# Weedy sea dragons



## Crayon

These animals are awesome, related to sea horses, and generally not available. However I've been in touch with a US supplier who is bringing some captive bred animals in shortly and has the ability to ship to Canada. Price is really steep.
If anyone is interested, and wants to keep them, and willing to let me camp out at their place a few nights a week, let me know.
I would be all over this if I could be in the same place as the tank all week.
Not sure what these particular guys will be eating, but safe to say the best bet would be live.
Someday.........


----------



## Norman

wow those are fascinating creatures... I bet they're tough to keep though...


----------



## explor3r

That would be amazing to have is just the ultimate!!!


----------



## darkangel66n

Metro zoo had some a few years ago they were unable to keep as well as Riply's lately. Very tough to keep in captivity but ya sign me up for a dozen when they get it right with captive bred ones.


----------



## simba

I dont mind keeping them.I keep seahorse as well .This would be great !


----------



## fesso clown

I've only seen them available at $5000 and up, that was only a couple years ago when I looked at some threads on RC.


----------



## simba

Some day !


----------



## J_T

One of my fav's.

I spent a few hours at the NE aquarium watching them. When I was at ripleys, I was there for a while too! 

Once I win that Lotto, this will be a species tank I setup!


----------



## Crayon

fesso clown said:


> I've only seen them available at $5000 and up, that was only a couple years ago when I looked at some threads on RC.


I can tell you the price is no where near 5k. But it still have 4 digits in front of the decimal.


----------



## cerebrous

How much approx are they?

need to start a savings account


----------



## Crayon

1500.00 USD each


----------



## zenafish

^ I was just gonna say  $1500 has been the going price for years.

Weedy is the somewhat more hardy of the two seadragons, and less pretty "finnage" than the Leafy. They still need deep and wide dark tanks (4'H, 6-8'L recommended for a pair) and feed them live mysids. Water condition is important. A pain to acclimatize and they stress out (and drop dead) easily. 

So nevermind the initial $1500. You can expect to put in that much every month or two for upkeep and food. And hopefully they don't get killed within a month, that is.

Makes seahorse keeping childsplay in comparison. Seadragons have been my aquatic holy grail. Still waiting for the Lotto Max to cash out, not looking too promising since I forgot to buy the last several draws LOL.

Leave them be, folks! That's my $0.02


----------



## simba

I wonder if Ripley's still has it.Wondering what they actually feed it with.Will they eat any other live food besides live mysis?


----------



## vaporize

Yeah, live mysid 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## Vanaquaman

I don't usually post on here due to various professional reasons but I wanted to help give people incite on a species that I wouldn't suggest the hobbyist kept in their collection


I have raised many sygnathid species over the years, 3 species of dragons, the leafy, the weedy and the ribboned seadragon (Haliichthys taeniophoras). We were thought to have bred the first ribboned in captivity including documented photos of their young as nobody had seen them before.

The cost of the original animals is minor compared to the cost of their care.
An example : I had 2 breeding pairs that cost about $2500 each, they were eating 4000 live mysid shrimp every 2 weeks, the live mysid's cost per shipment of 4000 was approx. $450 per order, based on mysid cost, airfare, brokerage (customs) and inspection costs.
Now the real expense comes when I bred an additional 18 animals and raised them, do the math then to see how much more food I needed to buy, at this point I had to increase shipments to weekly and increase the order to 10,000 mysid per shipment.

I kept these animals for about 2 years and then we sold all but 1 pair to various facilities that wanted them, we sold them as a "super price" under $1000 per animal as we were happy to have a live food budget for other animals again.

They are also very susceptible to Uronema and Mycobacterium, the myco was thought to be introduced in the live mysids as we had them tested prior to adding them to our tanks and they tested myco positive.

If anyone has any other questions you can send me a private message and I would be happy to answer them.


----------



## simba

Can you share some of your pics Thanks


----------



## vaporize

I think it's Vancouver aquarium  only they had breed ribbon sea dragon 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## J_T

Ripleys

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## RKLion

Is that the colour of the species being sold and are there different species/colour options?...


----------



## teemee

RKLion said:


> Is that the colour of the species being sold and are there different species/colour options?...


It's one and the same. 
There are only 3 species of dragons - the two in the pics (weedy and leafy) and one that was only just very recently discovered.


----------

