This entire process costs the male a great amount of energy. This brings into question why the sexual role reversal even takes place. In an environment where one partner incurs more energy costs than the other, you would expect the lesser of the two to be the aggressor. Within the seahorse species, males are shown to be the more aggressive sex and sometimes "fight" for female attention. According to Amanda Vincent of Project Seahorse, only males tail-wrestled and even snap their heads toward each other. This discovery prompted further study in finding out whether males actually are incurring more costs than their female counterparts. To estimate the female's direct contribution, researcher Heather D. Masonjones of Amherst College performed a chemical analysis of the energy stored in each egg. Furthermore, to measure the toll that pregnancy takes on a male, Masonjones built a tiny respirator that records oxygen concentrations in water flowing into and out of a chamber. Before a male became pregnant, she checked his baseline need for oxygen. Then, she monitored the increase as pregnancy progressed. The male's body had to work hard by the end of the pregnancy, consuming almost a third again as much oxygen as he did before mating. To correct for oxygen used by the growing brood, Masonjones managed to keep ¼ inch-high preemie seahorses alive outside the pouch so she could measure their oxygen needs. Although they undergo weeks of pregnancy, males directly contribute only half as much energy for offspring as females do. Therefore, they do in fact fit into the widespread pattern of the less-invested sex being the less-choosy.

The question of why it is the males who undergo pregnancy rather than the females is actually not entirely known, though some researchers believe male pregnancy allows for shorter birthing intervals, hence more offspring. When looking at which sex has the ability to produce more young if they had an unlimited number of ready and willing partners, males have the potential to produce 17 percent more in a breeding season. Also, females have "time-outs" from the reproductive cycle that are 1.2 times longer than those of males. This does not seem to be based on physiology, rather mate choice. When the female's eggs are ready, she must lay them in a few hours or else she has to eject them onto the sea floor which is a huge cost to her physically, as her eggs amount to about a third of her body weight. To protect against unwillingly losing a clutch, the female demands a long courtship period. Furthermore, the daily greetings help to cement the bond between the pair. Another study conducted by Amanda Vincent of Project Seahorse shows the importance of this daily ritual. She kept a female in a tank with two males and when the female filled one male's pouch with eggs he was then taken away, while she was left with the other male (the one not impregnated). During the weeks of her mate's pregnancy, the female and her tankmate greeted each other daily, clinging to the same bit of grass and changing color, but according to Vincent did not display signs of serious courtship. When the original mate had given birth he was returned to the tank. The female then had a choice between him and the other tankmate. While both males expressed enthusiasm for her attention, even tail wrestling and whacking each other, in all six tests the female rejected her original mate and presented the next clutch of eggs to the tankmate that she had greeted each day. The importance of the daily meeting is extremely high in maintaining their monogamous relationship. Although monogamy within species is not common, it does appear to exist for some. In this case, the mate-guarding hypothesis may be an explanation. This hypothesis states that "males remain with a single female because of ecological factors that make male parental care and protection of offspring especially advantageous." Because the rates of survival for newborn seahorses are so low, incubation is essential at the beginning stages of life. Though not proven, males could have taken on this role because of the time period in which it takes females to produce their eggs. If the males carry the offspring while the females gather the nutrients needed to produce new eggs (which is again, 1/3 of their body weight), then they can continually reproduce batch after batch together, depending on one another for efficiency in spreading both of their genes.

The one thing that all Phuket dive center will tell you is never take anything from the wild as a pet. If you must have them as a pet then make sure they are from ones born in an aquarium. While many aquarium hobbyists will keep seahorses as pets, seahorses collected from the wild tend to fare poorly in a home aquarium. They will eat only live foods such as brine shrimp and are prone to stress in an aquarium, which lowers the efficiency of their immune systems and makes them susceptible to disease.

In recent years, however, captive breeding of seahorses has become increasingly widespread. These seahorses survive better in captivity, and they are less likely to carry diseases. These seahorses will eat mysis shrimp, and they do not experience the shock and stress of being taken out of the wild and placed in a small aquarium. Although captive-bred seahorses are more expensive, they survive better than wild seahorses, and take no toll on wild populations.

Seahorses should be kept in an aquarium to themselves, or with compatible tank-mates. Seahorses are slow feeders, and in an aquarium with fast, aggressive feeders, the seahorses will be edged out in the competition for food. Special care should be given to ensure that all individuals obtain enough food at feeding times.

Seahorses can co-exist with many species of shrimp and other bottom-feeding creatures. Fish from the goby family also make good tank-mates. Some species are especially dangerous to the slow-moving seahorses and should be avoided completely: eels, tangs, triggerfish, squid, octopus, and sea anemones.

Animals sold as "freshwater seahorses" are usually the closely related pipefish, of which a few species live in the lower reaches of rivers. The supposed true "freshwater seahorse" called Hippocampus aimei was not a real species, but a name sometimes used for individuals of Barbour's seahorse and Hedgehog seahorse. The latter is a species commonly found in brackish waters, but not actually a freshwater fish.

Seahorse populations have been endangered in recent years by overfishing. Therefore, seahorse fishing is strictly illegal. The seahorse is used in traditional Chinese herbology, and as many as 20 million seahorses may be caught each year and sold for this purpose.Medicinal seahorses are not readily bred in captivity as they are susceptible to disease and have somewhat different energetics than aquarium seahorses.

Import and export of seahorses has been controlled under CITES since May 15, 2004.

The problem may be exacerbated by the growth of pills and capsules as the preferred method of ingesting medication as they are cheaper and more available than traditional, individually tailored prescriptions of raw medicinals but the contents are harder to track. Seahorses once had to be of a certain size and quality before they were accepted by TCM practitioners and consumers. But declining availability of the preferred large, pale and smooth seahorses has been offset by the shift towards prepackaged medicines, which make it possible for TCM merchants to sell previously unused juvenile, spiny and dark-coloured animals. Today almost a third of the seahorses sold in China are prepackaged. This adds to the pressure on the species.

But for sure the best thing is to go and see them in the wild. Here they are in their natural state and happy. The best place for sure is to join any of the Similan islands liveaboards. These can be from an overnight trip or for as many days as you wish. They can be booked from any good Phuket scuba diving center and this is by far the best way to enjoy the Similan island diving. But these beautiful animals are so abundant that they can be seen when you learn to scuba diving Phuket as they are on so many day trip dive sites too.