Reidi Fry Help

[horsewhisperer]

Hello,
OK. So I recently realized my two Reidi juvies that I THOUGHT were females AREN'T!! I have one male and one female and they look like they are courting morning and evening. I have seen a show of eggs on the sand so don't know if Mom missed Dad or what but I expect I'll have a pregnant daddy in the near future. SOOO, I have been catching bits and pieces about Reidi fry being very difficult. I am having trouble locating anything specifically on raising Reidi fry. Can anyone help me with the basics please or at least point me in the right direction? I would really like to try to save as many as I can when they are born. I have located and received some rotifers I am going to begin to culture so I have them ready, but I need help knowing the best and easiest way to set up a nursery tank for this type of fry. Any input and leads would be a tremendous help. Thanks in advance.

[Seahorsewisprer]

I have had luck with the "Delicate Breeder" that a friend built for me. It is in Advanced Aquarist and I made a thread here about it called "Mama Drama".

I found using daily water changes for filtration did not work for the little ones I had...

You might want to explore some of the enrichments. Delicate fry need a lot of nutrition!

And, the Propagation Forum has a ton of info about hatching and growing BBS, copepods and phyto...

[heedicus]

Well Hi Suzy,
I just sent you an email.
I too am gathering fry raising information for reidi. Some of the information I have found.

They first born eat Rots and I guess there is a smaller strain of Brine shrimp from BSD that is much smaller and can be fed to the reidi fry within the first week.

I had a post over at Seahorse.org about the food timeline and I will repost here once they get unhacked...
Unless Dan U wants to repost it=)
tren

[horsewhisperer]

Thanks for your help. How are you planning on keeping the fry, ie, what kind of nursery tank?

[Seahorsewisprer]

Email or PM? I just cleaned out my spam filter!

Sorry!

[Morgandy]

Suzy, as you've probably seen my posts too about raising them (unsuccessfully so far)..go with rots first, then bbs...they cannot hitch like H. Erectus right off. They get tangled/trapped in the smallest pieces of filament, and even against the silicon on the corners of the tank. Maybe a 10-20gal acrylic would be good? (hmmm, maybe I'll do that too.) I would do 1-2 airstones, and keep the light near the bottom of the tank. I would not put any LR or anything at all in the tank for the first week or two. Then maybe some very fine fishing line they can start hitching to. Again, I have been unsuccessful, but the more I learn about how I failed, the better ideas I come up with for next time (which will be shortly now again). What do others think about these suggestions? Good/bad/stupid?

[Seahorsewisprer]

I think they are great suggestions!

I had luck with a kreisal tank, but I know there are other ways!

Have you all read the link in our Sticky? Bob Burhans from Scripps Aquarium wrote a research paper with their findings on quite a few species. It has a lot of info.

[heedicus]

Have you tried to put them in one of those Kreisel type tanks? I guess you can get one of those plastic fishbowl put an airine about halfway down on one side and have the water enter the tank on the other side to make the lil guys go around in circles slowly.
Here is a pic of one http://www.syngnathid.org/attachments/13213-MVC-001F.JPG
tren

[Delta_zeta]

Tren is that your fry tank?

[heedicus]

That is not my fry tank, I used that as the tempate for mine...
tren

[WendyMc]

tren, I must be thick. Can you give more detail on how that kreisel type setup works?

[km133688]

now that picture is inspiring. I can see how it might work. I am going to try three changes: 1) move the glows lower in the tank so that the top is submerged, 2) use a piar of your wife's nylon stokings to make a top for each bowl to keep the little guys and dolls inside, 3) somewhat oversized filtration.

Thanks, Kevin

[pnsnowboard]

if you suceed ill buy some babies

[Swanwillow]

haha, me too.. but actually, I was wondering more along the lines of (and I'm sure everyone at the org is sick of me asking!!!)
are they CB (the adults) and where did you get them?

[km133688]

hey, I just took a closer look at those bowls. Got a couple of questoins:

1) What is inside them that the babies are hitching to?
2) How do you get the water to move inside the bowls?

Gonna get me some seahorses next week. Reidi from a LFS. They are supposed to be bred at a US hatchery. Says they are 3 inches big, and eating mysis like nothing he has seen before.

Anyone want to offer up some advice for when I go to pick them up? What to look for? How to transport (will be a two hour ride)? How to acclimate? What to feed the first week?

Thanks, Kevin

[Swanwillow]

ummm, doing lots of research, there are no US hatcheries... there are places that are getting in 'CB' reidi from elsewhere... I started a thread on the org ( http://forum.seahorse.org/index.php?showtopic=23677 ) and its becoming quite informative. the CB that are coming in from elsewhere are eating, but they aren't raised in the conditions that our tanks are, and are also exposed to pathogens from the ocean.

Its pretty ugly (not the thread, the topic as a whole!!!)
from what I understand, there really aren't warning signs, they just eventually waste away, stop eating, or develop secondary infections.

[Seahorsewisprer]

Originally posted by km133688

Anyone want to offer up some advice for when I go to pick them up? What to look for? How to transport (will be a two hour ride)? How to acclimate? What to feed the first week?

Thanks, Kevin [/B]


Will the LFS dealer feed them for you? Pick the ones that are most interested!

I always use a cooler to transport fish home from cool specimen finding excursions.

I use a drip acclimation, just like other fish and corals. Turn the lights down on the tank the first day.

Feed them what the LFS guy feeds 'em! You can get a fatty acid enrichment product from Brine Shrimp Direct. Kent also makes one called Zoecon, I think.

Good Luck! Let us know when you get them and we'll help you with a nursery!

[porky]

Hi All!
I am in a situation were a LFS has a male SH that is about ready to drop his load.
The owner has asked me if I would like to take a stab at trying to raise them, he knows I culture copepods and often hatch baby brine and that sort of thing.
I have been reading about the DIY "kreisel" type set ups and I like the one in this post above. I went home yesterday and tried to replicate it with stuff I had lying around the home.
Here is mines
http://christianghirardi.com/tankphotos/albums/Hands-on-Reef/IMG_2059.sized.jpg
I wanted to know, should the "kreisel" bowl break the surface of the 10g holding tank?
I have a "stand" I made from egg crate and PVC that I could use to place the bowl higher if needed.

[Swanwillow]

I don't think so- and it should have a screen over it so that the babies don't get up into the tank.,,,, I think.

oh, and good luck!!!! they typically have 200+ babies... be prepared!

[porky]

Okay thanks!
In the pic above (the one with 2 kreisels in a 10gallon) it looks like the top of the bowl it out of the water. And in other pics of these types of kreisels they also look like the bowl breaks the surface of the surrounding water.
Anyone else?

[Wink]

Normally, the very top of the bowl is above the water. The water level needs to be right at the neck of the bowl to cause the proper "ferris wheel" motion.

I have heard of people trying to completely submerge the bowl with netting over the top but I don't remember seeing any success stories for that. Anyone here tried it?

[porky]

I have heard of people trying to completely submerge the bowl with netting over the top but I don't remember seeing any success stories for that. Anyone here tried it?
That is actually what I thought about doing with the netting, I planned on using just regular screen that would be used for a screen door.
Anyone know if this stuff is reef safe?

[Mantis]

Porky, I think your going to have a problem with your glass fish bowl. With the plastic ones you cut a hole in the side near the bottom and put a bubbler just above the hole. Then you cut a hole in the other side at the top where the water escapes as it's going around in a circle

I don't know how you could exchange water using your glass bowl.

I found plastic ones for 3 bucks online, I'm thinking about trying to raise some of my True Percula fry this way.

[porky]

Thanks Brad!
Okay that makes sense about the plastic bowls. I may end up going that route, the goal was to not spend any money and try to do this w/existing equipment I had lying around.
What are your thoughts about keeping the bowl submerged but covered with some kind of a net?

[Wink]

You can use the glass bowl as a stand-alone tank and suction cup the airline to the end. Of course, you wouldn't be able to test the submerging method.

I'm currently trying the stand alone version with some reidi fry born Wednesday. You lose the benefits of the larger water volume and I figure I'll be doing massive water changes but I got the chance to adopt the fry and don't have the 10 gallon cycled. We used this method somewhat sucessfully with a brood of tigertails a couple of years ago.

[DanU]

Don't use window screen. The mesh is too large. You will need to drop the mesh size down to 600 or microns to prevent the fry from getting through.

Dan