses

Earlier this week there was a TV program about seahorses on Nat Geo.  It was a documentary by Project Seahorse and among other species they were also researching dwarf seahorses.  One of the ladies had a dwarf seahorse in her hand and I thought that it gave perfect representation of just how tiny these little guys are.  So, I thought I would pinch their idea and took a photo of one of my juvi's whilst doing a water change.

This little gal is probably about 6 months old.  She's not fully grown yet, but not far off it.  She's as good as adult size now.

Tiny, isn't she!

Another thing that I have been doing this week is sorting out the fry tanks.  We have a new set up now which allows me to have up to 6 fry tanks in a relatively small area.  At the moment, I just have 2 fry tank, a hospital tank, and a number of culture containers.

Playtime!

Whilst cleaning the big fry tank yesterday I couldn't help but notice that they appeared to be queuing up to play in the bubbles from the airline.  Its quite funny because they just sit directly in the flow and seem to get blown about quite a bit.....crazy little animals!

Splitting the brood

Well, we have a few of the 15 week old babies that are now really starting to show growth spurts that are leaps and bounds ahead of the rest and as we lost one of the smaller babies this week it seems that now is the time to split them.

I now have 2 tanks for the 15 week olds.  The tank with the biggest babies in it will only get frozen food now, and the smaller babies tank will continue to get live brine as well as the frozen.  I want to give them every opportunity to grow as big as their brothers without having to compete with them for the food.

The bigger babies are really hard to get a good picture of now because they are constantly on the move!  The orange one loves to play in the current and is constantly swimming back and forth in the flow!

There he goes again!  Sorry for the blurry picture...

20th September

Its amazing to me how much the new babies seem to have grown.  There are only 5 of them left out of the original 7 that we saved but these guys seem to be growing quickly.  They're only a little over 2 weeks old, but they seem to be much bigger than the others have been at the same age.  In actual fact, I've moved one of the smaller ones from the 13 week olds in with these little guys and to be honest, there's not a huge difference in size!

I'm regularly adding frozen food in the tank as I think these guys are going to be early starters, and whilst I haven't actually seen any of them eating the frozen, I have witnessed the bright orange bellies that the Cyclopeeze produce.  I think also, that having one of their older brother/sisters in who is already eating frozen will help a great deal.

Talking of the older babies, they're also doing great.  Sometimes its hard to appreciate how much they are growing when you watch them every day but there's definitely one or two of them in there that are starting to stand out from the crowd.  When I did the 100% water change a couple of days ago I added all orange plants to the tank and this seems to be encouraging some of them to colour up.  Whereas before we only had one orange one and the rest were all black, we now have a good few that are starting to change colour.

And of course the cirri continues to grow.  I'm a real sucker for the babies with cirri.

This one has particularly crazy cirri!

Erectus Fry at 12 Weeks

They're now 12 weeks old and doing great.  We have just one that has turned orange and the others at the moment are staying black, although they are starting to develop their saddle pattern.

Quite a few more are developing cirri, and looking quite wild!