Salt Babies Part 4 :)

[kizanne]

So had some another hurricane and some more setbacks last year.
Sold all my baby seahorses over the fall to the LFS so that is good.

Kept the best colored ones for continued coloration.

My prettiest dwarf (not actual dwarf just small genetics) erectus used to get very white and her name was snow. She got egg bound and died but her daughter is just as pretty. So I still have a white horse. I have a halloween orange/red horse and lined orange and pinkish horse and a dark chocolate. A few others with yellowish, tanish coloration.

Sunshine the orange male is the dominant and best producer. The ones I sold to the LFS all turned orange in their tank. If I had known I would have charge much more

Spring is here and the seahorses are back to breeding. I have several sets of babies going. The oldest ones are being weaned now. They were released in early March. Very exciting colors showing in the next oldest batch.

I have some Reidi's but the girl keeps spilling her eggs and they haven't managed a successful transfer (and we are talking many tries here).

I am expanding my energies and also have a 3 batches of peppermint shrimp larvae going as well. The oldest batch was released 4/6/21. I hope they settle by May 19th. The quickest was 22 days and some have reported as long as 62 days. My oldest are quite large and look very developed.
The youngest batch was released yesterday.

I don't have large numbers as I fed many of the larvae to the seahorse babies But if they start settling then I'll get more serious about giving them some space. My LFS is interested in the shrimp as well. If they settle I'll probably try to figure out which version of peppermint shrimp I have.

I am also trying to raise/propagate asterina starfish so hopefully that will go well. I need to get a larger base group. I have about 12 right now.

I'm doing tisbe pods, rotifers, bbs, ciliates, nano green water, some T-iso but it gets nano in it and then crashes.

[kizanne]

This is a pic of Andrew, sunshine

[kizanne]

So the biggest baby seahorses are going through weaning. Once they are weaned I'll be able to sell them and clear up some space for the babies behind them.

The peppermint shrimp larva are now 37 days old. Since my temps aren't very high I expect settlement to take a while.

I got a pair of harlequin shrimp to try next.

[kizanne]

So the peppermint shrimp are driving me nuts as they still haven't settled but at least they are still alive. Just got a batch of seahorse babies this morning.

[kizanne]

Some peppermints have started to settle.
Sold the first batch of weaned seahorses to start offsetting costs.

AAAANNNNDDDD

my flame angels finally have fertile spawns. OR at least one fertile spawn so that's nice

I'll try to post some pictures.

[kizanne]

Ok so the fun stuff Peppermint shrimp






Angel eggs









And just for fun..... Starfish riding

[kizanne]

So many of the peppermint shrimp have settled but I have put the 2nd batch of peps in with the older ones so now there are pleipods in with settled. We will see how these do.

I caught another batch of peps this morning out of my filter sock. Not sure how theses will do. I have switched to a nylon filter sock temporarily so they at least weren't 'stuck' to the felt filter sock. But there was some trash in there and they were 'stuck' in that. Hopefully on some air in clean water they will shake it off and I'll be able to get a few viable shrimp.

[kizanne]

So far the peppermint shrimp out of the filter sock appear fine. I'm having a brine shrimp crisis today so hopefully everything can hold on until the next hatch of brine.

The parvos are dead but the T-iso is going well.

Didn't see any angel larva. I'm getting ready to try again. I had caught some eggs 2 days ago but accidently used the pipette that I had used for the vodka to kill some copepods for a count and killed them too. At least they were still fertile. I'll catch some tonight if the angels play ball then in 4 days I'll start a new larval experiment.

Seahorses aren't the only thing that like to ride the small starfish. Though I think my harlequin shrimp has nefarious plans for this starfish. I mean look what they did to the chocolate chip.