THIS PAGE on my website.
My dive for today was canceled due to weather. Rough Seas and rain.
Instead I went to the Seahorse Farm. No, this is not a place where they raise Seahorses to eat. It is a place where they are raising them for home aquariums. Seahorses are often caught in the wild for home aquariums, where they quickly die, only to be replaced by another wild seahorse.
Seahorse.com breeds and sells Seahorses, taking the pressure off the wild stock. You can contact them if you are interested in a pair (they are only sold in pairs) but you will have to take some on-line courses to ensure you will be able to give them a healthy home.
The tour starts with an interesting talk about the project and seahorses. Then to the baby area. Unfortunately you can't take pics here, but there are large vats of tiny baby Seahorses. Pretty darned cute. Then to the breeding area, where seahorses are encouraged to breed. The females put the eggs into the males "belly" and he fertilizes them and incubates them before releasing tiny baby seahorses.
They are normally monogamous in the wild, but are a lot more promiscuous in the farm. The female Seahorse can maintain many pregnant male Seahorses, and right after he releases the young she is right back there with more eggs. Talk about being kept bare tailed and pregnant.
In the breeding area you are allowed to feed them some tiny shrimp. When you get to the bucket, they come up for food. It's fun watching them chase the food around. It's live shrimp after all.
There were also two Leafy or Ribbon Seadragons, but you are not allowed to photo them right now, as they want them to mate and they are having a tough time.
