Breeding Journal, Species: Hippocampus comes (Tiger Tail Seahorse)

General
Species: Hippocampus comes                 
Social Structure:  M/F Pair
Size of Individuals:  5"
Age of Individuals:  Estimated to be about a year
Date added to Tank:  Fall of 2012

Broodstock Tank Details
Size of Tank:  20gallon High
Substrate Details:  None
Filtration Details:  HOB Filter
Water Changes:  Once a month
Water Temperature:  74F
Lighting:  13W Compact Fluorescent
Lighting Cycle:  14 on, 10 off
Other Tank Inhabitants:  Peppermint Shrimp

Broodstock Feeding Details
Food Types:   frozen mysis shrimp. Supplimentary - live amphipods, frozen krill, enriched live brine shrimp 
Feeding Schedule:   2x daily most days, occassionally 3x daily (She usually feeds other items as supplimentary feeding, and still does mysis twice a day)

Spawning Details
Date of First Spawn:  Unknown
Spawn Time of Day:  Not witnessed, likely midafternoon based on when the pregnancy was recorded
Dates of Consecutive Spawns:  Every 20 days
Courtship Details:  Not witnessed
Egg Size:  Unknown
Egg Color: Unknown
Egg Count:  Unknown
Hatch Details
Hatch Date:  4-19-2013
Hatch Time of Day: 
# Days after Spawn: 
Larvae Description:  Miniature seahorses
Consecutive Hatch Dates:     


Larval Tank Details
Temperature:  Room temperature, Usually between 70 and 78 depending on house temps
Size of Larval Tank:  ~3 gallons, orb  fish bowl
Substrate Details:  None
Other Tank Decor:  None
Filtration Details:  Live phytoplankton
Lighting:  Ambient lighting from a southern facing window, supplemented by a 2-bulb fluorescent strip light that is pointed away from the fish bowl.  There is also a light in a nearby culture station that stays on 24/7, so the larval bowl receives constant light technically (although quite dim at night)
Lighting Cycle:  Sunrise to about 9 PM
Water Changes:  100% every 5 to 7 days

Larval Feeding Details
Food Types:  Euterpina acutifrons, nhbbs, Apocyclops panamensis
Feeding Schedule:  Constant

Metamorphosis/Settlement
Date of Settlement Start:  4/26/2013 (This is when hitching was first noted, which I guess is what I will consider "settlement" here)
Days after Hatch:  7 days
Date of Settlement End:  5/3/2013
Description of Fry:  Same as at hatch (fully formed seahorse), more coloration, and hitching behavior

Grow-Out Tank Details
Temperature:  Room temperature, varies from 68-80+ F
Size of Grow-Out Tank:  5 gallons
Substrate Details:  None
Other Tank Decor:  Hitching mesh
Filtration Details:  None initially, then a sponge filter 
Lighting:  Compact fluorescent bulb
Lighting Cycle:  6 am to 9 pm
Water Changes:  100% every 5-7 days
Size at Transfer:  ~1 inch nose to tail
Age at Transfer:  ~ 6 weeks

Grow-Out Feeding Details
Food Types:  enriched bbs, nhbbs, Apocyclops 
Feeding Schedule:  Nearly constant

Additional Information

(No Pictures or Videos in the Section Please)
Miscellaneous Information: 
I was given these guys in the evening on the day they were born to try my hand with from a fellow breeder (Thanks!)  These are actually my first seahorses, so I really don't know what I am doing but have had some spectacular advice and guidance from Tami.  I wanted to create a journal since there isn't a lot on MBI about H. comes 


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The larval fishbowl:

 
Brand new babies:

 
The Euterpina copepods are being cultured on Tetraselmis, Chaetoceros and Isochrysis.  I add phyto to the larval container as needed to keep it slightly colored, and use whatever I have handy at the moment.  I dilute out phyto with partial water changes as needed also.  The main copepods used so far is Euterpina, but I have used Apocylcops a couple times when I needed more pods and the Euterpina weren't ready for harvest.
 
I have a log of what I have done so far at home and will fill more of this in later...

Yay! I love these. In fact, my avatar is H. comes. I never managed to get any through. The theory was that the male might have contaminated the babies with a disease in the pouch.
 
Good luck with them!

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Very cool!  I love the fishbowl technique.  It looks like you don't have very many fry in there, which is a good thing.  Too great a fry density and you get ammonia problems.  I'd suggest feeding only coepeods and avoiding the NHBBS whenever possible.

Good luck with them!

Okay, here is a brief summary so far:
April 19th I picked up about 40 fry around 9 PM. I acclimated them and added some tetraselmis and euterpina.

April 20th: there are floaters, there are sinkers and there are swimmers. The floaters are swooshed back down in to the water column every time I am near the bowl.

April 21st: partial water change, 4 L or so, to remove some of the phyto since it was too green

April 23rd: complete water change. Fry caught with a net and place in a water pitcher while the fish bowl was emptied and cleaned/wiped with hot water.

I believe I counted 42 at that time. I found one dead at this time (a partial body was found. Others may have died but I never found their bodies). New water was put in, tetraselmis and isochrysis and euterpina were added. About half are sinkers and just sort of lay on the bottom. Tami said it could be due to this being the male's second pregnancy and the fry may just be weak.

April 26th: removed a few more dead. Occasionally I see one whack its head with its tail. I have read this is due to ammonia. I need to get some ammonia neutralizer. The hitching net thing was put in and a couple hitched for the first time for a little bit. It was not consistent.

April 27th: removed about 5 dead and did a partial water change, about 6 L. Added apocyclops and a few bbs. Snicking of bbs was noted.

April 28th: More hitching for much longer periods of time!

April 29th: complete water change. Apocyclops added in addition to bbs, chaetoceros and tetraselmis.

There are definitely fewer, but they seem more yellow. There are fewer sinkers and floaters. Those were likely the ones that had died.

@Andy: Thanks!
@Jim: the fry density is more dumb luck. Tami gave me about half of the hatch, so that was the density Ideally I would only feed pods, but sometimes I don't have enough or they aren't ready.

I had noticed that when the food density has been low they don't hitch as much. I feed the bbs only when needed, usually every other day or so. I don't feed them right after hatch usually (I don't have great timing to get very many right after they hatch) and I enrich them for 2 to 12 hours with nanno, tet, iso, and chaetoceros (usually a combination of at least two kinds of phyto) and S.E.L.C.O. Boost.

Some pictures from today (5-3-2013), they are so cute!:
In the fish bowl, it's hard to get good pictures because of the curved surface:


A fry in a glass for better pics:


And with a ruler:

Looks to be just over 1.5cm today. I only measured the one, so I can't say how that fits in to the range if sizes. The bigger/healthier ones look twice as big as the smaller, weaker ones. Not twice as long, just much bigger or have more girth.

Did a full water change and bowl wipe-down last night (5.6.2013).  This gave me the opportunity to count them again, and there are 26.  Some of them are drifters, so I don't expect them to make it through the day today....I would say probably  4, maybe 5 of them.  The food density got pretty low the last day and a half (copepods not as strong as I would like and waiting for bbs to hatch) so I am guessing the weaker ones are being out competed.  They got some enriched brine shrimp yesterday evening and again this morning.
 
A picture from this morning before I added more phyto:

 
They are definitely hitching more and more

Yours look good. Mine grew quite slowly and I never got that many hitched.
 
What do you suppose causes the drifters? Bad nutrition? Gas bubbles? Or just weak and about to die? They always broke my heart....

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Early on, the drifters just seemed like the weak ones in general.  They never ate well even when there were tons of pods in there and looked almost clear, never really having a lot of color. 
 
At this point, I think the drifters are the ones that are just outcompeted for food when the densities get low.  At least, so it seems.  Keep in mind I don't have much (any, really) seahorse experience so....
 
They seem to be growing SO slowly, but then every few days I think, WOW they look HUGE compared to how they looked two days ago!   I think I will start trying to take a measurement photo of a couple every week to get an actual measurement on the growth rate.
 
Andy, how long did yours make it?  I keep expecting to get home and find them all dead.  Seahorses seem so delicate.  They sort of terrify me.

Hitching is good!  They are looking nice and strong.  Excellent full bellies.  Good luck with them!

I think my runs lasted to about a month, but it's been several years and it's hard to remember. I got my pair back when the ocean-raised seahorses were just coming on the market and there were essentially no captive-bred H. comes in N. America.
 
I certainly had hitchers (some as early as the first few days) but never that many at once. And I don't think I ever used copepods (I just didn't have any yet) so it makes sense that yours would be larger. Honestly, your babies look great to me.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Measured a couple today gain. I took one that seemed to be on the smaller side and one on the larger side of the fry that were cruising around.

The smaller one:

Its tail is a bit curled in the pic, but it isn't much larger than a centimeter, perhaps 1.5cm stretched out.

The larger one:

This one was cruising around in the cup a lot more so it was even harder to get a pic. It is over 2cm long already

I love your journal, they are sooo cute!  My LFS only ever gets H comes, and I thought they were much more difficult to raise than say H erectus, but your journal has inspired me.  Maybe I will pick up a pair next time they come in.

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

So I have been told that H. comes are middle of the road in terms of difficulty. I've had a person who is very knowledgable with seahorses coach me a bit. I think the main, most important thing is to use copepods for the first couple weeks nearly exclusively. After the first week they seemed able to take bbs, but they still only mainly got Euterpina pods. The other thing she stressed was complete water changes to keep bacteria levels low.

I can't say anything about conditioning the adults, since I've never had adult seahorses are the ones at your store captive bred, or are they the net-pen ones?

In Canada is it very difficult to get captive bred seahorses.  I know of a breeder who has kuda, and I know of an LFS on the other side of the country that imports captive bred erectus from Seahorse Source.  That's about it.  The comes are net pen ponies from Vietnam if I remember correctly.  I also have a hard time finding copepods other than Tigger Pods.  I'm hoping I have a line on Tisbe that will pan out soon here.

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

Yesterday (5-12-2013) I was given about 60 more H. comes babies. They were born on 5-11. They were originally put in a 1 gallon plastic fish bowl, but because it wasn't the orb bowl I used last time I wasn't able to replicate the flow and they all kept collecting on the bottom. Since the older ones are fewer in number and now are far more mobile, I decided to switch the bowls today during Attempt#1's weekly water change.

So now the several week old ones, ~20 or so, are in the 1 gallon bowl and just got a 100% water change and some more bbs. I set some bbs aside to grow a bit so I can start feeding them larger prey items. They had a bunch of apocyclops in with them the last couple days (the most recent bbs hatch took longer than usual for some reason) but weren't interested in them. I think they are ready for larger prey

The couple day old ones now how the 3-4 gallon orb bowl and they are kept in motion much more easily in there. I have found a few dead ones already and this brood seems to do a lot more tail grabbing of each other than the first batch. I had a hitching station in with them today for a bit because they seemed to be doing so much tail grabbing, but none were interested so I removed it. They have been fed euterpina pods and the water has been tinted with tetraselmis and isochrysis.

Here's a pic of two of the new batch in a glass cup, with one cruising over the ruler (cm) so you can get an idea of the size:


Compared to the other ones they seem so tiny! It's hard to believe my older ones were ever even this small since I keep thinking they haven't grown at all lol

This morning I looked at the fish bowl with the older H.comes (nearly four weeks old) and every single one of them was hitching! That was the first time they all were at the same time  Then I fed them and many went back into the water column to chow down on some several day old, enriched bbs

Excellent news.  Keep up the good work!

Yesterday we had a random, very hot day.  My house got up to 84 and it wiped out nearly all the younger seahorses :/  The older ones seem to have fared much better, but I only have a handful of the younger ones.  It has cooled back off and will remain cooler for at least the next week, but it may be time to move some of the cultures and the seahorses to the basement for the summer.

So, the younger batch is completely gone.  After the majority of them were wiped out, I did not give that batch a lot of attention and the last one died several days ago.  
 
The numbers of the older ones has dwindled. Yesterday (and today) are some random hot days again, and I think having them in the small 1 gallon fish bowl with a fair amount of bbs is causing issues.  The bowl is also located in my culture station, so it does receive natural sunlight and probably heats up too much.  Last night I moved them into a 2.5 gallon tank away from the culture station window, so hopefully they won't get too warm.  The larger water volume will hopefully help also.  I believe I have 15 or so left and they are eating slightly larger bbs (several days to a week old...although they may be able to eat larger ones as well).  I have tried a small amount of ova with them, but didn't see much interest and due to the fact they were in a 1 gallon tank with no filtration, I was hesitant to try more/again.  
Some of them are starting to get cool patterns (the larger, more robust ones) where the brown seems a little mottled, and the smaller ones still have a yellowish, light brown, clearish look to them.
 
Here are a couple that are starting to get the mottled patterning.

It's been a bit since I updated.  I have 8 that are going strong.  Not a great number, but all things considered (like these being my first seahorses!), I am pretty pleased. Here are some pics taken yesterday:


Sorry about the reflection of my hand and the phone in the second pic.  The position of the lights keep me from getting good pics with no reflections.  Right now they are in a yellow coloration phase, with the exception of one that tends to remain a bit more brown.  And they are adorable!
 
They are mainly eating bbs and enriched bbs.  They would eat partially grown also at this point, but I have been forgetting to save some and set them aside to grow a bit.  I will need to start doing that again.
 
And they are over 60 days post settlement Hooray!

Congratulations. They are beautiful.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

 
Thanks! They are so cute I can hardly stand it.
 
I did have the smallest one die.  I think it was because I got a bit lazy with water quality and bacteria likely became an issue (their tank has been rather warm).  So, 7 left.
 
This morning I fed them and took a quick peek to do an attendance count and some are starting to show the "tiger tail" striping!  

It's not the best picture, but you can see the tail of the one on the bottom and it is starting to show some nice striping.

Very nice work.  Keep it up!

Pictures of the parents!
Female: 

Male:

 

It's long overdue, but I finally started working on weaning these guys onto frozen foods.  A few of them have started to snick at frozen, spirulina enriched brine shrimp.  It's funny because they stare at a piece for quite some time and it's like you can almost hear them debating whether or not to eat it.  And then finally SNICK!  Maybe they will start growing more once they are on frozen because they are still quite small.  It doesn't surprise me since they mainly have only been fed nhbbs and enriched bbs.  So, hopefully they will take to the brine and then go onto mysis.

Good luck! I'm rooting for you.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886