The Brazilian Longnose Seahorse

The Brazilian Longnose Seahorse (Hippocampus reidi) is a member of the family Syngnathidae, better known as the pipefishes and seahorses! Born at less than a centimeter, the fish will eventually reach a length of about 7 inches. (Total length in seahorses is measured from tip of tail to the top of the head.) Hippocampus is a common seahorse genus and is of Greek origin, meaning “curved horse”. The species name, reidi is in honor of Earl Reid of the Smithsonian Institute. These are beautifully colored with males being a richer orange color generally and females being a lighter yellow. They are also known to have some splotches of color such as brown or white on their body that can change with stress or during spawning. While the seahorses available through Quality Marine are from sustainable, captive breeding programs not all of them are. Brazilian Longnose Seahorses are actually at risk of becoming endangered mostly due to their harvest for traditional Chinese medicine, despite the fact that their international trade is regulated through CITES.

Brazilian Longnose Seahorses come from the Western Atlantic Ocean. They can be found as far north as the Carolinas in North America and as far South as the second most Southern state in Brazil, Santa Catarina. Younger fish are usually found in shallower water, in some cases less than three feet, whereas adults have been found as deep as 180 feet! Brazilian Longnose Seahorses can be found swimming in the open water but are usually more closely linked to a place for them to hold on with their prehensile tails. They love to hang onto macro algae or sea grasses in the shallows or gorgonian sea fans in deeper waters. Occasionally they can be found clinging to Sargassum which mostly never attaches to a substrate, living and growing in large mats that drift through the ocean.

Aquariums for Brazilian Longnose Seahorses should be at least 40 gallons for a small group, and larger as you add more fish. While they are not overly active, they will occasionally spread their fins and explore their habitat, and they will want room to live and select a perch that they like without feeling crowded or not having enough suitable spaces for these fish to latch on to some structure for rest periods. One of the most important aspects of stocking a seahorse aquarium is that seahorses are not fast swimmers and spend most of their life attached to structure. Therefore, you not only need structure for them to perch on, but you also need to make sure that when you stock the aquarium there isn’t anything else that might out compete them for food. A few good choices would be fishes that rarely leave the bottom such as dragonets or mandarins, gobies, or other pipefish or seahorse species. Generally, seahorses are kept as a species only tank – some exceptions can always be made through and so long as the other fish don’t bother them or steal all the food its technically possible. Just don’t try to put them in a reef with tangs or wrasses! Macro algae gardens make a great way to display seahorses as it’s similar to their natural habitat. Live sea fans might be a great choice as well, but keep in mind that these tend to be non-photosynthetic and require live food themselves!

In the wild, Brazilian Longnose Seahorses hang onto algae or coral in high flow areas that will push a lot of current, and therefore food past them within easy reach. The only way to replicate this in the home aquarium is to target feed them with live foods. It is easier than you think to start hatching and raising brine shrimp, which can be gut loaded to be more nutritious once they have lost their yolk sac from when they were freshly hatched which is what generally makes them nutritious. Other live foods such as copepods or amphipods can be purchased from your local fish store to make sure that the population in your aquarium is healthy, having good porous live rock, or structure in your sump to give this microfauna a place to live in hide are other good ways to ensure that there will always be some live food floating around. Some pods are easily cultured and can be target fed like brine shrimp, but starting with the largest possible established tank will help with their being a good source of food. Many captive raised seahorses are accustomed to eating frozen foods such as mysis or enriched brine shrimp, and if they are not, you can feed a mixture of the live and frozen to encourage them to eat the frozen food.

Breeding Brazilian Longnose Seahorses is an easier marine species to spawn for a variety of factors. Courtship displays will happen in the days leading up to the spawning event and you will see the two seahorses embrace, moving heads, wrapping around one another’s tails, and swimming like this together. As we mentioned earlier, the offspring hatch at a relatively large size, and they pair and spawn fairly readily in the home aquarium. Males are easily distinguished from females due to their “pouch” which is where the males will store and rear the eggs after the female releases them and the male fertilizes them. The male will carry these eggs for around two to four weeks depending on temperature, during which time he may not eat or have reduced appetite. The young will hatch and be released from the pouch by the male. After this process, which is rather dramatic if you have the privilege of catching it, the male will probably return to being hungry, so removing him, or the fry to a separate tank might be best. If at all possible, the fry should never be exposed to the air, and therefore should be moved in a cup full of water etc. The newborn seahorses are large enough to eat baby brine shrimp and other live foods!

The Brazilian Longnose Seahorse is a beautiful, colorful fish that adapts well to life in aquaria and has fascinating social behaviors and life history events that are relatively common so long as you have a suitable pair of fish. Call your local fish store and ask them to order you some sustainably sourced Brazilian Longnose Seahorses from Quality Marine today!