After much reading, a few questions please

[saippenu]

I'm thinking of setting up a 55 gallon seahorse tank. I've been reef keeping for 20 + years so I understand the water quality end of it. I currently raise the fry of one of my clownfish pairs so I know a bit about live foods as well.

So after doing quite a bit of reading here, I am still thinking of doing it :eek2:.

I understand the basics of the tank setup, temp requirements, feeding, where to buy good quality seahorses. I have read over the various medical/disease issues that they are prone to as well.

I think there are just a few things that I am really unfamiliar with, for instance, the whole "œpathogens" thing. This part makes me nervous about seahorses. One thing that I am unclear on, is if the pathogen problem is the same thing as , or related to, the bacteria problems that can occur above 74 degrees. Does it go hand-in-hand, or are these two unrelated issues?

Before I read up on them I think I had a couple of misconceptions, please correct me if I am wrong. First, I thought that I would cycle a new tank the way I always do, by taking some good healthy live rock from one of my established clown tanks and do the "œinsta cycle" thing. I always feel safer this way as there is no chance of having any spikes.

Now I am thinking that this would be unwise since I have no idea what I might be introducing to the new tank. Is this correct? That even tho I don't introduce new critters or fish to my clown tanks, that I should not use anything from their tank to seed the new one? And I should probably be careful not to use equipment ( nets, magnets, containers) between my clown tanks and seahorse tanks? Am I taking this too far or is this good practice?

The other misconception that I had was that because I live near the ocean, I thought that I could scoop up goodies for my horses so that they would be fed the freshest, most natural treats possible. I would do the frozen mysis as well, but I take seriously the notion that horses might need the mental stimulation of "œhunting" that only live prey can provide. I live and work so close to the ocean that I could literally stop and pick them up goodies quite regularly.

So two questions about this. First, I am assuming that this would be a pathogen risk no? So I should never do it? Is there any way to eliminate that risk?
And secondly, if you feed live foods regularly, can you spoil them and actually "œbreak" their training to eat frozen?

Sometimes even the best intentions are clueless ones I think. I just want to make sure that I understand all of this before I leap into anything.

Thanks for your time.

 

[fishguy194]

As far as using live rock from previously established tanks, you are taking no bigger a risk than if you were to get live rock or livestock from a store, from a friend, from anywhere basically. My point being it should be okay. It would be quite ridiculous to start sterile.

It would be good practice to quarantine ALL purchases and sterilize equipment between quarantine tanks and display tanks but to sterilize equipment between displays is a little much.

As far as using wild caught foods, it would depend on where you caught them. Are there water treatment plants or factories nearby? Sewage? I would be more worried about chemicals or toxins which the plankton had ingested rather than parasites. You might be better off getting ghost and brine shrimp from your LFS.

I would hesitate to feed newly acquired seahorses live foods. However, once through quarantine and established, I have fed live foods as a treat without them reverting to live foods only. The only time I have seen this happen is when the animals became ill. I find most animals (and people) will become picky eaters if they aren't feeling well.

 

[rayjay]

As for your question on pathogen/bacteria, they are two separate problems.
As the pathogens can be introduced by anything you put in the system, you are decreasing your odds of success with each addition unless it is sterile.
People have succeeded taking no precautions of any kind, and people have failed after taking every precaution possible.
I personally have had a rocky road in my seahorse keeping so that now, to try to eliminate as much as possible the varied causes of problems, I start off with sterile systems, even though I know they can't remain sterile.
I boil the rock and set up with artificial hitches and decor and have species only tanks with only seahorses from the same breeding source in any given tank.
You can read about my earlier endeavours HERE.

 

[DanU]

One thing that I am unclear on, is if the pathogen problem is the same thing as , or related to, the bacteria problems that can occur above 74 degrees. Does it go hand-in-hand, or are these two unrelated issues?

A pathogen is any micro-organism that causes disease. In most cases, if you dig deep enough, you can associate it with some sort of stress, be it an obvious stressful event or a low level persistent stressor. The temperature thing kicks in because most of these pathogens reproduce faster at warmer temperatures.

If you are going to use live rock and have what appears to be a healthy system already, I would use some of that rock. There is probably less risk from it than purchasing additional rock and it won't have the typical die off that comes with acquiring rock. If on the other hand you want to start sterile, then you will have to cycle the tank. Even with established rock, you will want to challenge the tank to make sure it can handle the bioload.

If you have access to collecting you own live foods, that is great. In many cases, unless the live food is specifically labeled as aquacultured, it is collected from somewhere else and shipped in. Freshly collected foods would be better. We have many folks in this area that only use collected foods and they do very well. The one thing you have to watch out for is the seahorses coming off frozen foods. Some species such as H. reidi can be very difficult to get back onto frozen foods if they have too much live given to them. This is less of an issue with true captive bred but still can happen. Feeding live foods a couple of times a week is usually not an issue.

Dan

 

[saippenu]

Thank you for your responses. I live on Cape Cod in Massachusetts and I think the water quality is ok here but there is certainly boat traffic everywhere which adds pollution and I am not sure about sewerage. I am thinking that if I go to open shellfish bed areas that sewerage should not be an issue but who knows.

I wouldn't want to be out there collecting live food in winter so I'd have to be careful not to overdo it and end up with SH that wont eat frozen.

I've read that only frozen is advised but I hate the idea of totally changing their natural hunting habits ...then again, my clowns are captive bred and very happy in their 29 gallon so captive bred may make the difference for Seahorses too.

I think I just want an excuse to satisfy my own "hunter gatherer" instincts by gathering their foods myself, which isn't a good reason to do it.