Dwarf tank setup Question's

[twintrades]

Just re visisting the dwarf tank setup.

Ill have a 2.5 gallon tank and some Rock thats dry now ill cycle that first.

What should i have for filtration ? Would a Azoo plam filter work ? http://www.fosterandsmithaquatics.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+3579+9821&pcatid=9821&s=lh

Or should i just get a small sponge type drivin by an air stone ?

Iv also toyed with the idea of drilling the tank and making a tiny sump for it. That way i could filter the water with a section of filter foss and get the BBs out and in the trash.

Should i have a heater ?

What would you do ?

On a side note my wife wanted a pair of erectus but we dont have the room. SO i thought these would really make her happy. I know about hatching bbs daily. I culture 4 types of Pods and phyto.

 

[rayjay]

I don't feel there is any ONE correct way to house dwarfs successfully.
I don't use a filter of any kind, just two small pieces of cycled rock in my 5g with 18 dwarfs and some artificial hitching using two open ended airlines for water movement.
I don't hatch daily but rather weekly for the dwarfs.
I decap a batch, hatch out, grow out for another day, and then enrich what I need for the day for two 12 hour periods with new water and enrichment each period. Once I have the new batch going, what's left of the last batch get grown out for the large seahorses.
The dwarfs have no problem with eating brine shrimp that are 1/4 size, some even larger.
When I remove uneaten food, I just siphon them out into a net and then dump the water back in again on one day, replace with new water on the next day.
I don't use heaters in any of my seahorse tanks, preferring to keep temperatures below 74° to lessen chances of bacterial problems.

 

[twintrades]

So you let them eat for a defined period of time ? Then suck out the un eaten BBS ?


How fast do you have your bubbles going in the tank ?

 

[Bluemon]

I am about to get dwarf seahorses.
I actually have this: http://www.aquariumguys.com/eclipse3.html
With a sponge covering the filter intake thing.

Heater isn't really necessary if u have a lamp on during the day. I find that chillers are more needed sometimes

 

[rayjay]

So you let them eat for a defined period of time ? Then suck out the un eaten BBS ?

Yes, if you leave the uneaten ones in, they loose their nutrition in short time making them not so good as food.

How fast do you have your bubbles going in the tank ?

Don't know how to say how fast, but I have two lines so that I get good surface turmoil for proper gas exchange.
With only one airline, I had to have the flow so high it caused problems in the corner so I went with two with lesser flow each but more overall.

 

[twintrades]

So how long should i let them eat ?? And how long can they go without food? We go camping durring the summer and its never more than 1 night. Would they be fine not eating for 2 days ?

 

[rayjay]

Well for me, I use a fish sitter to feed all my tanks while I'm away as I don't want to take a chance. Normally I feed 3 times a day when I can, twice at worst. I don't know how long they can go without food but my larger seahorses have no problems with a day a week without food.
As for how long I leave the food in, I leave it in for at least an hour but I'm flexible on exactly how long to leave it based on other things I may be doing.
I have on occasion, left them in until I was going to do the next feeding but I remove them before I put the fresh stock in so the dwarfs only have fully enriched brine to choose from at that time.
After feeding them for a while, you get to know how much to feed them so that they get enough to feed without having to remove too much after a couple of hours.

 

[Bluemon]

http://www.fosterandsmithaquatics.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=10692
try this for your 2 day cmaping trips!

 

[twintrades]

Everything iv read says that that would only foul the water in this small of a tank.

I guess ill just have to wing it.

Btw how do you siphen the brine out? Do you shine a flash light and try to get all of them or do you just try to get as many out as possible ? ANd the rest are fine As they would get eaten soon enuf ?

 

[rayjay]

If you use an in tank hatching device of any kind, be sure to use decapped cysts as ones that are NOT decapped can introduce nasty bacteria problems to your tank. In addition, you stand a good chance of getting hydroids.

 

[twintrades]

So If i decap the cysts then i would be ok to use the feeder ?

 

[rayjay]

That I can't say as I don't use them.
Over the years, I have seen some happy posts from happy users of various in tank hatchers, but I've seen many more unhappy ones.

 

[twintrades]

Well i think ill just stay away from them.

Do you have any other pics of your set up ???

 

[rayjay]

Just the seahorse page on my website.
SEAHORSE PAGE

 

[twintrades]

Nice page. Im thinking about drilling the bottom and installing a sump underneth it. SO i can have a little more lee way with Toping off. Im going to build a coustem stand for them also.

The Pump would be the smallest possible yet enuf flow. Im thinking about a hidden pipe also. Hiding it in the rockwork. That way theres less of a chance of sucking up the lil ponys.

Idea's questions commments ??