Bay Pipefish Captive Breeding Project
Male Bay Pipefish (Syngnathus leptorhychus), like their seahorse relatives, care for the eggs deposited into their brood pouch by a female.
The males can incubate as many as 225 eggs at a time. When the baby pipefish are ejected from the pouch, they swim off on their own, searching for live food small enough to fit into their tiny, toothless mouths.
Aquarium staff work hard to keep our exhibit pipefish well fed and disease free. Our pipefish consistently breed while on display, and our goal is to rear enough pipefish to supply other aquariums. Captive-raised pipefish will minimize the number of pipefish collected from the wild.