5.1 Eco Pico Zosterae Tank

ShellsSD

ShellsSD

New member
I am in the process of setting up an 5.1 gallon Ecoxotic Eco Pico for Zosterae Seahorses.

All input is greatly appreciated. I have been into reefing for a while now and I have a 180g reef and a 150g fish only, however this is my first go around with seahorses.

Equipment

5.1 Ecoxotic Eco Pico

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I was able to upgrade the stock lighting, with 2 additional LED strips. An Eco Pico LED Strip 453nm Blue and a 12K white strip. Resulting in five 12K LEDs and four 453nm blue LEDs. In addition the all blue and all white strip are dimmable.

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I placed a new bag of Nature's Ocean Bio-Active Live Aragonite Sand. I placed two rocks that have been in my reef systems for a long time and one additional rock (which I had dried out a while ago and has been in the reef for a few weeks). After first filling it.

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After this sat for a couple weeks I placed some snails (Nassarius) and some Macro Algae (Graclaria and Red Dragons) which have been in the tank for about a week now.

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I do realize I need better hitching post and looking for recommendations.

I have not bought the horses yet, but was thinking of getting 5 of them. At this point in time no other tank mates.

I have all the equipment ready for the brine shrimp and will also buy copepods when the horses arrive.

What am I missing? What other recommendations do you guys have?

I realize that the tank will need to be cleaned regularly.
 
Actually it is recommended to start with a sterile tank so that when you start adding the bbs, you don't end up with hydroids.
It would be advisable to start hatching brine shrimp now, just to get the hang of it.
The bbs should be ongrown for a day, then enriched (Dan's Feed) for two 12 hour stages with new water and new enrichment for each stage.
Rinse well and then add to the tank.
Remove the old food before adding new food because the bbs don't keep their enrichment for long.
If you are only going to have 5 dwarfs in their, then you have enough hitching already.
Dwarfs aren't known for moving about the tank much but rather stay put and wait for the food to come close enough for them to snick. That's why food density has to be intense.
 
rayjay, thank you for the input. I think trying my hand at hatching the brine prior to the horses arriving is a great idea. Thanks

I had read to enrich the bbs with Selcon - I will also do some research on Dan's Feed as I am unfamiliar with that.
 
Selcon, or Selco are emulsions of fatty acids (huffas) whereas Dan's Feed is a balance of many things including probiotics and fatty acids and proteins.
Dan's Feed is in powder form that you mix with some water in a blender for two minutes and store in the refrigerator until needed. Keep the balance of the powder in the freezer and it stores for a long time.
Selco and Selcons in addition to being limited as an enrichment, do not keep long due to the liquid state. You certainly won't like the smell once it goes rancid.
 
I have exactly the same setup. One thing to really keep your eyes for are hydroids. If you do see some (I never had luck with fw-dipping macros... they just desegregated), you can use Panacur (or equivalent) before introducing more animals.

The main problem you are going to see is a surface film. I have partly reduced that issue using a protein skimmer and a tiny (the red sea one) HOB filter. Important to note is that the babies are tiny, and you will get many of them. So you want in any case to use sponges/microns filters on the inputs of your filter (350 micros lets the dead bbs pass, but the babies stay out)

You are in for a treat, these fish are fascinating!
 
Thank you for the input. I have contact Seahorse Source but they are out of Dwarfs and I am now in contact with Seahorse Corral. I will get my seahorses mid October.

How many would you guys recommend to start?
 
I would recommend 3 couples. That's what I started with, I now have around 25 after 6 months. The little buggers are breeding every other week.

In general the males will arrive with babies in their pouch...

Another source you may want to consider is CC Critters. Those are wild caught. Very good communication, and I was sent more than what I had ordered!
 
Another question for you guys. I have now tried my hand at hatching the brine shrimp. No problem. I ordered and have received my Dan's feed for enrichment. I read about how to enrich the brine shrimp and feel comfortable trying that this weekend, but here is my questions.

I am going to set up 3 hatcheries.
1. New brine
2. Move new brine for enrichment
3. Move enrichment brine for more enrichment

(Is it true that enriching them twice is a good idea or just overkill?)

My question is, once the 2nd batch of enriched brine shrimp is ready to feed and I feed. Is there away to store the leftover brine shrimp, or do I always have to have a batch ready to go.

I want to make enough to last a few days, but is this possible? If so, how do I store the brine shrimp? Keep enriching the water? Keep air circulating?
 
Yes, there is a difference in the double stage enrichment process.
After hatching, you need to grow them out for a day because at that point they don't have a fully developed digestive system and don't feed.
After about 24 hrs of grow out, then you enrich for the two 12 hour stages, with new water and new enrichment for each stage.
After the first stage they are gut loaded but after the second stage, they have assimilated some of the nutrient into their bodies so now their body nutrient profile is higher and the loaded guts are the bonus.
BE VERY CAREFULL when adding the enrichment. Add only enough so that you can see some in the water. Just a little too much wipes out the whole culture.
Be sure to mix it in water and blend in the blender for at least two minutes.
I store the unused portion in the refrigerator.
For me, container one is the hatching only, with container two used for growout.
The third container is used for enrichment and can be cleaned out after 12 hours and reused for the second 12 hours.
You restart the hatching container when transferring the brine to the grow out container.
After you get the handle on things, you can start hatching out less frequent, but the advantage of frequent hatchings is that if you wipe a culture out, the next one isn't long behind to keep the feeding going.
If you have dwarf fry in the tank it would probably be best not to hatch less than every other day.
 
rlpardue said:
I like your tank build sir; the lights are cool!
Click to expand...

Thank you, but that would be a ma'am :wavehand:

My horses should arrive next week. Can't wait.

I changed up the hitching posts and decided to go with silk plants (except Red Dragon macro, feed my tangs the Graclaria). Hard to do fake since I am a reefer, but I do like the way it looks. I'll take a photo tonight and post.
 
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The big leaves might indeed be a bit big for them to grab on comfortable. Something important is also to make sure that the low flow will still make it possible to have as few dead zones as possible.

I would say that if you want copies of plants, for freshwater, Cacomba would work fine, or even Laceleaf. For saltwater, copies of Caulerpa.
 
ps: if you can have feather Caulerpa... treat it with Panacur in a quarentine tank, and go with it... I think that's the best looking algae you can get...
 
They will hitch at the stems next to the base of the plants.
I have narrow leafed plastic/nylon grasses and even with those they hitch to the stems.
 
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