Local Seahorse collector LI NY. ...

[SneakPeeks]

Anyone here like me who lives close to the Atlantic Ocean and collects seahorse' French, Queen Angels and Butterfly fish ect. ...? Let's share information, mainly on seahorses and breeding. ... Doing great and I am lucky in that I've been collecting these sea horses here and doing great with them since I was a kid. ... I get them young and active and eating live and frozen in a short time. ... thanking you in advance. ...

SneakPeeks

 

[Anonymous]

Well, I live upstate, but lived in Southampton for about 10 years. I used to seine up all those critters, including stuff like deepwater bigeye, 4 species of file fish, lookdowns, permit and even a baby cobia. Schinnecock bay mostly.

Never saw a seahorse though. What body of water are they coming from?

 

[SneakPeeks]

Hey Dan. ...

You would have found these seahorse in the back bays in about 3 feet of water, so if you were seining off a boat you might not have gotten any.
They would have let loose of the sein net before you brought it up out of the water. ...

 

[Anonymous]

I always did two people dragging in 3 feet or less of eelgrass. Do you still get "boston bean fish?" Those are cool.

Now I mostly seine (or dipnet) for grass shrimp to feed my fish....

 

[SneakPeeks]

Boston Bean Fish!!!
Um' tell me they go by another name . ...;-)
I dont know!!!

Seahorses in eelgrass, if you read is the norm for other parts of the world.
Here in New York in the bays/inlets there are other types of weeds or plants they prefer to cling to' like Irish Moss. But I guess that if, say' you have only eelgrass and you catch pipefish' I would figure you'd catch seahorses too if only eelgrass. ... (Puzzeld) 8O

I know I do good when snorkling around a pier where fisherman fish because they hang around the fish line when the currents are running. ...

 

[Anonymous]

The boston beans are baby boxfish. It takes a while to train your eye to find them, they just look like little pebbles. Very cute though.

As I said in our other conversation, I think I never caught seahorses because I didn most of my seining back in the 70s and the eelgrass was recovering from a disease that I think set the seahorses back. That's the best explanation I can come up with! I hung around with marine science students and I don't recall hearing about anybody else getting any either.

Next time I seine (mostly go to Cape Cod these days) I'll keep an eye out for them...

 

[SneakPeeks]

LOL, Yes Box Fish' that's right I remember they would call those things Box Fish. ... We still get them here' but they are not good mates for seahorses. They're cute and we get a few types. I understood you when you said about back in the 70's and ellgrass recovering from a disease.
Just so you know because of the new laws on dumping here in New York the water has gotten' a lot cleaner and we sort of are getting everything found along the East Coast from Carolina and Florida here on Long Island.
You can look down from some piers and see Butterflies and angels, file fish, seargent majors ect. ... Take a trip this coming summer. ...

Next time you go out' to the Cape' do this, Bring a mask and snorkel and just find a sort of Cove Area, some where water comes in and circles around a bit before the tides change' float around in 3 to 6 feet of water and you will find the seahorses. ... Stay away from area with a lot of sea grass and just snorkle around looking for little loose patches of sea grass away from the larger area of sea grass. This area is known for having minows ect., and the seahorses stay away at times but not that far away' The minows and grass shrimp attract everything from kelly fish to spearing, snapers and jelly fish. ...