Tuesday Tank Day: Two Babies in Search of a Name

Several months ago, I lost my female seahorse, Sputnik, to complications from a parasite that probably entered the tank along with her. The male, Cygnus, pulled through but since then he’s been alone and increasingly unhappy with his solo status. (Seahorses are social creatures and do better in groups.)

After a long quarantine to make sure I had killed the parasites, the day for new seahorses finally arrived, and last Thursday we welcomed two new babies to the tank, one presumed female:

and the other presumed male:

(Apologies for the slightly fuzzy image – I took the photos with my iPad in order to have images for this post.) They’re still too young to know their genders for sure, so I’m going on “best guess.”

Cygnus loves them and preens for them every chance he gets:

The babies (who spent several days in quarantine before joining him in the tank) mostly avoid him because when they get too close he wraps his tail around them to keep them from swimming away.

Apparently, the aversion to “creepy old men” transcends the species line.

All of which brings me to the point of today’s Tank Tuesday post: the babies need a name. The male has long, fringe-like “cirri” all over him, which made Tesla put in an early bid for “Ghillie” (as in Ghillie Suit).

The babies mostly stay together, which made me consider “Castor” and “Pollux” – but somehow those names don’t really seem to fit.

The other tank inhabitants are named in one of three categories:

Astronomical objects (Cygnus is named for a star, and the cleaner shrimp are Phobos, Deimos, Io, Europa, and Big Red Spot),

Physical characteristics (Wilson the sea urchin looks like a tennis ball and Emperor Maximus the watchman goby believes he is ruler of all he surveys), and

Ironic puns (Thing 1 the red and white striped pipefish, Banzai the hermit who regularly leaps off rocks and plummets to the sand bed, and Torpedo the Halloween Hermit who moves at roughly the speed of a narcoleptic snail.)

Since I can’t come up with anything that suits a pair of baby seahorses, I thought I’d throw the floor open and see what you suggest. What should I name them? Hop into the comments and help me out!