My Dwarfs in 1 Month

[marinebiofreak]

Hello SWF and SW world! I'm planning on getting a 3 gallon picotope aquarium in 1 month and putting a pair of dwarfs in it. No live rock just grasses but I need some advice. Since dwarfs are such an inexpensive breed I figured why not. I'm not a beginner and I've had fish tanks all my life, starting with saltwater about 2 years ago. I have a 300 gallon fish only tank and a 14 gallon biocube with a Clarkii clown and skunk shrimp.
Any advice concerning my dwarfs is welcome!

 

[saxman]

I saw your post in the pipe thread and you kind of need to consider this:

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Zots are pretty lazy little SH and spend most of their time hitched waiting for food to swim by.
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Speaking of food, zots require daily feedings of live food (BBS and/or copepods). They don't ever really train to frozen like larger SH.
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Since these fish require small live food, you'll likely need to culture BBS and/or copepods to keep them fed.
With all the live food in the tank, you'll likely get hydroid blooms, and 'droid stings can kill zots (many folks use a "sterile" setup to mitigate this).
If you get a M-F pair, they will likely breed and crowd-out your 3 gal, so get a same sex pair.
The lifespan of a zot in captivity is about 1.5 to 2 years tops, so, for a special needs fish, you may not want to go there.
So, yes, zots are cute, and relatively cheap to buy, but the cost of ownership in both time and food may not be what your looking for. Oh, and vacations? Since SH lack a true stomach, they must be fed at least once daily, so you'll need to have a "trained" fish sitter come in (they'll have to know how to hatch BBS unless you supply them with bottles of live pods).
I'm not trying to put you off zots, but I do want you to know what you're getting into up front...personally, we don't keep them because it's basically like having a perpetual SH fry tank, and we've "been there, done that, and have several T-shirts".

 

[marinebiofreak]

Ok thanks..... I wish they were easier.... anything else I could put in the tank? any other kind of fish?

 

[saxman]

We've kept tiny mantis shrimp, a juvie angler, and a Eunicid (bobbit) worm (all at different times!) in a 3 gal pico we used to have.

 

[antwon]

This doesn't relate to zots but saxman, where did u get tiny mantis shrimp because I have seen dwarfs on websites but not for sale

 

[saxman]

Quote:
Originally Posted by antwon http:///forum/thread/385986/my-dwarfs-in-1-month#post_3388152
This doesn't relate to zots but saxman, where did u get tiny mantis shrimp because I have seen dwarfs on websites but not for sale
We just happened to find a tiny G. viridis at a LFS one day. Most of what we find is just a matter of making the rounds of the LFS every couple of weeks and seeing what's there. The key is being able to act quickly and always have a QT up and running, or at least an empty tank that can be set up quickly as a QT.

 

[antwon]

Ok thanks oh and what size was the angler that you kept in your 3 gallon? Cuz I have a one gallon just sitting on my desk but I think it's too small even for a juvie angler

 

[saxman]

about 1.5"

 

[flower]

Saxman, I was wondering....you said seahorses don't have a true stomach and need to be fed 2Xs a day....is that only the zots or all seahorses? I ask because until yesterday, I thought it was all seahorses and TQ says she feeds her grown horses only once a day, I have been feeding twice each day on a schedule.

 

[novahobbies]

I'm not the saxmaster (Hey, THERE'S a name!) but you're half right on one count and (I believe) completely right on another.
As far as I've researched, all seahorses lack true stomachs. At best, they have a sectioned of enlarged intestine that serves as point of primary nutrient absorption, but as it lacks either esophageal or pyloric sphincters, it can't store food for an extended period of digestion.
That said, I do not believe adults of the larger seahorse species HAVE to be fed twice a day. I think it's probably a good idea for the long term, but it won't kill them to have a singe larger meal for a few days out of any given week.
Now you know I don't own zots, so I'm venturing into the realm of supposition and online research here. From what I've heard, zots DO have to be fed twice a day. Smaller animal = smaller digestive tract = less energy to be absorbed per meal, so more meals should be provided.
I've got my eye on a possible dwarf tank as a "one day" project, but the feeding really makes me second guess it. At least with large horses I know I can go away for a couple days with live food in the tank and a minimal babysitter schedule....not so with zots.

 

[saxman]

All Syngnathids have a similar anatomy, Flower. This includes the lack of a true stomach. What they have is a long tube lined with numerous villi which absorb nutirents as the prey passes thru the GI tract.
Larger species SH, as mentioned, do fine on a single meal. Zots have to catch, or more accurately wait for their prey to happen by, so they don't "actively feed" on a given amount of food. This is why they're kept in small setups, as they really require a certain "food density" in the water to insure some swim by their snouts.