How active should my horses be?

[swedge]

I just received my long awaited shipment of 2 juvenile pair H. Erectus from Draco Marine about 36 hours ago. All 4 survived shipping nicely and are hitching well in my 55 Gal Hex tank. I have not seen them eat yet. I have fed PE Mysis (pieces seem big for them yet) and Cyclo-peaze enriched with Selcon. The pieces of food float right by them without any reaction from the horses. At this point I'm not too worried about this since I'm sure they are still adjusting to the new environment. I do have some BBS hatching in the next 24 hours so they will have some live food to eat.

How much do they move around. They rarely swim around. Just hitch and hang-out. I guess I would have thought they would check-out the environment more. Is this usual?

Edit: I didn't mention that this is a well aged tank w/live rock and a refugium that has been spiked with tiger pods recently to refurbish the pod population. No other fish in the tank to compete with at this time.

[Susied]

The erectus could be eating pods without you noticing. Draco horses are trained to frozen so they are used to it and will take it when they need it. They may have been raised in a bare bottom tank and will take a little time adjusting to all of the stuff they are seeing now.

Seahorses have individual personalities and some can be extremely outgoing and playful while others hide behind a rock. It is too early to tell what yours will do when they are comfortable.

As far as food, Hikari Mysis is a better size for these guys and enriched live brine will certainly peak their interest but don't depend on it solely or they could go off frozen. Selco is too high in fat for juvies so you want to scrap that. The bbs won't really interest them at this age, too small to bother about, cyclopeeze is also small for juvie erectus.
Have you thought of using a feeding station?

[swedge]

Thanks for the reply.

I started with some live brine last night and they did eat a few. They next did start feeding on the larger chunks of cyclopeeze a bit so I feel much better now that I have seen them eat.

Seems to me that they are becoming more active just in the last 12 hours. I wonder if they read this board :)

I have read about feeding stations, but honestly I have never been able to find a good description of how to set one up. What is a good suggestion for setting up a feeding station for these guys?

Thanks

[swedge]

Here are a couple of pics of my new babies. Pics taken with just the Actinic on, so a little "blueish" sorry.

http://www.TurnerVet.com/Aquarium/Pics/Seahorse.JPG

http://www.TurnerVet.com/Aquarium/Pics/seahorse2.JPG

I did find some pics of feeding stations, I'll whip something up later today and see if I can get them to eat better.

They did seem interested in some shaved Hikari Mysids but they were too lazy to swim after them as they sank to the bottom :lol:

[BruceW]

You need to stop thinking in terms of baby food for your horses. They are big enough for PE and you are only polluting your tank by trying to feed them BBS, Cyclopeez and shaved mysis.

They will swim around more as they get used to their new home. The problem is to get them eating. Do the feeding station and give them whole Hikari or PE Mysis. They should really improve once they are eating adult food.

Bruce

[Fredfish]

This comes a little late for you, but may help for others thinking of a new setup.

Seahorses have a strong preference for live food, much stronger than other fishes IME. As long as they have a good supply of pods, they will ignore the frozen.

I suggest sectioning off a small part of your tank and putting the horses in there for a few days. It limits their access to live food and it lets you more easily get food ' in their face'. Once they are used to their new digs and are eating frozen you can let them roam the entire tank.

I actually lost one of my horses (pen raised) after releasing them into a 40g tank full of pods. Even putting it into a small quarantine tank I could not retain it on frozen.

Fred

P.S. I agree with Bruce. I got my horses at 2.5" and they had no trouble sucking back full size PE mysis.

[swedge]

I did rig up a feeding station and so far 2 of the 4 have discovered it and have eaten some of the shaved mysis I created. I'll feed them whole pieces tomorrow and see how they do about snacking on them. I'm feeling much better now after seeing them eat a decent amount of real food and not just 'candy BBS.' :)

[Susied]

If 2 are eating from the station, it will lead the others. They are already trained if they are from Jorge/Draco.
I don't think Jorge uses PE for them at this age and I would cut them in half or try Hikari for a while if they do not seem to take to the PE. 2 or 3 times a week live brine can be used if they are enriched with phytoplankton/algae and is good for the horses.

[swedge]

Well I have now seen 3 of the four eat from the feeding station It actually could have been all 4 but the 2 with appendages are almost identical at this point.

They seem to be settling in nicely to the new tank.

Thanks for all the support and advice, I'll keep you all posted.

[Fredfish]

Excellent.

Fred

[swedge]

Here are some more pics. A couple of the feeding station and a better one of my Yellow Erectus. All 4 are now feeding well on the full Hikari Mysis. Kind of funny to see because it completely fills their snout and needs a couple of swallows to go down :D

http://www.turnervet.com/aquarium/pics/feedingstation2.JPG

http://www.turnervet.com/aquarium/pics/feedingstation.JPG

http://www.turnervet.com/aquarium/pics/yellow.JPG

[Susied]

Great news!