Seahorse ponies (babies)

Last night my black male "Sunburst" (H. erectus?) seahorse was pregnant, and
this morning I woke up to find my seahorse tank full of babies! Probably at
least 20. All happily swimming around. Very nice.

Alas, I have no special seahorse fry tank, nor special fry food. I was
wondering if there is any chance that any of them will survive on their own,
just eating live food they find in the tank.

My overall water system is about 250g. The display has a partition for the
seahorses that leaves about 60g for them. There's tons of live rock and
sand. I'm already supporting a psychadelic mandarin in the main display, and
a green spotted mandarin is a tankmate of the seahorses, and both those fish
seem to do just fine hunting their own food (and ignoring the frozen food I
add to the tank).

The system includes a 40g refugium, with lots of caulerpa and tons of 'pods.
I netted seven of the baby seahorses and put them in the refugium, and there
are at least eight remaining in the main seahorse tank. (I'm amazed that
they haven't been swept down the overflow yet, but they seem to be hanging
out near the front glass of the tank.)

So: any advice anyone has for perhaps keeping a couple of these alive? Given
that I'm not going to set up an entirely separate system just to raise fry.
Might there be a chance that a couple could survive eating live 'pods in the
refugium? Should I feed some (bottled) Kent's zooplankton? Or is my quest
basically hopeless without a dedicated fry tank + fry food?

Thanks,
-- Don
__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/
In the Middle Ages, a lot of doctors probably started out as torturers, because
they already had a lot of experience asking guys, "Does this hurt?"
-- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey [1999]

Don Geddis wrote on Sat, 28 Oct 2006:
Last night my black male "Sunburst" (H. erectus) seahorse was pregnant, and
this morning I woke up to find my seahorse tank full of babies! Probably at
least 20. All happily swimming around. Very nice.

In case anyone's interested, photos and videos at
http://reef.geddis.org/a/Sunburst%20Seahorse%20ponies/

Alas, I have no special seahorse fry tank, nor special fry food. I was
wondering if there is any chance that any of them will survive on their own,
just eating live food they find in the tank.

By that evening, I could only find three left. By the next morning, I can't
find any babies any more. Oh well.

Perhaps I'll get lucky and one or two will survive, hidden deep in my tank
somewhere.

-- Don
__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/
You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail
in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this?
And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive
them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.
-- Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio