I have lots of experience with breeding seahorses. I have bred/raised Hippocampus zosterae (The Dwarf Seahorse from the coast of florida) and two other larger species. I have a couple of comments on the video.
First - He is right about buying captive bred seahorses. Wild seahorses almost always starve to death. Petshops will tell you to feed them live brine shrimp. This sadly results in the death of the seahorses. Even if the seahorses were busting out from eating tons of brine shrimp, they would die from malnutrition. Adult brine shrimp have absolutetly no nutritional value at all. Please heed his advise and only purchase captive bred seahorses. They are much more expensive but well worth it.
Second - You should never keep seahorses with other fish, especially fast and agressive eaters like damsels and clownfish. These types of fish will eat the food way to fast and the seahorses will starve. Also, these fish are very territorial and would eventually kill the seahorses by harrasing them. Seahorses, by nature, eat very slowly. They are picky about their prey and by the time the decide to eat it, the other fishes have it. Seahorses are very docile animals and do not do well if put in stressful situations.
Third - The current was way to strong in this tank. Did you see the seahorse get stuck to the intake tube for a few seconds. In the wild, seahorses do not swim around when there is a strong current. They can't, they are such weak swimmers that the current would simply sweep them away. In nature, where there may be strong currents, the seahorses hang onto vegetation so they don't get carried away. They hunt for prey when the currents are at their lowest or even stopped. This happens every twelve hours in most cases. However, they are good at snapping up prey while hitched. They have to be, because seahorses have no real stomachs. They must eat many times a day. Seahorses can actually starve to death is as little as two days.
Forth - Don't be fooled into think someone is an expert just because there are babies present. Pregnant females are always caught wild and release their babies in captivity. One think I want you to notice about the video was the amount of young that were born, looked like hundreds of them, to the last shot thirteen days later of just one or two. Raising baby seahorses is extreamly difficuly. Most need something much smaller than baby brine shrimp as their first food. Small near microscopic animals must be cultured for the first few days of the baby seahorse's life. If you live near the ocean you can collect planktonic foods for the babys. If you noticed in the video, not many of the babies were eating the baby brine shrimp, it was too big for them. Once the babys are big eanought to take newly hatched brine shrimp (unlike adult brine shrimp, newly hatched brine shrimp that is less than 8 hours old are a good nutritional source because of their yolk sac. Once the yolk sac is gone, they are of no nutritional value.) they will soon outgrow it. Depending on the species, thia could be as little as four to five days. After that many more problems arrise. You have to keep finding food sources for the babys as they grow. They all must be alive and moving. Because seahorses hunt by sight. It is exreamly difficult to culture/ collect foods to meet the demanding needs for the babies. The attrition rate seen in the video is typical of the home aquarists attempts at feeding and rearing baby seahorses. I was succesful only because I had access to the ocean and to friends in an aquatics lab that raised vaious marine aquatic critters for the environmental protection agency. They were kind enough to supply me with food for my baby seahorses because they knew how important captive rearing of the different seahorse species were.
My hats off to the person in the video. This was in no way an attempt to villinize his accomplishments. This was just an attempt to give the facts, that is what this board is about.
In the past I have written and published over a hundred articles on aquarium species care and breeding. These articles appeared in Tropical Fish Hobbyist, Freshwater and Marine Aquarium, Marine Fish Monthly and other smaller publications. I have also lectured all over the northeast to many different aquarium societies on aquarium care. If my memory serves me right, I published two articles on seahorse care and breeding. If any of my fellow members have any questions at all on aquarium care, don't hesitate to ask me.
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