Leafy Sea horse / sea dragons need info

[discus lover01]

Hi all i have a friend in sydney that is wanting to try and get some of these and breed them if anyone has any information or knows of anyone with info can they please let me know on here or by pm thats heaps .He is in sydney my mate who is looking for some or information regarding these.
thanks

[Robdog]

I'm pretty sure they are protected and best left in the sea mate. They do live in the waters off Sydney but if you get caught with one I reckon you'd get put away.

[Namn8r]

Buckleys chance Brett, you can count on a hefty fine talking thousands of dollars if not time served in the clink.

They can be kept in captivity but are heavily protected. I believe only one or 2 ppl has a license in australia to keep them. One on the east coast who has a permit to collect 2 males carrying eggs per year of which he raises the young to a larger size and then releases in the wild and I believe the guys breeding captive bred seahorses at Pt Lincoln are working on leafies now.

Apparently they are very sensitive to changes in the environment, especially decompression problems, feeding requires heaps of live mysis. Only one place has managed to breed them in captivity, they just dont seem to want to produce eggs in captivity....

[bmxer1000]

The man you are refering to does not release his babies into the wild because of the chance of diseases being present, instead he gives them to public aquaria and the like. There was a show about these sea dragons and this man who lives in Victoria on TV about 2 weeks ago. I beleive it was called something like 'the vanishing dragon'.

[*Chris*]

15yrs in prison and up to 100 thou of fines according to AQIS law

[scott bowler]

yeah brett they are protected and there is only 1 person in the world with the rights to own and breed them . he does breed them for the worlds zoos and Aquariums . yes he does live in vic . it is also a release program that he is in to .trying to increase the wild population.so in saying all this unfortunately there is no chance your friend is going to get them .

[scuba123cliff]

This is the closes you will ever get to a leafy sea dragon sorry