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Foods/Culturing
Gammarus
Marine Gammarus
The saltwater Gammarus are also an excellent food for the larger species. This specimen was found in our overflow filter and native to most reef tanks that have live rock.
Also known as Glass Shrimp, these are favorites of many larger species. Both Freshwater and Saltwater varieties are available, but are somewhat costly. One specific use for ghost shrimp is to "gut load" them. This can be done by feeding them flake food soaked in medicine or HUFA booster, or lifting the carapace and injecting it immediately prior to feeding.
The same tub for gammarus works well for ghost shrimp. Just be sure to give them lots of hiding places. They do well on flake food, and can be carnivorous if not fed well or kept in large numbers.
Culturing Ghost shrimp is a little more work than Gammarus,
but not that difficult. In addition to the main tub or tank, you'll need
two other ten gallon tanks. One of these is a hatching tank and the other
is the grow out tank.
The hatching tank:
The hatching tank consists of a "basket" that holds the pregnant shrimp. To construct the basket what we used is 1/4" square acrylic rod available at a plastics shop. the frame was made so that 3 or four inches are submerged in the water and it is held up by tabs on the top. This frame is then covered with crinolin, a netting material you can find at any fabric store. It's very important that there are no holes that the shrimp can get through. The whole idea is to keep the eggs away from the shrimp. An airline is also used to keep the water aerated. When the female releases her eggs, they fall through the netting and hatch on the bottom. Every day check the shrimp and remove any that have released their eggs, placing them back into the main tank. Lifting out the basket and temporarily setting it in the main tank so the shrimp are still under water you can use a brine shrimp net to collect the young shrimp and transfer them to the grow out tank.
The grow out tank:
The grow out tank simply contains a sponge filter and lots of hiding places for the young shrimp. Some wadded up crinolin or unused bath squeegee thing's work well. We fed ours a little of the nanno paste daily as well as a little flake food.
We didn't culture the ghost shrimp for too long but the above method seemed to work pretty well. The main problem is it takes along time for them to grow out to a feedable size.
By Basil J Miller
Areas such as public boat ramps, parks and picnic areas
that are on water frontage and where there is grass will usually have ghost
shrimp as long as the temperature and water conditions are within the shrimps
tolerable range. This certainly would include the Gulf Coast states
, Southern California and fresh water speciesinhabit many lakes, ponds
rivers and irrigation canal systems. I wade around the grass beds
and evenly and smoothly sweep the net in a scooping motion towards the
grass from deep to shallow. It is not necessary to make a lot
of commotion while moving the net.... smooth movement is sufficient
to capture the shrimps as long as the water is not extremely clear ( very
clear water is rare in the Bays near Houston Texas where I live).
The water around the grass
is usually a foot or so deep. There are oysters ( and lots
of shells in many of these areas ) growing on any rock so you have to avoid
those as they are sharp and will tear your net ( and you too if you aren't
careful ). I wear rubber boots or old tennis shoes ( but definitely
something to protect my feet). When the tide is out I
will usually have good success by raking the net gently across the bottom
towards the grass beds and right up against the grass blades.
These shrimp are very
easy to catch. You will also catch lots of small crabs and small
fish ( be careful you do not keep any fish considered
game fish as a game warden
would likely fine you several hundred dollars
for each illegal fish). Check the game/fishing laws in your
state/area. In Texas you need only a fishing license and a
salt water stamp to collect 'bait'. The pipefish I catch are
on a federal watch program but as of yet have not been put under any protection.
After catching the ghost
shrimp I put them in a plastic 5 gallon bucket with a battery operated
air pump and stone ( you can get these where bait and fishing tackle is
sold - Academy, Kmart and Wal-Mart stores here). If its
very hot outside I put the bucket inside the air conditioned cab of my
truck for the ride home. I also put the bucket inside
a Rubbermaid container to contain any splash that
may occur in transit.
Once you get your shrimp home a
ten gallon tank with air stone and I use mangroves kept upright by inserting
them in Styrofoam for filtration supplemented with occasional small whisper
power filter as the only filtration. I'll usually transfer
the smaller shrimp ( ones of the right size for Seahorses to munch on)
to the tank with the Seahorses. These shrimp will live a long
time in the main tank as long as you feed them a little flake food every
day or so. The larger females also usually have eggs under
their tails which once they are released into the current make excellent
food for Seahorses and corals alike.
The Specific gravity of the
water where these shrimps are collected varies ( as I have
measured it ) anywhere from 1.014 to 1.026 depending
upon rainfall amounts prior to the
collection trip. These shrimp can
adjust to a wide range of salinity in my experience. If
you will acclimate them fairly slowly over a
few hours similar to how you would acclimate
any salt water fish. Actually these
shrimp can be acclimated pretty quickly once you get
the hang of it. Just do not take
them from 1.014 to 1.026 in 60 seconds unless you want
to kill them prior to freezing them.
If you do want to freeze some remove the heads as
the heads will rot fairly quickly.
I enjoy collecting
the shrimp and also copepods ( or is it arthropods ? :) from clumps
of grass in the bays. I will
sometimes us a cast net in open sandy bottom areas and have
caught small green eels, puffer fish,
stingrays, small sharks etc. I also scuba dive
boat and fish. I've always
loved the water and everything in it and around it.
To contact Basil about collecting ghost shrimp click here.
Anyone who has kept, or even considered keeping, seahorses has probably encountered the adage that maintaining proper nutrition in these animals is the single-most difficult aspect to their husbandry. For the most part it seems that the “common knowledge” is that seahorses eat only live foods and unless you can provide these foods for them, you shouldn’t endeavor to keep them in a home aquarium. This leaves most folks who are not fortunate enough to live near the ocean or an inland lake seeking food sources such as brine shrimp, ghost shrimp and various other small crustaceans. There are potential problems with all of these food sources. Often times ghost shrimp are either prohibitively expensive or impossible to find, and most people are not necessarily looking to set up a breeding tank dedicated just to them. Brine shrimp are a very poor source of nutrition without being properly enriched, and even then their nutritional value is somewhat suspect. The varieties of other crustaceans available are difficult to rear or not eaten by the herd. So, what is a seahorse aficionado to do? Well, in this article, we will hopefully provide a solution that will supply the herd with an EXCELLENT source of nutrition as well as the aquarist a very simple, cost effective and minimally time consuming way to deliver it.
You may have already guessed that this food source is frozen freshwater mysis shrimp (Mysis relicta). They can be purchased at most live fish stores and usually come in 4 or 8 ounce packages, with 4 ounces being roughly equivalent to 10,000 shrimps. An adult seahorse will typically consume between 3 and 12 of these shrimps per day depending on the size of the horse. This may seem like a low number, but due to the nutritional makeup of these shrimps, especially their fat content, they seem to be quite filling. So, as you can plainly see, a single package could last a single horse for years!! Mysis are also, as previously stated, an EXCELLENT source of nutrition for seahorses (or any marine fish for that matter) for two reasons. First, M. relicta are freshwater creatures, which means that when your marine animals consume them, they will not need to expend excess energy to eliminate the extra salt they have taken in. Most marine creatures expend great deals of energy expelling salts just due to their environment, and the oral intake of even more salt taxes their system that much more. Second, M. relicta have an extremely varied feeding cycle. During the day, they are benthic detritivores (bottom-dwelling poop-eaters) but at night, they migrate to the surface and feed on the planktonic layer, taking in rotifers, protozoans, pollen grains and several species of algae. As an added bonus, possibly due to their highly diversified eating habits, M. relicta contains very large quantities of naturally occurring fatty acids (Stearic, Palmitic, Oleic, Omega-3 and Omega-6 to name a few) that not only provide marine animals with essential nutrition but also stimulates a positive feeding response. That said, let’s look at how we can get our finicky seahorses to not only accept this alternate food source, but learn to relish it!
We will present two methods you can try. Both work equally well, but are dependent on the disposition of your animals.
Method #1:
The first thing you will need is a good turkey baster
with a CLEAR tube. This is very important part, since the horses
cannot really see the tube if it is clear. You will also need some
frozen mysis shrimp (we HIGHLY recommend Piscine
Energetics M.Y.S.I.S. for its size, consistency and quality) and some
brine shrimp or other live food that your horses will readily eat.
Next, take small amount of P.E. mysis (not too much at this point) and thaw it out in some tank water. Try to “mush” the individual shrimp some so as to create a milky solution with the water. The cloudiness in the water is the fatty acids we mentioned earlier. Now, release 20 or so brine shrimp (or whatever live food you chose) into the tank and when your horses begin eating, suck up some of the mysis water and squirt it into the tank near your horses. You may need to do this for several days. This will get the horses used to the taste of the mysis as they are eating so that they will associate that flavor with food. It is very important to do this conservatively, as you do not want to pollute the water with the fatty solution.
The next step is to try getting your herd to eat the actual shrimp. Some horses will go right to them without even needing the previous step, and other may take a while to adjust to the taste, so your process will probably vary. As a reference, a quarter sized chunk feeds my seven horses with a bit left over for my baby trigger and puffer. Now, thaw the chunk in some tank water and then suck up a good amount of the shrimps. Squirt a mysis shrimp down to the end of the tube, but keep it inside the tube. You want just the end of it hanging out. You can mimic movement by squeezing and releasing the bulb very slightly. Take the animated shrimp over to one of your horses, and wait patiently. I (Chris) have several horses that will actually rapidly approach and snick the mysis right out of the end of the tube as soon as it goes into the water!!!
Once they begin eating the mysis, you should be able to just squirt them into the tank. I try to squirt them onto the top of the rock-work or into the macro algae. Then the horses will "hunt". They will pick over the rocks and through the algae and snick up whatever they find! You are home free from that point on, and can use the P.E. mysis as your primary food source, with occasional supplementations of other live food for variety and fun.
Method #2:
As a second method which seems
to also work is, you can work them onto frozen mysis by hand feeding them
using live food in the beginning, meaning ghost shrimp. The way to
do this is to use smaller ghost shrimp and to begin getting your fish to
take them from your hand. This method where you hand feed may or
may not work. Some fish are really too timid to take ghost shrimp
even from your hands. We have found that most of the time, they are
so hungry that they don’t care that we are holding onto the ghost shrimp.
They just see it flicking its tail, and they’re hooked. They go in
for the kill and suck them down.
We hold the ghost shrimp between our thumb and forefinger either by their whiskers, or just above them around their eyes. The trick is to use enough of a grip to hold the shrimp and prevent it from getting away, but not so much that your seahorse can’t get it out of your fingers. After trying once or twice, most people get the hang of it, and it isn’t a problem from there on. After a couple of feedings with ghost shrimp, you can try using a mysis.
We thaw mysis and then pick them out individually so that we have whole mysis to feed to our fish. They look virtually the same as ghost shrimp, which is another really great thing about these mysis. They thaw whole and usually stay that way. Of course, you will always get a blend of heads or tails, but for the most part, Piscine Energetics mysis thaws out as whole shrimp.
Be sure to hold the mysis the same way that you hold a ghost shrimp. You might have to gently wiggle it so that it looks alive. We usually give it a gentle, but somewhat sharp, wiggle so that it mimics the motion of a ghost shrimp. Typically, our fish take it right from us because they think they are getting ghost shrimp, when in fact, it’s a mysis.
The thing is that they don’t know that the mysis is dead. That is why we wiggle it a little. It gives them the illusion that the mysis is still alive and kicking (literally). Sometimes they figure it out, but that is rare. The other trick to doing this is that they never see the head of the ghost shrimp or the mysis. They just seem to assume that it has one and that the eyes would move (or look at them in utter horror), were they to see it. If they can’t see the head or the eyes, they really don’t seem to know the difference between live and dead food.
Not to mention, a mysis shrimp really stinks. Of course, to our fish this smells really tasty, and they usually go after the mysis shrimp with vigor.
Many of our fish will eventually eat the mysis that we thaw when it is in the water column, and even better, lots of other ones will eat it even when it is on the bottom of the tank. They don’t seem to mind. Most of them go for it because it smells good and tastes good too. We don’t have to hand feed very many of our fish anymore, which is also really good. They just eat it of their own volition.
Once again, you just have to experiment to see what works with this method. We like to feed them by hand because it gives us a chance to make sure that the fish, especially the picky ones, are eating well. It also gives us a chance to interact with our fish so that they aren’t as stressed when we do enter their territory for routine cleanings, or to remove them because they are sick.
A NOTE FROM CHRIS:
Since using the PE mysis, ALL of
my horses are incredibly colored (I have two orange reidi, two black erectus
that got REALLY dark with these incredible tiny little white dots all over
them, a purplish brown erectus that pales to a yellow in the evening, and
a pair of bright yellow/green barbouri). They are all plump... and I mean
the spaces between their ribs that are usually slightly indented, are at
least flush if not protruding slightly. They are all very active and breeding
regularly!! This method has eased my mind regarding getting the proper
nutrition to my horses, and has also eased my pocketbook considerably.
I wish you luck in this endeavor, should you choose to take it on!
A NOTE FROM BETHANY
AND MIKE:
We have tried several different
brands of mysis, but none of them can hold a candle to Piscine Energetics
mysis. Our fish who eat these mysis are fat, happy, colorful, robust,
and breeding regularly without any problems. They seem to stay healthier
as well and suffer less from diseases or pathogens. Every single
fish that is still eating live food isn’t quite as fat or as happy as the
ones eating this mysis. We both highly recommend that you use this
mysis because it truly is a great product and one we recommend as often
as we can. It is also significantly less expensive than live food.
And since it is actually MORE nutritious, we can’t say anything bad about
it at all. If you can get a hold of this stuff, we highly recommend
it.
Rotifers are used as a first food for the smaller species, mainly H Reidi. However are not the best food as they must be enriched. We personally have never seen a seahorse baby eat one. An easy way to culture rotifers is with a 32 gallon trash can. Simply add 1.021 sg water, a starter and a rigid piece of 3/16" airline tubing bubbling just enough to make a steady stream. We feed ours Nanno paste, about 1/2" from the squeeze bottle daily. It takes about 2 weeks to establish a good culture. The Nanno paste is available at Brineshrimp Direct-http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com.
A 32 plastic trash can works well, with a rigid piece of airline tubing
with just enough air to make a steady stream.
Materials needed:
Brine shrimp net
2 tsp Artemia cysts
2 cups of luke warm water
2/3 cup of regular bleach
Air pump and Airline tubing
Cloths Pin (to hold airline)
Sodium Thiosulfate( Dechlore)
Removing the outer shell from an artemia cyst has many benefits. First of all it prevents any unwanted contaminants ( hydroids, ect) from entering your rearing system. Secondly there is no need to deal with the shells after the artemia hatches, and last but not least the newly hatched artemia are much higher in nutritional value because they haven't had to use all their resources to break out of the shell. The following method is the one we use and it can be scaled up to however much you need to hatch. The decapsulated cysts can be stored in the fridge for about a week and still work well.
Step 1:
Add 2 cups of luke warm water to a suitable container( a jar or plastic container work well). Clip the airline to the edge and make sure that it is all the way to the bottom of the container, so it really bubbles the water. You want the cysts to stay in motion. Add 2 teaspoons of cysts, and wait one hour, washing the cysts off the side occasionally with an eye dropper (Just suck up a little water from the container).
The cysts hydrating
Step 2:
After one hour the cysts are hydrated. The following images show the difference between dehydrated and hydrated cysts.
At this point we are ready to decapsulate. Add 2/3 cup of bleach to the container and watch closely. There will be three color changes. First they are brown, then light gray, then orange. When they reach the orange stage they will need to be immediately poured in to the brine shrimp net and rinsed with cold water. Pour dechlor over them as well to neutralize the bleach. An easy way to check the cysts is to pour a little through the brine shrimp net and see what they look like. You want to see mostly orange, but a few gray ones. If you over bleach them they will not hatch, so it's better to stop the reaction at this point. The following images show the color change at 30 times magnification-
The amount of bleach can be increased or reduced to increase
or decrease the speed of the process.
Step 3:
After thoroughly rinsing the cysts until no odor of bleach remains, squeeze the net to remove as much water as possible and place them into a sealed container. Place this in the fridge and use what you need daily. The cysts should last at least a week.
Hatching artemia takes about 24 hours. After they are
hatched, we give them another 24 hours to reach the next stage in their
development, called the Instar II stage. At this point the artemia is capable
of ingesting food or nutrients. We enrich all ours with a HUFA booster
such as Selco. This is necessary as seahorse fry generally doesn't do well
on unenriched artemia.We use three "hatchers". One is where the actual
hatching takes place, the next is a holding "hatcher" to wait until they
are at Instar II, and the third is the enrichment "hatcher".
If you use decapsulated cysts, you must have A LOT of
bubbles in the hatcher. Decasulation removes the shell which in turn takes
away their ability to float. If you don't have enough circulation in the
hatcher, you'll end up with clumps of cysts.
Cut the top off of one bottle and the bottom off another as shown below.
Next, drill a 1/4" hole through the cap, run the airline about 1/2" in and seal with epoxy on the outside. Epoxy is available at most hardware stores. drill a hole through the bottom half of the bottle for the airline to pass through, and put the two halfs together.
The completed hatcher
DIY Automatic
Seahorse Feeder
The “So You Can Go Out of Town for a Few
Days” piece of equipment
By Chris Burns
Have you ever just wanted to get away from it all, take that much needed drive down the coast, to the mountains, the river, the desert, or forest… Just get up and go! What? What do you mean you CAN’T?!?!? Ohhhh… you must be a seahorse keeper! Tied to the tank like a Spaniard in Torquemada’s dungeons… Well, have I got news for you! Salvation and freedom are at hand!
When free-feeding your horses, you have probably run into the common dilemma of feeding enough that the horses get plenty to eat while not feeding too much to the filter and substrate. This means that most of your friends will not, without at least a bachelor’s degree in “Caring for My Personal Aquarium”, be able to feed your herd should you wish to take a break. And, to make matters worse, you couldn’t possibly just throw enough food into the tank to last a few days… or could you? I would like to give you the plans for a do-it-yourself feeder that will allow you to put 2-4 ounces of live, adult brine shrimp in your tank for the horses to feed on without fear of it all going into the filter. As an added bonus, the feeder will, free of charge, retain all of the dead brine shrimp carcasses so that when you return from your trip, you can pull the feeder from the tank and flush all of those ammonia-generating bodies down the drain!
So, without further ado, here
are the particulars. The feeder is a cylinder approx. 6-7" long and
2.25" in diameter, and I have had success with a wide array of seahorse
and pipefish species feeding from it. There are three major components
that you will need in order to construct it, all of which you can get at
your local hardware superstore (Home Depot or wherever).
Be sure to wash and clean
everything off before you begin. :>
Now, using the crazy glue gel, glue one plug into one of the pipes.
Next, tack the screen onto the outer surface of one of that pipe with the crazy glue. The pipe should fit inside of the screen so that the out edge of the pipe and screen are even. The screen SHOULD overlap when going around the pipe. Then, do the same on the other pipe. Now you have the cylinder with one opening. Next, run a bead of silicon over the overlapping seam. Smooth it out to ensure even contact. Next, I took and smeared a smooth bead of silicone over the entire surface where the screen contacted the pipes. Let it dry for a few hours, and viola!
Now, place the sealed end into the tank, put some live food in, and seal the other end with the plug. Lay it down somewhere conspicuous and watch the fun!!!
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