How to Raise Sea Horses

The beautiful little tropical sea creatures, known as sea horses, capture the attention of all who encounter them. Their shape is not the only odd thing about them. The male of the species carries the females eggs in his pouch until they are born. Seahorses can have up to 500 babies (ponies) at a time. They can be kept and bred in captivity and their life expectancy is about two years. You'll find learning to raise seahorses fun and easy and soon will turn into a passion.

Things You'll Need

• Salt Water Aquarium Kit
• Bubble Wand
• Coral
• Aquarium Vegetation
• Frozen Brine Shrimp

Instructions

1. Prepare your aquarium. Have the aquarium ready before you bring home your seahorses. This tank must be for seahorses only. Unlike with fish, you do not need to place gravel in the bottom of the aquarium. They do, however, need coral and artificial plants that they can hide in and wrap their tails around. Put in a bubble wand; seahorses love bubbles. Make sure you get a saltwater aquarium set as it will have the chemical salts to treat your water, a heater and an instruction book on how to set it up for your seahorses.

2. Buy your seahorses. Get only captive-bred seahorses. They are healthier, more disease resistant and much more sturdy. Only very experienced seahorse breeders should attempt to raise wild seahorses. If you are buying your seahorses at a pet store, ask them to feed them while you are there. Healthy seahorses will eat the food put in the tank. Also check their eyes for cloudiness as this is a sign they could be sick. Try to get seahorses that have been raised on frozen food and start out with just two seahorses until you are sure you want to raise them.

3. Put your seahorses in the tank. Try not to put any water from the pet store in the tank with them. Turn the lights out or keep the lighting low for a couple of hours to relieve the stress on the seahorses. After their first day in the tank, you will need to turn the lights off at night so they can sleep and breed.

4. Feed your seahorses once a day. You can buy a frozen mix for them with the main source being brine shrimp. As often as you can, feed them live brine shrimp. They actually prefer their food alive, but it is more practical to use the frozen. This is why when you buy them you want to make sure they have eaten frozen food while they were being raised.

5. Change out about 10 percent of the water monthly. Carefully scoop out the water making sure you don't scoop up any of the seahorses and mix up a new batch to put in. This will keep the water clean, but not be a shock for the seahorses.

Tips & Warnings

• As with raising any pet, you should buy a book on the subject and learn all you can about raising your specific pet.

Resources

• Resource on Buying and Raising Seahorses