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My New Quest for the Holy Grail of Pods; Acartia Tonsa
Topic Started: May 27 2010, 08:13:56 AM (1,545 Views)
Post #1 May 27 2010, 08:13:56 AM Suzy
I need these. I want these. I must have these!

I read about the wonders of their nutritional aspects on seahorse scholar articles. Really, captive bred seahorses are weak, susceptible to everything from gas bubble disease to vibrio (a bacteria that is every where in the ocean! with many different species!) to snout rot to having their tails fall off. But, the theory that the reason these are so weak is the food they are fed when they are first born: newly hatched artemia. Todd Gardner, a curator at the Atlantis Marine World Aquarium has written a thesis on seahorse nutrition, and his experiments and research led to feeding pods as a first food for seahorse fry. We only have to feed them for the first little bit, then move them on to artemia, but his research had much better success if the fry got pods the first 4 days. After that, results were similar if he fed artemia or pods. But, the pods I can grow are too big, and are benthic (stay on the glass most of their life) and have the wrong motion to entice feeding.

Enter the Holy Grail of Pods: Acartia Tonsa. Smaller than Tigriopus californiicus (Tigger Pods!), this calanoid species spends their entire lifespan swimming pelagically though the water column, smoothly not jerkily. Easily snicked by new born fry, this species can provide that strong nutrition I need for my tiny newborn syngnathids.

I believe this species is marketed by Algagen as "ReefPods". Has anyone here tried them? Successes or failures?
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Seahorse Whisperer
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Post #2 May 27 2010, 08:24:27 AM Suzy
Here they are at Algagen.
http://www.algagen.com/a/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=shop.flypage&product_id=17&category_id=7&manufacturer_id=0&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=34

And, this may be problematic for me. It seems A tonsa like to eat rotifers, but my rotifers have many T californiicus mixed in. If I feed rots, they will get big pods which will over take the small?

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T8F-48882JD-G&_user=10&_coverDate=08%2F20%2F1987&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1350501506&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=99a83dbfb87d3c26d020066d9d406f4d
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Seahorse Whisperer
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Post #3 May 27 2010, 08:26:58 AM Amie
They are working with these over on MOFIB with success feeding them Nanno and Iso, I think. There's a thread going over there that I really think you would be interested in. It's in the research section and Luis started it.
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Post #4 May 27 2010, 08:27:42 AM Suzy
I will check it out, as soon as I get my login!
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