Courting Seahorses

I was up in Seahorse Ireland on the weekend and was trying to photograph some seahorses, no easy task with the thickness of the glass in their tank. I would have got no decent shots except for my lighting technician Platty252 Many thanks.

When finished taking photos I shot about 6 minutes of video. When we had packed all the gear away and were ready to leave the female started laying eggs into the pouch of the male, we frantically tried to get the cameras out again, but of course we were too late. Still you can see the pair courting away here and the size of the males pouch. Watch out for the tiny baby seahorse.



I could see myself tempted into a marine aquarium just for seahorses they are the most fantastic looking creatures and have a fascinating lifestyle and reproduction method. Anyway enjoy the video.


Daragh

Hi Daragh,
well done as usual.Thanks for sharing.Regards,Tim

as usual Daragh cracking vid

Very, very cool. They are amazing creatures, thanks for sharing.

Jay

Have been reading up on these guys all evening, very tempted to get some - but that would be marine!! Always swore I would stick to freshwater. IT would be an exception though, just for these guys and a few inverts. Freshwater stays.

Daragh

i could be totally wrong but i think i read somewhere about a recently discovered freshwater species of sea horse . Problem solved .

Would you believe, there is a population of seahorses in the Thames!!





Daragh

to quote the ad "should have gone to specsavers"
and hate to argue with you john but water quality in the thames has improved vastly in the last few years since you left the home country... what were you washing over there?????? see whats happened since you stopped thamesweb.com/topic.php?topic_name=Water%20Quality:P

JohnH wrote:

I was up in Seahorse Ireland on the weekend and was trying to photograph some seahorses, no easy task with the thickness of the glass in their tank. I would have got no decent shots except for my lighting technician Platty252 Many thanks.

When finished taking photos I shot about 6 minutes of video. When we had packed all the gear away and were ready to leave the female started laying eggs into the pouch of the male, we frantically tried to get the cameras out again, but of course we were too late. Still you can see the pair courting away here and the size of the males pouch. Watch out for the tiny baby seahorse.

I've looked and looked but have yet to see it.

John

It makes a brief appearance between 0:59 and 1:05, there were several in the tank, but so small and very hard to focus on.


Daragh

Brilliant vid:)
thank you Darragh

Thanks Darragh
really good footage...

Lar

Daragh_Owens wrote:

I would have got no decent shots except for my lighting technician Platty252

When finished taking photos I shot about 6 minutes of video. When we had packed all the gear away and were ready to leave the female started laying eggs into the pouch of the male, we frantically tried to get the cameras out again, but of course we were too late. Still you can see the pair courting away here and the size of the males pouch. Watch out for the tiny baby seahorse.Daragh

Before taking on the task of lighting technician i didn't realise the only words i would be allow utter were "do you take milk and sugar"

I managed to get a quick photo with my pocket camera just as they finished bumping uglies.


@ John.
Here is a link to a photo of one of the young. I have a terrible pocket camera so it is out of focus.
s11.photobucket.com/albums/a171/platty25...ent=babyseahorse.jpg

nice video as always daragh. they really are lovely little creatures.
they dont seem to be fish at all, i always think of seahorses as animals (mini mammals).

Very nice video Daragh.
Regards,Tim

Daragh_Owens wrote:

I was up in Seahorse Ireland on the weekend and was trying to photograph some seahorses, no easy task with the thickness of the glass in their tank. I would have got no decent shots except for my lighting technician Platty252 Many thanks.

When finished taking photos I shot about 6 minutes of video. When we had packed all the gear away and were ready to leave the female started laying eggs into the pouch of the male, we frantically tried to get the cameras out again, but of course we were too late. Still you can see the pair courting away here and the size of the males pouch. Watch out for the tiny baby seahorse.

I could see myself tempted into a marine aquarium just for seahorses they are the most fantastic looking creatures and have a fascinating lifestyle and reproduction method. Anyway enjoy the video.


Daragh

maybe i dont understand correctly,
but that seahorse is heavy pregnant and i would think the baby we see is his newborn, if you had of waited a few more hours you would of getting footage of the splurts of babies (about 50 a go)that pouch would have shot out about 250-350 little ponies withinn the next six hours. mine used to pop 3-6 ponies out between 3pm-6pm,i used to change dad to a new tank. the next morning the tank would be full to the brim with ponies.
great footage by the way;)

Platty252, my apologies when crediting you as lighting technical I forgot that you were also catering assistant Good job on both counts. Great photo bte, I didn't hink you had got that

Reefpaddy, the ponies, great name, where not from that pair there were other seahorses in the same tank, the fat male featured most often was full of eggs at that stage, we saw, but did not film, though Platty252 came close to photographing the female laying the eggs into the males pouch. Did you raise your ponies? How deep was the tank and which type of seahorse did you keep - all questions a 100% freshwater person should not be asking, it may lead me to embracing the world of salties. Oh dear God I can here my wallets crying.....




Daragh

hi daragh,
one of the best project i ever tied although not very succesfully, i had a 350l 4ft tank, at one stage i had 9 seahorse red, black , orange and yellow mostly redi but 1-2 babouri. once you meet their needs , its impossible to stop them breding (searabbits:laugh: ) i used to call it pony porn.


i basically had very little lr, a good cleaning crew, a few harmless corals, clean water and a few types of macro algaqe. once the horses start their courting routine which usually happens first thing in the mornig and last thing at night. they basically do a lap of the tank together and dance around each other. only lasts about 15mins, but brilliant to watch, then 26-30 days later, you have life. its keeping them alive is the hard part.

i lost my first batch of ponies fairly quickly, but i knew what to look out for next time around(or so i thought).30 days later i had about 200 but this time i had persuaded the misses to let me get a 90l d-d nano to breed the ponies, but yet failed again the tank wasnt fully cycled.
i didnt have 2 much look after this either, i got one batch to about 6 weeks, which 2 surrvived and i know of one which is still alive and doing well all the rest disasters. after about 6 months and thousands of dead ponies, i had to give it up as all the death just felt wrong. my main problem was time or lack of. sourcing food and water quality would not have been a problem if i had more time on my hands. i will start it up again eventually , but only when i can fully commit to the project.

i think every fish keeper should give marine ago, no matter what scale its on ie. 2 clownfish and a cleaning crew
.you can keep it affordable if you try.
cheers
paddy

I totally want to get into marine, nothin compares to it really. Even with no fish in the tank with the corals growing and all the life that comes out of the live rock. Money is the main hinderance, but when i find that leprachaun i will buy meself a little nano tank with live rock, some corals and maybe a few shrimp and booyaa a little bit of the ocean in the gaff, oh i cant wait, then BANG!!! back to reality, anyway just a dream........

Thanks for the information Paddyreef. I am sure that losing all those little lads was heartbreaking but great to know that you got that far anyway. I think I will have to do a bit of reading and give a marine tank a go.


Daragh