reefs_com-feed | FusedJaw: Seahorses, Pipefish & Seadragons

A Modern Guide to Buying Seahorses

Tami Weiss — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 20:54:46 +0000

Choosing the right seahorse is imperative if you want to ensure you’ll be successful with seahorses.

Are you considering purchasing seahorses but are unsure of where to start or afraid they are too difficult? Seahorses do need a specialized setup, but are not nearly as hard to keep as they once were. Advances in breeding have given us seahorses that are fully adapted to life in the aquarium. This buying guide covers what every aquarist needs to know about purchasing healthy seahorses before making that leap.

Seahorses should reach sexual maturity before purchasing (3”-5”)

Mature doesn’t necessarily mean full grown, just to the age and size where sex is visually determined. In most commercially available species, that’s between 3”-5” (roughly 7.5cm – 13cm) uncurled, which is from the top of the head to the tip of their tail. Many overseas farms and novice breeders sell their seahorses far too young. Most fish stores don’t really know enough about seahorses to avoid. . .

New Giant Seahorses Discovered; Under-explored Islands Home to Mythological Colossal Seahorses

Tami Weiss — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:22:00 +0000

Happy April Fool’s Day, Everyone!

Marine biologist Dr. Laura Saury, a member of the University of British Columbia-based Seahorse Project marine conservation team, has identified the world’s largest known species of seahorse. Topping out at around 7 feet in length, the Colossal Seahorses are straight out of greek mythology.

“They’re absolutely stunning,” said Dr. Laura Saury “And they’ve been under our nose the entire time.” Adults of the new seahorse species known as Hippocampus vernumiocus, grow over 2 meters in length. “We’ve heard about them for years, but assumed it was just myths and exaggerations. Some seahorses grow to over 30 centemeters, and flutemouths [a distant, snake like relative to the seahorse] get up to 2 meters, so it was easy for us to dismiss as a mixture of confusion and fairy tale.”

The Colossal Seahorse stands on the shoulders of giants before it thought to be the creation of human imagination. Both the Giant and Colossal Squid were. . .

Not-So-True Facts About The Seahorse

Tami Weiss — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 19:41:32 +0000

Original photo by Klaus Stiefel

Ze Frank just did a wonderfully funny video “True Facts About The Seahorse”. I love the True Facts videos he’s been doing; especially since they’re mostly true.

Mostly.

(Seriously, watch this; it’s some funny stuff.)

As good as the video is, there are some things as a seahorse enthusiast I know are flat out wrong, and my obnoxiously pedantic side won’t let it be. I don’t blame Ze Frank; there is just some bad information about seahorses floating around the internet. People want to believe some crazy things about seahorses because so many things about a seahorse are ridiculous and unbelievable, why not one more?

So let’s look at a few of these not-so-true facts and maybe they’ll stop getting passed around online once and for all. (I’m looking at all you iseahorses.com!)

1) Seahorses eat 3000 brine shrimp a day.

Well no, not really. Seahorses would never encounter brine shrimp (Artemia spp.) in the wild as brine shrimp come from. . .

Year in Review: Seahorses 2012

Tami Weiss — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:57:46 +0000

Yellow seahorse from Lembeh Strait, Indonesia

As the new year looms, I wanted to take a moment to reflect back on the news and research about seahorses and their relatives over the past year. Much has happened, and as interest in these strange fish continues to grow, we can expect many more exciting developments on the horizon. There is more to report than I could possibly include in one article, but here are some of the highlights.

Ebay EU Bans Seahorses

A big one this year that affected many of people in both good and bad ways was ebay banning the sale of seahorses from their European site. The motive behind it was to stop the illegal sale of seahorses, championed by the Seahorse Trust. However, it also ended up putting an end to legal sales of captive bred seahorses, which in it’s own way hampers conservation efforts by putting a burden on the small breeder. And it unfortunately does nothing for the seahorses being sold on any of the non-eu sites, which many sellers will. . .

Help! My Seahorse Just Had Babies!

Tami Weiss — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 00:26:40 +0000

Or, what to expect when you didn’t know you were expecting.

Seahorses are known for their proclivity of having hundreds of babies when you least expect it. Photo by CARSTEN SCHÖNIJAHN

You just walked by your tank to discover dozens, if not hundreds of tiny seahorses drifting around your aquarium. These miniature copies of the adults caught you off guard, and now you’re not sure what to do. This guide will walk you through what you need to do within the first few hours to try and save the young seahorses.

In the immortal words of Douglas Adams; Don’t Panic!

The absolute first thing you must do is decide if you really want to try to raise these babies. Raising baby seahorses is a time, space, and money consuming task. And there is no guarantee that you’ll be successful; very few seahorse fry survive in the wild. Being unprepared means that you’ll be starting from a disadvantage as well. However, thanks to their yolk sack when born, baby seahorses can go 24 – 48 hours without. . .