Easiest seahorses to breed and rear ?

[Eaval]

Ok so since I could never get my Reidi fry to develop ... whats the easiest species to breed and have a chance at rearing the fry - Kuda???

Thanks

Eaval

[Sailfin]

Hi

If your looking for somethng thats easier to rear then you really want to concentrate on spp which have benthic fry. The more benthic and larger the fry the easier it is. Pot bellied are known to be one of the easiest as they match the above criteria but they are a cool water spp. Fuscus are also relatively easy but difficult to get hold of. If your after an easier trop spp try barbouri, they're benthic and can be fed bbs from birth, the adults can be a bit tricky to settle in but once settled they're no problem. The trick is to get them onto more nutritious food as soon as possible therefore the larger the fry the quicker you can do this. After barbouri you're probably looking at comes, then kuda, then reidi (all pelagic so come with their own problems) in order of least difficulty. There are some kuda hybrids knocking about and their fry are easy to raise but the adults are very suceptable to disease and don't usually last long.

Of course there's always the dwarfs who just spit them out every couple of weeks and you just leave the babies in the tank with the adults. I love them but they are about the most boring marine fish you'll ever own :D

Do you still have the reidi as you don't really want to mix spp if you can help it (although I have done in the past but not for brood stock)

hth a bit

[Eaval]

Thanks Sailfin,

Yes I still have the Reidi (1 mating pair).

I know that its not ideal to keep mixed species together, but if they are of a similar size and both captive bred, I wouldnt have considered it a really big no no ???

I thought that once a pair of seahorses mated, they would stay with that partner and not be tempted by other tank mate ? ;)

[Sailfin]

Hi Eaval

have a look here as I've just responded to a similar post

http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/showthread.php?t=277113