Calling Rayjay, seahorse and flake food!

I was recently given a seahorse that was rescued from a restaurant that catches their own crabs and accidentally got this guy. I live by the Chesapeake bay, so I assume it's a Hippocampus erectus as this is the only species native to the bay.

He was black when I got him and gradually turned a beautiful yellow. I immediately gave live brine (soaked in vitamins) which he gobbled up. This went on for about a week. I had run out of live brine and couldn't get it til the next day so I decided to try some frozen. Much to my amazement he chased it around (in flow) and gobbled them down too. This also continued for a week.

Now the interesting part. I have him with a small fat head sunburst anthias and an even smaller dispar anthias. Both of them eat flake flood. I'm not sure if the flakes moving in the flow tricks him, or he just picked it up from the anthias, but u have actively seen him chase and eat flakes, big and small pieces. This is a wild caught, sub adult seahorse that has been in captivity for just around a month.

Given that you are a seahorse guru, I was wondering if this is something that you've heard of? Is it ideal to sustain them on the flakes (high quality brine shrimp based flakes by cobalt) or should I stick with frozen omega/spirulina brine?

 

Have heard of it over the years but very seldom and know of none that survived long term on just flake food.
Personally, soaking live brine in vitamins isn't going to be of any help at all. They need to be gut loaded with enrichments that include a high DHA component. Anything you soak them in is going to wash off before it gets eaten IMO.
You can probably get it switched over to frozen foods by gradually mixing frozen in with the live and increasing the proportion of frozen until it is completely on frozen.
If you get it to eat frozen brine then gradually introduce and increase the frozen mysis feedings as that will be better for the seahorse.
Best enrichment for live brine or for mysids or ghost shrimp to feed the seahorse would be Dan's Feed from seahorsesource.com
As for turning colour, that is normal for any seahorse as it changes as it see's fit for it's current surroundings and conditions.

 

Thanks, he eats frozen too. Eats pretty much anything that goes in the tank and is small enough. He eats omega/spirulina frozen brine. Will this be enough? I'm sure he'd have no problem with mysis.

Just thought the color change was cool, especially that it went to such a vibrant yellow, considering yellow is less than common for this species.