Considering setting up a seahorse tank for my son for christmas. Questions?

[spankey]

I currently am running 3 reef tanks in my home and have great knowledge in their line, reefs that is. I do not have a great knowledge though on seahorse tanks. I will read and do my research as I did prior and while I kept my tanks. I don't skimp with equipment and maintence,but want to make sure I do things right.....

I am getting from a buddy a standard 30 gallon tank to house some horses. My question is this and please be honest and reply away with ideas and do's and don'ts....

I will be lighting the tank with a powercompact fixture nothing fancy. I will have allot of plant covered rock in the tank for them to hang on and such.

I know they do NOT like or agree with allot of flow, so I am thinking what to use in the line of powerheads and pumps. There will be NO sump on this system, just the tank itself.

Should a protein skimmer be used on a seahorse tank? Seeing how I would NOT be heavily feeding this tank with nothing but brine shrimp the feed load would remain low.

Inhabitants,,,, Can I keep snails, and crabs in this tank for clean up and such with safety.

Can any fish be in this tank as well that would NOT bother the seahorses. Such as blenny's (algae eaters) any other fish. I know fish are NOT welcome as they would eat the horses food before they can, so that is why I was leaning for an algae eater.

Again, I appreciate everyone's time and effort that replies to this thread and will take their comments and suggestions with many thanks.


Spankey

 

[Fredfish]

I'm glad you stopped by to ask questions before setting up. That 30 gallon will be a nice size.

The flow thing is a bit of a myth. Its a matter of velocity rather than volume. If you have the whole tank churning like an sps reef with no lower flow areas, your horses will not be happy or comfortable.

As an example, I just added a Tunze Nanostream (660gph) to my 40g seahorse tank. This pump provides a very distributed flow compared to a powerhead. Even with the distributed flow, close to the pump (in the first 3-4") the flow is quite strong for horses. Further away, there is still lots of flow, but less velocity and the horses are just fine.

In the setup I had yesterday and early this morning, I had very strong flow in one half of the tank and almost nothing on the other side. One of my males was swimming around in the high flow area. He was getting pushed around, but still, he chose to swim there and was fine. If the whole tank had flow like this, It would be bad for the horses, but with only smaller areas of higher flow, the horses can decide where they want to swim.

Just to bring the point home, 660gph is 15 times turnover. That sounds like HUGE flow for a seahorse tank. I did a lot of playing around yesterday and some pump positions produced a lot more flow than others. Some positions concentrated and strengthened the flow in particular areas. I may still have to play with pump position depending on how the horses seem to like the current setup.

If all you are going to keep is horses and macro algaes, you really do not need as much flow as I have. I upped the flow to accomodate corals I want to add (started with a gorgonian yeaterday).

The flow from a powerhead can be broken up quickly by bouncing it off a wall or pushing the flow through a manifold with multiple exits. If you go with a manifold, I would recomend a better submersible pump like an ehime. It will handle the backpreasure a manifold will create.

Food. Live enriched adult brinshrimp are a good supplemental food that can be used several times a week, but do not contain enough nutrients to sustain seahorses long term. Buy horses that are proven to be eating frozen mysis and use that as your primary diet.

Herbivourous and scavenger snails are fine. I have never kept crabs in with horses. Some have had good experiences, some habvn't.

You need to have nutrient export of some sort, even with a lighter bioload, or you will get nutrient buildup. A skimmer would be fine. If you are going to let a lot of algae grow in your tank and harvest it regularly, this may be enough.

Personally, I would strongly recommend a refugium. Seahorses eat a very limited number of frozen foods and need something to suplement their diet. A good mature refugium can generate lots of amphipods for your horses to feed on. It also gives you more room to grow macro algae to use for nutrient export.

There are a good number of fish that are compatible with seahorse, a number that are iffy and lots that are just not a good idea.

Shrimp gobies (Stonogobiops), jawfish, Bangiai cardinals and fairy wrases are a few that are good. These fish are generally shy and non-aggressive feeders. Fish like clowns are iffy because they are can be very aggressive feeders. I believe that blennies are on the iffy and don't-do-it lists. My only personal experience to date is with Bangai cardinals and they are just fine.

If you want a colourful and interesting fish, consider P. fridmani (but not any other pseudochromis!). I kept one of these in a reef tank. It is a very non agressive feeder and, although active, will not bother your horses.

Good luck.

Fred

 

[scapes]

i just bought 4 erectus. one got sucked up by my protein skimmer. i'd stay away from those. just use some sort of H.O.T. filter.

 

[Fredfish]

Always take care to cover pump intakes properly no mater what its powering. For the power head I have pumping into my refugium I have a huge basket filter housing (quick filter) over the intake. I will never have a problem with it sucking in seahorses.

Fred

 

[seas_inside]

I do not think a protein skimmer would be necessary. And, it sometimes is the cause of GBD (gas bubble disease) in seahorses. So, I would not recommend it.

You can keep almost all non-aggressive snails (I like nassarius) and a few very small hermit crabs.

This is a great "tankmates" site that lists fish and inverts from least aggressive to most. http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/tankmates.shtml

Brine Shrimp as a stable food supply will be not sufficient and the horses will slowly starve over time (except for dwarf seahorses, but I don't think you're getting those with a 30g). Like some others said above, frozen mysis, ghost shrimp, and others would be perfect.

I also recommend that you sign up at http://www.seahorse.org/. There, you'll find some very experienced folks (not that you won't here).

Good luck!

 

[Fredfish]

There is no solid evidence linking GBD to skimmers. If a skimmer is the best way to maintain water quality for your setup, the upside of good water quality outweighs the suspected risk of gbd.

Fred

 

[seas_inside]

Alrighty, Fred. I was saying what some people have had experience with (skimmers to gbd). I know this a semi-big debate, so there is not one completely right answer. It's your experience and opinon that you base your answers on.

 

[spankey]

Wow,

Thanks all for the info. I really appreciate it. This tank will be skimmerless for a few months. I just set it up and its churning as I type. I have an emperor 400 on the tank now with NO filters in it. The most I would run in the filter would be carbon if that. I want to use it as a hang on home made refugium for macro and LR rubble. There will be 10% weekly water changes on this system with RO water so I am hoping if I can get enought plant life in this tank, it should cover any nitrate situation I might encounter. I agree as skimmer is awesome but want to try this natural for awhile and see how it goes.

I did register at Seahorse.org and am waiting for them to release my posting privledges. I was on it last night reading a great deal. I actually thought you could keep the normal seahorses NOT the dwarfs in a smaller tank but then read that they like to swim upwards as well so the small tanks are out. I amost set my son up with a small 12 gallon pod for a seahors, but decided to get this tank. My buddy hooked me up with the 30g standard, custom made canopy, custom made stand, two 65w current sunpaq retro's and the emperor filter for some coral frags. He is a great guy and wanted to help my son out for his early christmas present. My son is thinking we can get horses tomorrow. Its hard explaining to a 7 year old that the tank has to establish and go thru its cycle.

I have been reading allot about that bio-spira and you are able to cut the tank cycle down. Anyone ever use this stuff and does it work? My buddy sells it at his pet store and people claim that they have had no issues. They have added fish the next day and are still going strong weeks later.....

Any rate, thanks for the links. I will be adding a small eyelash blenny if they are safe. They divoir hair algae like maniacs on drugs..... At least mine do. I just need to find a nice small one.

Spankey

 

[Angeline]

I had no cycle in one of my tanks, and a short cycle in my larger one. I used cured LR, which is more expensive than uncured and live sand. Of course, there is no guaranteed way to eliminate a cycle, but like I said, that's just my experience.

 

[cayars]

I use BIO-SPIRA MARINE to jump start tanks and it works very well. It's the best bacteria starter by far IMHO. One bag will do 20 gallons. You could pick up 2 bags and use 1.5 of them and then dose the remaining 1/2 bag after your first water change. Just keep it in the fridge.

When you purchase it make sure it was in a fridge and not frozen or off the shelf. Once you add the bacteria you either need to have the fish/seahorses in the tank or just add a couple of flakes of fish food to keep the bacteria alive and working on your nitrogen cycle or the baceria will die off since they have nothing to eat.

 

[spankey]

Thanks for the info, I think I might try it along with about 20lbs of cured lr as well. That should settle nicely.

Thanks again.

Spank.

 

[Fredfish]

Cool. Sounds like you have your setup nailed.

On cycling, there is more to cycling than the amonia nitrite nitrate cycle. Eric Borneman has a very good explanation of cycling in a tank as a sticky at the top of his forum at the MD site. Basically, you see a series of cycles as different algaes come and go. With each die off and switch to a new algae there is a release of chemicals other than nitrogen into the water, some of them being quite noxious.

For a tank to fully cycle and reach some sort of equilibrium can take up to a year. Because you do not measure a spike in nitrite/nitrate does not mean that your tank is not cycling.

I am not suggesting you wait a year before adding animals, but do give your tank some time to start cycling before you add anything.

Fred