Feeding:

Feeding: .. The key to keeping seahorses alive and heathy seems to be feeding them properly. Which is about what keeping any pet really is. Once you can keep the basic aquarium properly you must turn your efforts to feeding them. .

Fortunately the Ocean Rider seahorses (which most people abreviate OR or OR-s) are far easier to feed then then wild caught seahorses. Most are trained to eat frozen mysis (see the side bar) and will even eat it from the floor of the tank. We have also heard that they will eat pieces of silversides (a type of feeder fish used in marine aquariums). They will also take live foods; including Brine Shrimp and certain types of red shrimps. Ofcourse baby fish. But the breeders of the OR horses tell us to only feed them monthy , as a treat.

the Dwarf seahorse on the other hand eat newly hatched brine shimp. Brine shrimp are catorgized in sizes. New hatched brine shrimp are know ans Instar1 and still have their yolk sack. They are generally considered the best for baby dwarfs, and really for all dwarfs. As the baby shimp grow they become what is called Instar2 (up to 8 i think) and essencially begin to eat. If you can feed your brine shimp then you can enrich it as they call it and feed that to your larger dwarf seahorses. Enriching involes puting some vitimines (or even algae ) in the water and having the shrimp eat it. You need to leave the instar-2 sized baby brine shrimp in the enrichment water atleast 12 hours. If your using algae then keeping them in it until fed - as long as you can keep the water quality acceptable- is probably best. (i use a sponge filter ) .

There is an article about feeding brine shrimp , a link is provided in the 'links' section. There is also a link to a source of live food for the wild caught. You can enrich or buy enriched brine shrimp.