Another "new to seahorses" thread

[mak3mydae]

Hi,
I have a beautiful extra tank lying around due to problems that came up, and i was looking into sea horses for it. It is a 18g ADA tank so it is the same dimensions as a 20H, just a few inches shorter. I wanted to keep maybe two pipefish (banded? blue line? Not sure yet) and some sea horses, but i'm not sure what kinds. Is it possible to keep both dwarf seahorses and larger seahorses together? Or would they just get eaten?

Of course i have to ask questions about feeding. I understand they need to be fed many times because they have no stomachs, so are there any types of feeding apparatuses that slowly feeds throughout the day? I was looking into live foods such as copecods, but i'm not sure if i could sustain a large enough population to keep the horses well fed. I've read that you can get by with just one feeding a day, but i've also heard that you should treat them like any other fish. The yellow coris wrasse i currently have is in a 20H(going to relocate soon) and i never feed him because the pod poulation is so high. Is it possible to get away just one feeding every other day? (the wrasse will go be going in this tank)

Thanks in advance

 

[rayjay]

I hate to tell you but an 18g tank is too small for normal sized seahorses and too large for dwarfs, unless you are going to have a heck of a pile of dwarfs in there. Dwarfs require feeding densities sufficient to provide enough food passing by their hitches as most don't search and hunt for food, but grab what comes by them while hitched.
Minimum recommended tank size for a pair of normal seahorses is 29g, with an additional 15g for each additional pair.
The only live food apparatus that I've seen was Paul B's brine shrimp feeder but his is no longer selling these last I heard.
Copepods are too small for normal seahorses but can be an additional source of food for the base bbs that dwarfs feed on.
For best chances of success with seahorses, one would keep a species only tank with no other fish including other seahorses from other sources.
There are a lot of links at the bottom of MY THOUGHTS ON SEAHORSE KEEPING that can help with your beginning knowledge base.

 

[ChadTheSpike]

Until last week, I had only heard of Paul B's live food SH feeder too.

This is forwarded along from a member of my local reef club, who is a professional aquarist for the Smithsonian institute, he said he got it from his aquarist listserve.

All this being said, I dont think you will be able to get away long-term with once every other day feeding. Seriously (I am just being straight here), if that is all you can accomplish, seahorses are not for you. They will slowly wither away and die.

"Hello List,

I wanted to share with everybody my way of feeding the horses. At the moment, we have around 950 horses. So... feeding can take a lot of time. This may help. It will involve a Lee's Worm Feeder. $1.58 at Aquatic Eco.

Aquatic Eco Link

You will need to drill a hole in the bottom, around 5/32 drill bit is used. This can vary, based on how fast you want the food to escape.

Hang the feeder the furthest away from your drain/filter. All you have to do is, put some live food in the feeder and let the horses feed.

Some of the benefits, in my opinion:
-Helps train the horses to come feed at one spot (less food in filter)
-Allows you to observe who comes up for food (inspecting the health of the animal)
-Slowly will feed the system in the evening and day (always a plus for Syngnathidae)

I like to start this method with 3-4 month old horses. It really helps them find food, and feed throughout the day. As they grow, you can enlarge the hole and even put frozen mysis shrimp in there. Individual horses can stick their snout in the hole and grab shrimp out. Total time saver for us.

I do have a feeder on exhibit all the time (may not be possible for some of you). What I have observed is, the horses will check the cone ever 20-30 minutes to see if food is present in the feeder. This really creates a better exhibit animal compared to most horses that hitch on the bottom all day. "

 

[mak3mydae]

So the seahorse tank is a no-go. This is probably the wrong forum to ask, but are there any cool kind of biotopes that would fair well in a 18g? I was thinking maybe just one antennata lion, or maybe some kind of other species only tank. I dont want to post a million threads asking what to do with my tank

TIA

 

[ChadTheSpike]

I think you could do a cool scorpion or angler tank.

A few years back I had a tri of leaf fish in a 20L that had also had leather corals in it... that was a cool tank. Warty frogfish stay pretty small and would be a good choice as well. Or you could put a chiller on and go with a coldwater tank that features catalina gobies. Hmmm, how about an NPS tank for tubastrea?

Hehe, I could probably go on like this for a while...

Good luck!

 

[ChadTheSpike]

Also, I just realized that my link above didnt work, which was probably for the best anyway, just search for "cone worm feeder" to find what I mean.

I may try it out and see how it goes for me.

 

[namxas]

am 18T is too small for a P. antennata unless it's a juvie and you plan to upgrade as the tank is outgrown. We've used 18T's for a few of our juvie lionfish, and they work well, but not for the long term.

You could keep a small scorp or waspfish in the 18T, but a longer tank would be a better choice as these fish are substrate huggers and would use lateral space over vertical space.