Dawn's seahorse garden!

Michael Hoaster said:
Those ponies are cool! Nice vid.
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Thanks Michael. Eve is amazing. She is getting rather old but she still like to play and flow surf. She must not see as well though because she eats slower and more deliberate. In the wild she probably could not compete but I can cater to her in the tank. It probably helps that the tank is spar.
 
They are really fascinating animals, like living fossils! Your success with them is a huge accomplishment. You've got a lot to be proud of! I really enjoy the vids to see their behavior.
 
Michael Hoaster said:
They are really fascinating animals, like living fossils! Your success with them is a huge accomplishment. You've got a lot to be proud of! I really enjoy the vids to see their behavior.
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Thanks Michael. My success comes from the pioneering folks who have gone before me and documented what worked and what did not. Not so different from you and your seagrasses.
 
So true Dawn. But of course it's one thing to have the information, and quite another to apply it faithfully for years! Chapeau!
 
Thanks Michael, but perhaps I spoke too soon. Samson's one eye looks a little funky and I am not sure if something is going on with him or not. He did not come out to eat like normal either so I need to keep my eye on him. Eve seems just like she always does but typically the males are more fragile health wise.
 
Michael Hoaster said:
Well bummer. I hope he pulls through for you.
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He seemed better yesterday. He came out and ate well but the starburst pattern over his eye is still whitish. Seahorses change their skin pigmentation and it may be nothing more than that. As long as he continues to eat well that is going to be my assumption.
 
I have not commented on Samson lately but he seems to be fine except the bump on his tail. He is eating well and he flirts with Eve. I am guessing the bump is a gas bubble under the skin but it is not causing buoyancy issues and does not appear to be hurting him so I am just going to leave it be.
 
I cleaned up (pruned the red titan and removed the caulerpa in the areas that I did not want it) the 56 gallon macro-reef tank this morning. Also I did my 10% weekly water change. My husband bought me 5 new featherdusters so I have a little grove of them now. 3 are the brown Hawaiian type and 3 are a smaller red and white variety and I had 2 very small tube worms on my live rock naturally. I just love tube worms and find them to be fascinating creatures. Until this high nutrient tank I had never been able to keep them successfully. I suspect they were malnourished in my other tanks and now they finally are getting enough to eat. Maybe I can snap a pic or take a very short video of the tank with the new additions.
 
Good to hear about Samson!

I like feather dusters and tube worms too. I've had a few pop up on my rocks. I love it when critters pop up to take advantage of the right conditions. I've recently discovered hundreds of tiny tunicates growing on the new section of my fake wall. I guess since the water flows through there, it makes a good home for them.

I'd love to see pics or video of your new dusters!
 
Michael Hoaster said:
Good to hear about Samson!

I like feather dusters and tube worms too. I've had a few pop up on my rocks. I love it when critters pop up to take advantage of the right conditions. I've recently discovered hundreds of tiny tunicates growing on the new section of my fake wall. I guess since the water flows through there, it makes a good home for them.

I'd love to see pics or video of your new dusters!
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I will try to get a pic of the feather duster forest.

I also love the voluntary sponges and tunicates that appear in my tanks. I am sure they are part of the reason that I can feed so heavily but not have any algae problem.
 
I have some sad news. 2 days ago Eve stopped eating and today she passed. I have had her 5 and a half years and although I know that she lived out a good seahorse life I feel very sad. She was the female in the first pair I got and survived a lot of my noobie mistakes. I have been watching her decline for a while and knew that she was not as young as she used to be. She could no longer catch live food and in general seemed indecisive about snicking even frozen food. However earlier this week I watched her intentionally play in the flow in front of the powerheads. I am glad that she kept her zest for life up to the end. She was a wonderful pet.
 
With Eve passing I am planning to move my tank system in a new direction. This morning I moved Samson into a hospital tank in an attempt to treat the bump on his tail with diamox. Diamox is a medication that is used to treat glaucoma in people. It works by lowering pressure in the eye. Seahorses because of imbalance in their bodies(or at least that is the thought) can develope air bubbles in areas of their bodies. Popeye, buoyancy issues and pouch air bubble disease are all thought to be remedied with diamox. I had not tried it on Samson because I worried that the treatment might be worse on him than his condition since the bump on his tail does not appear to be affecting him in any way. However now that I am rehoming him I thought I should attempt to cure him. In doing that it leaves the 30 gallon tank/basement sump system empty. That paves the way to make the changes that I have planned for the 56 gallon natural reef.

My first change is to work on the mural on the back glass. Since this tank will not have seahorses in it again I want to de-emphasize the seahorse on the back glass. I will not remove it altogether because seahorses had been part of the tank's history, but I do want it to be much more subtle. In order to do the necessary artwork I need to move the 56 gallon away from the wall. I am hoping that with some of the rock, coral and water removed we can move the tank more into the room about 6". Hopefully that will leave me enough room to work on the mural.

The rock, coral and as many fish as I can catch will go into the 30 gallon (prior seahorse) tank. Water volume will be similar since the 30 gallon is connected to the 20 gallon basement sump. I removed the protein skimmer and added the heater. So as I type this post the 56g tank is cooling off while the prior 30g tank with sump is warming up. When they are close to the same temp I will make the transfer of coral, rock and fish.

Once the mural on the back glass of the 56g is finished, then I will move it into position in the living room to hook up to the basement sump. Everything in the 30g will be moved back into the 56 and hopefully I will not have lost any fish, coral or inverts. The 30g will be moved to the basement next to the sump to be added into the entire system. It will have a DSB partly composed of garden soil, mineral mud and sand. It may have grasses like Michael's "Weeds" thread and probably some macro algae too and a little live rock. It will gravity flow into the 20g sump. With the 56g display, the 30g seagrass tank and the 20g sump I will have doubled my water volume for my system. WCs will be simple since I had upgraded that for the seahorses but now can use the same method for my high nutrient natural reef. To help keep the nutrients up I hope to keep more fish, (in fact as many as will get along with each other in a 56g tank. I have 10 fish now and I am thinking a pair of jaw fish would be nice, a watchman goby, 2 or 3 fire fish and a small docile clownfish (if there is such a thing) to tend to my nems. I may round it out with a branded pipefish. That would bring the total fish count up to around 17 which should surely make for an active aquarium. It's possible if the fish are acting aggressive toward one another that some could be relocated to the seagrass tank. The jawfish and comb tooth blennies would be good choices for that area of the system.

Hopefully from now through the weekend a lot of this will be accomplished. I think I will start a new thread since the direction of the tank is quite changed. Stay tuned,
 
Sounds like a plan!

So the 56 reef, the 30 planted and 20g sump will all be connected into one system? The only potential downside I can see, is that it will be difficult to make adjustments to individual tanks. If it was me, I'd keep them separate, so I could optimize conditions for each. Since your 56 is a high nutrient reef, this issue will be minimized, so you should be fine. My 2 cents.

This is exciting! You're going to have an even greater fish community. Good luck with the mural art modification!
 
Michael Hoaster said:
Sounds like a plan!

So the 56 reef, the 30 planted and 20g sump will all be connected into one system? The only potential downside I can see, is that it will be difficult to make adjustments to individual tanks. If it was me, I'd keep them separate, so I could optimize conditions for each. Since your 56 is a high nutrient reef, this issue will be minimized, so you should be fine. My 2 cents.

This is exciting! You're going to have an even greater fish community. Good luck with the mural art modification!
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Yes Michael, all 3 tank will be connected in 1 system. Actually my objective for the system will be to create an eco-system that is reasonably low maintenance, with a nice variety of fish that are compatible with my high nutrient natural reef. The fish produce the nutrients to create flourishing macro algae, maybe seagrass and colorful thriving coral. Like you I need to be selective about the coral and fish I choose. The coral will be the types that like nutrients (dirtier water). The fish will be mostly small, quiet , non-aggression species which should help with the relatively large volume of fish in a small area.. I am thinking that the sea grasses should like the nutrients produced by the fish. The purpose for the sea grasses is just another nutrient consumer plus they will create a good habitat for worms and pods which will benefit the overall system. If I have to put fish in the seagrass tank it will be the comb tooth blennies to help with nuisance filamentous algae. The sump has a fuge that is literally crawling with pods so it should be very easy to seed the sea grass tank. Hopefully all 3 tanks will flourish under the same conditions, at least that is my premise, ha ha!
 
I think you will achieve your goal of low maintenance. Plants are so good at nutrient uptake, you'll likely need to do less water changes. I can't wait to see what you come up with!
 
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