Dwarf Seahorses? 5 Gallon System?
- Thread starter Kinetic
- Start date
DrBDC
Active member
That would be a great dwarf tank.
Here is a cut and paste from an article on Seahorse.org
Seahorses spend most of their day hitched to plants so they will need plastic plants such as sea grass or live marine plants such as Caulepra to hold on to. Dwarfs do best in smaller tanks. You can happily house them in anything from a fishbowl with filtration all the way up to a 10 gallon. The use of the 10-gallon is not recommended for beginners due to feeding concentrations. Newly hatched brine shrimp are very small!! The larger the tank, the more brine shrimp that is needed to concentrate feeding. When using the 10-gallon tank you would also need to house at least 10 dwarfs to even out the concentration so there is less die off. I find a 2 or a 5-gallon to be the best size and food concentration is easier. A 2-gallon tank can easily hold 5 pair including any babies that they may have.
Here is a cut and paste from an article on Seahorse.org
Seahorses spend most of their day hitched to plants so they will need plastic plants such as sea grass or live marine plants such as Caulepra to hold on to. Dwarfs do best in smaller tanks. You can happily house them in anything from a fishbowl with filtration all the way up to a 10 gallon. The use of the 10-gallon is not recommended for beginners due to feeding concentrations. Newly hatched brine shrimp are very small!! The larger the tank, the more brine shrimp that is needed to concentrate feeding. When using the 10-gallon tank you would also need to house at least 10 dwarfs to even out the concentration so there is less die off. I find a 2 or a 5-gallon to be the best size and food concentration is easier. A 2-gallon tank can easily hold 5 pair including any babies that they may have.
Samala
New member
Just to clarify BDC is talking about H. zosterae, the true dwarf seahorses. These guys range in size from 1 - 1.5" and are not readibly available at LFS's as captive raised. There are only two sources for captive bred at the moment.. seahorsesource.com and oceanrider.com. There are a couple of others that collect them wild but the risk of disease/parasites is there. Up to you.
The larger species - H. kuda, H. erectus, H. reidi and sometimes H. barbouri.. all require larger tanks, bare minimum being 20H and a 29gallon being preferred.
>Sarah
The larger species - H. kuda, H. erectus, H. reidi and sometimes H. barbouri.. all require larger tanks, bare minimum being 20H and a 29gallon being preferred.
>Sarah
Kinetic
Active member
http://seahorse.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=113
they have a cool package, with tons of food for them.
I think I'll research these guys for a couple weeks before making my decision. A constant supply of live foods could get expensive. I might also have to research on how to hatch baby brine.
they have a cool package, with tons of food for them.
I think I'll research these guys for a couple weeks before making my decision. A constant supply of live foods could get expensive. I might also have to research on how to hatch baby brine.
DrBDC
Active member
It's not that they really have a bioload to consider at all. It's the feeding of them that creates the bioload. Here is a great article to read:
http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/dwarfKeeping.shtml
http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/dwarfKeeping.shtml
Kinetic
Active member
wow, looks like you gotta feed them a massive amount of brine. "snow flurry" as they referred to it as. This is scarey for a small tank. I've kept saltwater fish, and feeding them too much always makes me worried about phosphate levels and algae blooms.
The tank size is this:
Display: 12" x 9" x 9"
Back compartment sump/fuge: 12" x 3" x 9" with about 5" x 3" x 9" being the fuge with chaeto.
The site you gave me says monthly water changes, I'm used to changing water weekly, would this be bad to change the water so much?
I'm also thinking of running activated carbon and phosphate absorbing media to help combat the food dosing.
Here's a picture of the tank:
being built:
So here's a few questions:
1. Will that tank be good for the seahorses?
2. How many should I start off with? If they have babies, I'm sure it will start to be come overcrowded or not enough food would be available?
3. How dirty will the tank become? Will it be a pain to maintain? On my main reef tank I usually spend about 30 minutes a day making sure everything is ok (regluing knocked over frags, feeding, cleaning off any saltcreep, etc, so I don't mind spending some time on the tank).
4. Is it possible to hatch the brine right inside the tank?
5. I have three pieces of live rock, is that ok? I will be putting some coral in the tank (softies) that hopefully will allow the seahorse to grab on. I'll add the seahorse last to the tank after it's established.
6. My temperatures right now are very steady at 78 degrees, is this too high for them? I may add some fans =/
Thanks!!
The tank size is this:
Display: 12" x 9" x 9"
Back compartment sump/fuge: 12" x 3" x 9" with about 5" x 3" x 9" being the fuge with chaeto.
The site you gave me says monthly water changes, I'm used to changing water weekly, would this be bad to change the water so much?
I'm also thinking of running activated carbon and phosphate absorbing media to help combat the food dosing.
Here's a picture of the tank:
being built:
So here's a few questions:
1. Will that tank be good for the seahorses?
2. How many should I start off with? If they have babies, I'm sure it will start to be come overcrowded or not enough food would be available?
3. How dirty will the tank become? Will it be a pain to maintain? On my main reef tank I usually spend about 30 minutes a day making sure everything is ok (regluing knocked over frags, feeding, cleaning off any saltcreep, etc, so I don't mind spending some time on the tank).
4. Is it possible to hatch the brine right inside the tank?
5. I have three pieces of live rock, is that ok? I will be putting some coral in the tank (softies) that hopefully will allow the seahorse to grab on. I'll add the seahorse last to the tank after it's established.
6. My temperatures right now are very steady at 78 degrees, is this too high for them? I may add some fans =/
Thanks!!
DrBDC
Active member
Did that article say monthly? NOOOOOOO On a little tank with the feeding required for them I'd change 1/3 to 1/2 2X a week. I personally do about 1/2 of my 3 gallon eclipse 2X a week from my main tank. That way it already has the ca/alk/mag and I don't have to bother to measure another tank. Now if your main tank is struggling, maybe fresh mixed would be better. But either way a gallon or two is easy. I do it with a little bucket and a little plastic solo cup in about 2 minutes.
DrBDC
Active member
That's a great looking setup. You could go longer probably with that system on the back. Just keep the flow low. I added blackjack to mine to hitch to. I ordered my horses and blackjack from floridacollectors.com. I paid 20 for the horses/blackjack and 24 for the express fed ex delivery. He sent me extra horses as well even though I only ordered a pregnant male and a female. He sent 3 females and the preg. male. I have 12 babies as of last week. The captive born babies eat cyclopeeze and the others do some but they are trickier to get to eat anything but brine. So when the babies grow I'll prob. sell of the fussier ones to make my life easier. I started 2 brine hatcheries with 2 liter bottles inverted and 1 is ready each day. My mandarins in my main tank like the extra made since I can't give the whole batch to the little tank. You can have a pair or two per gallon in there so that's a lot of little seahorses. Get some reading glasses to really study them! :lol:
Kinetic
Active member
i could really change the water every single day... so frequent water changes aren't a problem at all.
Thanks, I designed the system from scratch to avoid needing an unattached sump etc. I'm thinking of trying to see if the back fuge would help the copepod population, but it is still pretty small and wouldn't reproduce fast enough for sure.
I read that the dwarf's won't be able to eat cyclopeeze etc and must have live baby brine or mysis if available. I read that mysid shrimp are hard to reproduce, thus enriched brine is the usual.
My flow is about 130gph right now, but the pump can be throttled down. What is a good rule of thumb for flow per gallon for seahorses? I won't be keeping high flow corals so it won't be a problem.
So many horses in such a small tank! That will be exciting.
I was thinking about getting ONE small tiny fish for my tank, like a neon goby or a clown goby, but 5 or more pairs of seahorses in such a small tank!? wow! That's a lot more exciting. No other tankmates other than small scarlet red hermits and some snails.
I'll look up how hard it is to hatch brine. Looks like the hardest part of seahorses is feeding and water quality.
DrBDC
Active member
I did add a firefish who could care less about them. I think he's pouting though because he's never out now. If I'm correct doesn't cyclopeeze have more nutrition and higher hufa's than brine even enriched. I'm speaking of the frozen kind vs. the dry. I may be wrong though. But my babies eat it and the adults snack on it. Flow I'm not sure, just slow. I don't even know what the Eclipse 3 gallon tank's pump does but I put a sponge that came with my mag3 over the intake to make sure the horses don't get sucked in and it seems good. I have a kenya tree, some zo's, and some anthelia. The anthelia is growing but it's not vibrant. The other two are fine. I used live rock and live sand from my fuge. I stared at it for a couple weeks. I kalked one little aip that popped up.
Fishfreak218
New member
some can be trained onto Cyclopeeze.. I havnt seen a ton of people who have though... I have always been under the impression that Dwarfs should not be kept with Coral.. was i wrong???? (directing this to Dwarf owners, or at least Sh owners)
DrBDC
Active member
It depends on what kind of coral it is. It is rare for the wc's to eat the cyclop I know that. I'm just happy my babies are. I put the cyclopeeze in the a.m. when I first noticed them. Mine hitch on my anthelia. Here's a tankmate link:
http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/tankmates.shtml
http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/tankmates.shtml
Swanwillow
goby girl
ok, here goes:
1. Will that tank be good for the seahorses?
yep
2. How many should I start off with? If they have babies, I'm sure it will start to be come overcrowded or not enough food would be available?
if you go to florida collector, he sells 5 gallon setups for 50 bucks. I wouldn't mind getting the dwarves wild caught, but thats just me http://floridacollector.com/hitchingpost.htm just tell him to leave out any jellyfish (sometimes his thinking is wrong, but hes really good at what he does) OR use that as a basis for what you get. In a 5 gallon, don't be worried if thier population goes into the 20's. You'll see when they get there!!!
3. How dirty will the tank become? Will it be a pain to maintain? On my main reef tank I usually spend about 30 minutes a day making sure everything is ok (regluing knocked over frags, feeding, cleaning off any saltcreep, etc, so I don't mind spending some time on the tank).
VERY. seahorses are dirty fish. think in terms of goldfish. make use of lots of macro algae-in the tank, since the seahorses will LOVE to hitch in it, and live in it. its actually a good idea to have macros in the main display. Since they make the nutrients go bye-bye...
4. Is it possible to hatch the brine right inside the tank?
nope-too much ammonia. Have to make a hatchery, hatch em out every day. there are lots and lots of places that have pictures and diagrams for this. its mostly just a bubbler, and a couple of 2 liters, coffee filters, and bleach. I can send ya to sites that discribe this process.
5. I have three pieces of live rock, is that ok? I will be putting some coral in the tank (softies) that hopefully will allow the seahorse to grab on. I'll add the seahorse last to the tank after it's established.
for dwarf seahorses, live rock is not a good thing-and hitchhikers will probably kill them, and most corals will kill them. They are TINY!
6. My temperatures right now are very steady at 78 degrees, is this too high for them? I may add some fans =/
I dunno bout dwarf seahorses and temps, but with the normal large seahorses, that temp is too high. I'd probably want it around 75 for a daily high, with 72 normal... but I COULD be wrong.
a good rule of thumb is 3-5 x turnover for the water flow. VERY low-most people only use a HOB filter for flow in dwarf tanks, and thats it. a ton different from a reef tank, where more flow is better. In other words, your gonna have ta turn it down.
but NO, dwarves should NOT be kept with other things... MAYBE you can have some dwarf pipefish in there (which are hard to find.)
the tankmates list is for big horsies, not the dwarves.
http://forum.seahorse.org/ they have resources in a FORUM just FOR DWARVES and they can help ya more than most people here can!!! don't get discouraged!
1. Will that tank be good for the seahorses?
yep
2. How many should I start off with? If they have babies, I'm sure it will start to be come overcrowded or not enough food would be available?
if you go to florida collector, he sells 5 gallon setups for 50 bucks. I wouldn't mind getting the dwarves wild caught, but thats just me http://floridacollector.com/hitchingpost.htm just tell him to leave out any jellyfish (sometimes his thinking is wrong, but hes really good at what he does) OR use that as a basis for what you get. In a 5 gallon, don't be worried if thier population goes into the 20's. You'll see when they get there!!!
3. How dirty will the tank become? Will it be a pain to maintain? On my main reef tank I usually spend about 30 minutes a day making sure everything is ok (regluing knocked over frags, feeding, cleaning off any saltcreep, etc, so I don't mind spending some time on the tank).
VERY. seahorses are dirty fish. think in terms of goldfish. make use of lots of macro algae-in the tank, since the seahorses will LOVE to hitch in it, and live in it. its actually a good idea to have macros in the main display. Since they make the nutrients go bye-bye...
4. Is it possible to hatch the brine right inside the tank?
nope-too much ammonia. Have to make a hatchery, hatch em out every day. there are lots and lots of places that have pictures and diagrams for this. its mostly just a bubbler, and a couple of 2 liters, coffee filters, and bleach. I can send ya to sites that discribe this process.
5. I have three pieces of live rock, is that ok? I will be putting some coral in the tank (softies) that hopefully will allow the seahorse to grab on. I'll add the seahorse last to the tank after it's established.
for dwarf seahorses, live rock is not a good thing-and hitchhikers will probably kill them, and most corals will kill them. They are TINY!
6. My temperatures right now are very steady at 78 degrees, is this too high for them? I may add some fans =/
I dunno bout dwarf seahorses and temps, but with the normal large seahorses, that temp is too high. I'd probably want it around 75 for a daily high, with 72 normal... but I COULD be wrong.
a good rule of thumb is 3-5 x turnover for the water flow. VERY low-most people only use a HOB filter for flow in dwarf tanks, and thats it. a ton different from a reef tank, where more flow is better. In other words, your gonna have ta turn it down.
but NO, dwarves should NOT be kept with other things... MAYBE you can have some dwarf pipefish in there (which are hard to find.)
the tankmates list is for big horsies, not the dwarves.
http://forum.seahorse.org/ they have resources in a FORUM just FOR DWARVES and they can help ya more than most people here can!!! don't get discouraged!
