Exploring..would love thoughts.

[Caesra]

Hi all!

I had been exploring the use of a 150g I have just sitting around. It is in my basement and was thinking about what to do with it. I had thought about searhorses many times, but I know they have some pretty specific needs.

What I am looking for is a setup that can run at roughly 72-74 degrees (sound like a number of sea horses from my homework) and can be run with a pretty minimal set of power. I was looking at a HOB skimmer I have sitting around and a small power head, as I understand it they prefer lower flow.

Ligthing is open, as I have several options, wasn't sure if I wanted to turn into a macro tank or not.

Feeding, I know they require pretty regular feeding, but this tank sits near my breeding tanks, so feeding 4-8x a day is pretty normal for me. What I do not want to do is add another tank I have to 'live' feed. As i understand seahorses, the larger breeds can take a bit less feeding frequency, CB will generally take frozen.....

Any thoughts...critisize, and tear me up... =)

 

[namxas]

You need to give us a bit more help by telling us what your setup configuration is, or at least what you're planning. However, this may help:

"Low flow" is rather relative when it comes to SH. The "old" rule of thumb is 3x-5x turnover rate, but these days it's more like 10x and up (I actually have a friend who runs 60x cumulative on his SH setup, but he spent a LOT of time setting up his flow creatively so the SH don't end up like flies on a windshield). I was running about 15x on one of my larger SH setups.

I'm not sure what you mean by "minimal power"...do you mean cheap electric bill, small pumps, no bright lighting, etc?

Depending on where you have the tank (room ambient temp), and what equipment you use, you may or may not need a chiller to keep the temp down.

I'm not crazy about HOB skimmers, since most don't work as well as their larger counterparts, but most of the time, they add microbubbles to the DT, which isn't the best if you have male SH flirting and filling their pouches with water. If you're running a sump, hang it on the sump.

We feed our CB SH once a day, but they have the advantage of hunting in the macro algae between meals. I do recommend live macro. If you feed them twice a day, that's plenty. Plan on one cube of mysis per pair per day as a ballpark amount.

HTH

 

[Caesra]

minimal meaning I don't want to get into sumps and all that good stuff. Obviously if doing macro in tank, I am going to use power on lighting. So my point was a HOB, basic lighting, powerhead or two. That is minimal power to me.

Being in a basement, the number one cost would be to heat, which is why I have been looking for something of interest that would do well in basement temps, 68-72. SH appear to do fine around 72-74, from my understanding, thus part of my considerations.