110g pipefish/seahorse tank

[andbob25]

I bought a tank from a friend with the rock and coral still in it. I romoved all the sps and the most of the lps leaving only the zoas and palys and acouple of trumpets. The live stock currently is only a starie eyed blenny and a dragonface pipe fish. I added dragonsbreath and a seawhip for hitching and intend to add more hitches in the future. I do have a sand bed but i put alot of clean up crew in to help with any detritus that may acumilate. I have been able to maintain a temp of 70-72°. The tank has a sump and an oversized skimmer. I have been doing 10% water changes weekly. My plan is to add a pair of male H. Erectus. I have acouple questions. Are the trumpets ok or do they need to go? Should i add more algea to the sand bed and if so which ones?

 

[rayjay]

Mixing seahorses with other fish can be and often is, problematic.
Mixing seahorses with pipe fish, are almost always problematic leading to the death of one or both species.
IMO, 10% is not enough of a water change for seahorse tanks and will probably lead eventually to unseen water problems causing seahorse diseases sooner.
Seahorses create very dirty water conditions as time goes on due to their very selective eating habits, and, due to the fact they masitcate their food when snicking it up, passing particulate matter out through the gills and into the water column.

 

[btreyes]

I would get rid of the pipes and def. consider getting a smaller species of blenny. I kept a dragonface with my erectus for a while, but a lot of people have had tons of disease problems when putting them in the same tank. You should also consider getting seahorse probiotics for the tank (sanolife) and that would do a ton for preventing disease.

A blenny that gets around 5 inches would probably pick on the seahorses and would probably out-compete the seahorses for food. How long have the pipefish been in the tank?

I would also consider adding a bunch of macro for the horses and I think you'd be more than fine for a couple of seahorses with that much water volume, a skimmer, and an oversized sump. Maybe also consider setting up a feeding station for the horses to help keep your tank clean.

 

[andbob25]

Ok all the advice and reading i think i am going to just stick with pipefish for now and maybe do another tank with just horses and hitches(aka no sand) to allow for better cleaning. With that said can u mix pipefish? Could i add a bluestrip or banded to the tank?

 

[btreyes]

I've read before that mixing pipefish also spreads disease. There are a lot of cool fish that you can keep with dragonface pipefish though.