The Dwarf Seahorse
By Chris Noonan
One of the most enchanting of all marine animals is the seahorse. The seahorse is very easy to care for as long as you can tend to their food requirements. Since most people believe that the seahorse could live on frozen brine shrimp, (which does not provide the seahorse with any nutrition) the seahorse will suffer and die. Because of this, most people [ want to ] know how to care for these beautiful creatures correctly. In the next few paragraphs I will be explaining the dwarf seahorse.
The dwarf seahorse reaches a maximum size of 2 inches. Since they are so small, they should be kept in an aquarium under 10 gallons. You could keep as many as 2 dozen in a 2 gallon, 75 dwarfs in a 10 gallon, and up to 200 in a 20 gallon! As long as you can provide hitching posts to their tank, the seahorses will do fine! A hitching post is a seahorse tree, plastic plant, live plant or even coral that the seahorse could grab it's tail onto. In the wild the seahorse will wrap it's tail around coral or a live plant. The reason for this is because the current is so strong and they would be tossed around without their hitching post. Even if you don't have any water movement in your aquarium, the seahorse will still attach it's self to the hitching post to relax and take a break from swimming.
You should have proper filtration in your dwarf tank, but if you're planning on raising the fry right in the tank you will need to buy a sponge that will cover the intake of the filter. I have a 30 gallon, which is currently housing 22 dwarf seahorses. It is filtered by a biowheel. When I got the dwarfs, I had the filter on. One dwarf seahorses was swimming by the intake of the filter and suddenly got his tail sucked into the intake of the filter. Now, I have the sponge over the intake and the babies don't even get sucked up. Any replacement sponge from a sponge filter will do.
Feeding the dwarf seahorse is the reason they are so easy. All the dwarf seahorses, and it's fry eat is baby brine shrimp. To hatch brine shrimp, all you need is brine shrimp eggs, an aquarium (freshwater or saltwater) that is heated, a two liter bottle that has the bottom half cut off, an air pump, an air line hose, clothes-pins, a flashlight, and aquarium salt for saltwater tanks. If you already have a saltwater tank, just fill the soda bottle with the water from that tank. Take the bottle and fill it with saltwater. Then close-pin the bottle to the inside of a tank, that has heat. The tank can either be freshwater or saltwater as long as it has heat. We are only using it to heat the water inside the bottle. Then take the air-line hose and clothes-pin it to the inside of the bottle. Connect the hose to the air pump and plug it in. Add the brine shrimp eggs to the bottle. In about 18-24 hours you will have baby brine shrimp in your bottle. Shut the pump off and let the water settle. In about 10 minutes shine a flashlight to the bottom of the bottle where the air-line hose should be. Take the end that was connected to the air pump and siphon the brine shrimp out into a jar. When you are ready, shut off the filter in your seahorse tank and dump the jar into the aquarium. Keep the filter off for about 1 hour. The seahorses should have food in the tank for most of the day. If you are planning on going away for the weekend, just sprinkle some brine shrimp eggs in the seahorse tank so they could eat for most of the day. If you are planning on doing this while you are away, your should get a timer for the filter so that the filter will shut off around 11 o'clock in the morning, then turn back on at around 4 o'clock in the afternoon. When feeding your seahorses, one thing you should keep in mind is the fact that it is better to feed several small feedings then one large feeding.
When keeping your dwarfs, you will want to get a few tank-mates for your seahorses. Only a other kinds of fish can be kept with dwarfs. Pipefish, small hermit crabs, snails, and a few select blennies. If you plan on keeping your dwarf babies in the tank with the adults, then you should only keep snails. All of the other tank-mates will mistaken the babies for food. You could also keep horseshoe crabs with your seahorses, and their babies. The reason that I stay away from horseshoe crabs is because they don't live more then a few weeks in captivity because they live in colder temperatures. Even colder then the mid 60's which the dwarfs live in.
Once your seahorses get established to the tank, you will notice that your seahorses will start the breed during the day. Usually, one of the males will swim over to a female and turn a very bright color. After swimming past her a few times, he will wrap his tail around the female's tail. Then the male will begin quivering with excitement. If she wants to mate with him, then she will pull the male towards the top of the aquarium. By this time, the male is shaking back and forth because he is so excited. Shortly after floating to the top, their stomachs will being to face each other. The male will open his pouch, and the female will insert her eggs into his pouch. Now, it doesn't always happen like that. Just the other day one of my male dwarf seahorses was giving birth, and one of my females floated to the top of the water. About 4 males floated up with her and they all opened their pouch. She picked one special male to breed with. Now, his pouch is huge. After breeding with him, she still had some eggs left so she went to another male and inserted more eggs in his pouch.
Everytime I sit down to watch my seahorses, I notice something new. I could sit and watch these beautiful creatures for hours. They are the coolest marine fish that I have ever kept, and I hope you could enjoy them as much as I do.
Chris Noonan -The Seahorse Aquarium
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