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I am particularly curious about the level of the water column they seem to prefer. Most of mine seem to like to hitch close to the substrate. They spend most of their time lazing about the bottom. They sort of scoot or slide along the substrate with their tail stretched straight out behind them or curled a bit. They can and do swim, some more than others. 2 swim quite a bit. They also court close to the bottom. I have not yet observed an egg transfer. Is this bottom dwelling behavior considered normal for this species? Can any of you with experience with the species share your experiences with them please. Any additional info about the species would also be greatly appreciated.
From Neil Garrick-Maidment, Director, The Seahorse Trust They are (H.capensis) are an amazing Seahorse.I kept them for some time and bred thousands of them, in fact the ones you have are probably decendants of them. Like you say they are intriguing as they tend to live on the bottom most of the time and the young in particular drop like stones when they are born and hold on from day one. If there is a Seahorse that is suitable as a first time one then it has to be the Knynsa Seahorse (Hippocampus capensis). The brilliant thing about them, in the wild they naturally feed on non-motile food so it makes them a god send for training onto dead food and the young do really well on newly artemia, without enrichment. They come from the Knysna and Kuerbon lagoons in South Africa and due to the seasonal flooding in that region it means that they can cope with a wide range of salinities including I am told freshwater for a very short length of time (personally I wouldnt try this). They can also cope with a wide range of temperatures as well. A few years back I had an outbreak of vibrio and stopped in its tracks by dropping their temperature down to 16 degrees rapidly and then slowly raised it back up to 20 over the next couple of months and they coped incredibly well with this. They were the first Seahorse to be listed on the South African red data list as ironically for an animal that breeds so well they are down to just a few hundred in the wild. The ground dwelling behaviour is perfectly normal for them, in fact many people are disappointed when they spend all their time on the bottom, having said this a tank of a minimum of 15 to 18 inches is better for egg swapping. apart from the two british Species Knysna seahorses have got to be my favourite. |
