Mini the seahorse has been with us for about two weeks and she is feeding and growing. While the other seahorses will take fresh dead ghost shrimp, mini is the only seahorse that will readily take frozen. Since she lives in her own tank inside the main take, we clean out the tank before each feeding. She has learned when her tank water is changed it’s time to eat. Sometimes we feed her freshly hatched baby brine or a seafood cocktail of frozen phytoplankton, rotifers, cyclopeezes, baby brine and vitamins.
Day 3: Since we only had the seahorse tank for a few weeks, we where a bit worried about Mini and if she would make it. We monitored her most of the day and checked up on her during the night. At this point she has mostly white with a little bit of green coloration.
Day 4: We picked up some green micro algae and put it in her tank. A dwarf seahorse really needs to feel secure, since they are so small. And we wanted to make sure Mini felt like she was in a home and not a lab.
Day 5: Mini seemed much happier, swimming around chasing baby brine. Not that she had to chase them but she would move around the tank snapping up the little dots.
Day 7: We finally found the super macro feature on our camera. This is really the first time we could see mini in full detail. When we got Mini she was a little over a 1/2 inch or 15mm long from head to the tip of her tail, so just by looking at her we could not really see much detail.
Day 11: Mini started to show her greenish color and remained very active for a dwarf seahorse. Most dwarf seahorses will usually just sit one spot and they rarely hunt or travel outside of their perch.
Day 14: Mini now is starting to show a darker green with a light colored stripes. She has grown to about 3/4 of an inch or 20mm. Feeding her is very easy (from what I have read this is rare). She now only has one tank mate and baby pipe fish. The other baby pipe fish escaped 4 times and is now living in the a small patch of sea grass.
In the future we may build a larger dwarf seahorse tank and mount it in the main tank. We will go to catch more ghost shrimp in a few days, who knows we may find a Mickey for Mini.
