Couple questions

[B3ach]

I have been in the reefing hobby for 4 1/2 years now. I have been thinking about seahorses for the past few months. I would prefer it to be a macro tank as well. I know seahorses need to be kept at around 74*. But I was at a fish store and a guy had some in a reef tank and I asked him about temperature. He said that the ones he buys are tank bred and raised in 78* water, so they don't need their water to be that cold. Is this true? He said the ones he had were kellogi. My reef tank stays at around 78* during the day, but can get up to 81 at night. I think that's because my fan runs during the day when the lights are on. So I could just run a fan 24/7 and not run a heater in this tank.
As for everything else, I would run an aquaclear 50 with chemi-pure elite and filter floss. As well as 1 small powerhead.
Lighting would be 1 t5. An aquablue special.

Now the big question. Could I keep just 1 seahorse in a 10g? I would get it as small as possible. Still haven't decided what kind yet...either erectus or reidi. Which would you recommend?

As for feeding... would frozen brine shrimp or mysis twice a day work?

Thanks!

 

[wdt2000]

I think most if not all H. kelloggi are pen raised or wc and from my understanding most of these die. I am sure you could keep one in a 10 gallon, but I would guess it would do much better in a 29 gallon. Mysid seem to work very well.

 

[ssantac]

I can tell you that from my limited experience 78 is too hot...at least for erectus. I had mine for a year(tank at 74-ish), but this last summer due to (believe it or not) furnature/tv re-arrangement my tank got up to 78-79 and I had some sort of bacterial infection kill all 4 within a week of eachother. Unfortunatly I cross contaminated and killed all but 1 of my babies too! I think seahorse source and/or seahorse dot org has good info on tank sizes/temps. I believe horses are social animals so you may want to consider a pair.
Also from what I've learned around here, powerheads are tail amputators, so be careful which kind you get in case they hitch to it. I have a maxi jet in my tank so I didnt have any problems.

 

[namxas]

How long has the person kept those "kelloggi" alive? The reason I ask is that there have been some hybrids out of SE Asia and Sri Lanka that have a really dismal survival rate.

If you're going to use a 10 gal, why not simply get an 18T (AKA 20 XT)? They have the same footprint as a 10 gal, hold twice the water, and are twice as tall (think of two 10's stacked on top of each other. Contrary to popular belief, SH DO use all the tank space given to them IF THEY HAVE IT, but they can't jump up and say "hey...we're a bit cramped in here".

As mentioned, 81*F max is too warm for SH. As mentioned, you should be keeping them at 74*F max.

Otherwise, the only SH you should keep in a 10 gal are zots, and you could go 20 of those easily, but then you have the whole live food thing to contend with.

Also, search on seahorses and vacations, and you'll find that this will be another consideration. if you like vacations, don't get SH unless you have someone to come in and feed them daily.

Just want you to go into this with your eyes open...