Erectus fry

[Madsie]

Hi. Those of you that have erectus, do their fry hitch straight after birth or not? Like the dwarfs?

[BlueCat1949]

Originally Posted by Madsie

Hi. Those of you that have erectus, do their fry hitch straight after birth or not? Like the dwarfs?

It depends as there are northern and southern populations of Hippocampus erectus. In my 5 years of raising erectus fry I had some that did not hitch for a week or two and some that hitched at birth. It is best to set up your fry tank or bowl kreisel to accommodate for either possibility. So I used a sterilized plastic plant held in place by a suction cup on the bottom of the tank or bowl.

1. my "fry Tree" shows fry that hitched at birth.
2. fry bowls in 60 gallon breeder tank
3. a kreisel style bowl with erectus fry.

[HereFishy1]

What's been your success with the erectus fry?

[BlueCat1949]

Originally Posted by HereFishy1

What's been your success with the erectus fry?

If you are asking me I would say I have done pretty well with H. erectus. I have bred them to six generations and many hundreds of seahorses raised to adulthood and sold to hobbyist.

I quit raising seahorses after 5 years due to burn out and have not had any horses since 2008.

See pix below for some of the erectus seahorses I have raised.

[BlueCat1949]

BTW it is the northern population of erectus that have pelagic fry.

[dmcmares24]

What do you use as the first starter food for the first week or so?

[BlueCat1949]

Newly hatched brine shrimp is a good first food. You need to feed them out within 2 hours of hatching so they still have a nutritious yolk sac. After that you can keep some of the hatched brine until they can feed, about 24 hours after hatching, and enrich them for feeding later on. I usually had at least 4-6 broods going at a time so I had 3 hatchers going all the time and staggered them so I would have fresh batches all day.

I did between 3-5 feedings and water changes a day and broke down the fish bowls and sterilized everything every 5 days. I always had back up bowls ready to go and used only natural seawater so all I had to do was be sure the new water was the right temp and transfer the fry to a new bowl set up. After a week or two I started to add cyclopeze and when I could see the red bellies I would increase the frozen food and add chopped mysis as they grew. Then it was straight frozen mysis as a staple with other live critters on occasion.

Commercial growers came up with much better methods and grew higher percentages of the fry to adulthood but this was my method between 2003-08.

Nothing is more rewarding in the hobby then seeing your own captive bred fishes grow up to be beautiful and healthy adults IMHO.

Click on the pic above with the yellow male seahorse and his mate with the huge cirri behind him. These were the best of the best of my 6 generations.

[CritterHeaven]

Seahorsesource has some really good enrichment products for the bbs. The sooner you can get them on the cyclopeeze the better.

My avatar is one of the very first babies I successfully raised. And the also raised her babies! I did find that my H erectus almost all hitched very quickly. It is hard work but very worthwhile. Burn out is pretty common though as you are doing so many feedings and cleanings.

[vlangel]

Last winter i raised 15 of 22 from my pair. It was very rewarding. I enriched the bbs with Dan's Feed with beta gluten. I burned out however after just that 1 batch and have given all the fry away since.