Todd Gardner grew up on Long Island where his aquarium-keeping habit, which started around age 6, was encouraged by his parents and an abundance of local marine life.

In 1988, Todd began attending East Stroudsburg University where he founded the ESU Marine Science Club. In 1991, while working as an intern at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Todd became acquainted with the techniques of algae and rotifer culture, two skills that would open up a whole new world to him. In 1993 he graduated from East Stroudsburg University with a Bachelor of Science degree in biology and marine science. After graduation he spent a year working for Blue Earth Films, assisting in the production of a National Geographic Explorer feature film about coastal marine life. His job was to collect and maintain as many interesting creatures as possible, for filming in aquaria. It was in those tanks that Todd experienced his first successes in the spawning and rearing of marine fishes. He found fish culture to be so addictive, and such a worthy cause, that he felt he had little choice but to devote his life to it.

Todd spent the next 3 years working for Bill Addison at C-quest, the world's largest marine ornamental fish hatchery, where he worked on developing technology for the production of new marine species. His most important contribution was the development of a technique for commercial scale production of the Pseudochromids (dottybacks), allowing for the first widespread availability of several species including Pseudochromis fridmani, P. aldabrensis, P. flavivertex, and P. springeri.

In September 1998, Todd decided it was time to get more serious about aquaculture research and with much regret, left C-quest behind to pursue a Master of Science degree in biology at New York's Hofstra University where he completed a thesis on the early nutrition of the lined seahorse, Hippocampus erectus .

Todd is currently working at Atlantis Marine World, a small but highly regarded public aquarium on the east end of Long Island where he cares for a number of exhibit tanks and continues his aquaculture research behind the scenes. In his spare time, Todd photographs marine life and plays in a blues band.

ABSTRACT

Seahorse Nutrition in Aquaculture

The popularity and price of seahorses in the aquarium hobby are at all-time highs while seahorse populations throughout the world are in decline. Although seahorse aquaculture has been the focus of numerous research endeavors and there are presently a number of commercial hatcheries supplying them to the trade, survivorship in culture remains inconsistent and inadequate to meet demands. In this lecture, I will discuss my recent research on seahorse nutrition as well as some observations and hypotheses about seahorse survival and health in captivity based on 20 years of experience keeping and breeding these unusual and enchanting fishes.