Giant Pacific Seahorse

[cbear]

Okay, before I start, I have only ONCE and because I was misinformed aquired a creature no one knew how to take care of.......a feather starfish......but guess what? Had him for over 8 months and he is still alive. I did a lot of research as I thought I owed it to him!

HERE is DUMB mistake #2! ' (Let me premise that with out of ALL the creatures and corals in my tank 2 mistakes isn't that bad, in fact, probably better than some!) First of all, I bought a yellow seahorse (typical 6" size) from my job that I had since it was MUCH cheaper that way and it was wild caught (was starting to get thinner at the store.....yes this and many other reasons I quit). I bought 2 actually and one died w/in 2 weeks. Now I have had the other for 5 months and she is doing good. She bob bobs around my reef sucking up copepods (I have a guy I can BUY them from for like $25! and the are a larger species) Anyhow, sort of like having a mandarin. She is self-sufficient and cool! (150 gallon) I do have community fish and corals as well, but they pay her no mind and have NEVER been aggressive toward her! Like I said, like a mandarin and there are MANY who keep their seahorses like this for full lives and I know some of you don't want to hear that, but it is true. Needless to say, if I had not bought her she would have starved to death like the one that was left.....I told the guy to AT LEAST put it in the reef, but he was just "too busy"......dork! :mad2:

So, as 5 months went by and she was doing well, I decided she needed a friend. Funny how real horses live longer with a buddy too! I was on reeftopia because I needed LOTS of snails as I keep having an ongoing algae issue. All levels fine...yada yada. When I was on the site, they said they had dwarf and giant seahorses they collect in Florida. I am like COOL, because I know you cannot put CB with WC and "Wee-snaw" (yes from spongebob) needed a pal and most stores around here do not carry them often. I wanted to make sure Wee-snaw did okay in my tank.

I do know the dwarf would be a fast snack for my solar, scotts, and velvet fairy wrasses, (yes they get along, I cooresponded with a professor in Japan who studies wrasses and they are all cirrhilabrus) so, for $30, I bought a Giant Seahorse. MIND YOU, I was thinking this was the typical size, and compared to the dwarf, they would BE giants! I did forgot that SOME of the seahorses get to 14", but never heard of them in the trade.

She or he, pretty sure she, comes in the mail, black with "sparkles" and I am like HOLY MOLY this thing is HUGE! :eek1: (currently 7-8 inches uncoiled approx) I call Reeftopia, and ask if Wee-snaw and this new one will get along and I am assured they will. And they do, it is cute! Okay, I am NOT going to take "Mystery" (yes Spongebob again) to any moronic store here that will not feed it right! They said brine shrimp.....SIDE POINT..... :smilie(' I personally know someone who RAISED seahorses that said only in the first 2 hours of brine shrimp's life can a seahorse eat them because after that they form a "horn" and after several months, a seahorse's digestive tract (which is stomachless making it even worse) will get basically constipated with the "horns" and eventually they die. (He used a microscope and found out why they died) That they do not eat brine in the wild, but they eat white shrimp among other things, which is a SALT water shrimp. I wonder if ghost shrimp are okay if they are small enough because if you look and GHOST/Glass shrimp and white salt water shrimp together the ghost has a HUMP like a camel shrimpl making it hard to eat, but I know the salt water ones are nutricious (Yes, I spelled that wrong). BACK TO THE STORY.

I was watching Mystery (giant) and there were copepods crawling on her snout and she paid them no mind. I am like, oh great, she is not going to be self-sufficient like Wee-snaw. So I called a store in town and the guy said that the giant seahorse's snout is large enough I can feed it baby or feeder guppies or baby mollies or ghost shrimp. SOOOOOOO......

Today, Mystery is looking at the rock, so I hope she is figuring out she needs to eat something. Funny thing is when the nassarius snails come up for food, she looks like she wants to eat THEM when there are upsidedown, but when they flip and their shell is up, she gets confused!!!

There is NO BIG deal getting salt water shrimp from my friend, so I CAN feed her correctly. I have to gut load the wrasses first, BUT when the shrimp get to a certain size, the wrasses will not even bother them, and that is the size, that, when the seahorse is full grown will be able to handle. In fact, if feeder guppies are okay, I know the wrasses won't bother with the bigger ones.

If worse comes to worse, I will have to set up another tank, but "it" will freeze over with my husband before that will happen. So I have Mystery, I am keeping her, just tell me the care since I have NOT found ANYTHING on the internet about the GIANT Pacific Seahorses. (AT least I knew to make sure she was a warm water seahorse!)

Any and all advice will be appreciated. OH THIS IS INTERESTING!!!..... When I worked at that fish store the owner had purchased some jelly fish (bell, I think, but they stung as he found out quickly enough) So we had to separate the sides of this tank.....2 tubes connecting between 2 tanks to keep the jellies on one side (yes I chewed him out for buying them!)

One day, 6 months ago when I worked there, I think it actually was Wee-snaw, (before I bought her) wiggled past the lame barrier he put up and before I could get to her, a jelly fish LANDED ON HER, and she DIDN'T EVEN FLINCH! It sat on HER and reacted like she was stinging IT! So I wonder if, because of the "outside" skeleton may not be that prone to all "stinging" corals as we once thought. Just a thought, I could be wrong! Just interesting!

 

[Swanwillow]

ok- so relevant info from your post, and my questions to go along with it:

150 gallon tank: whats the flow in it like? if you've had one doing good for 5+ months, thats not bad... sucess so far is good. I'd just be worried that its not skinny (skinny vs a healthy looking horse CAN be hard to tell apart... if the sides look sunken in between the ridges, its skinny-if they fill up, they are fine)

and, first thing first: mysis. if your new horse isn't eating, then try getting some frozen mysis, and a turkey baster. gently let some float via baster infront of its nose... thats what most of us feed our horses.

AND, if you get us good pictures, we can try to ID them for you. since your new horse is from Florida, and its WC, its probably erectus. the'yellow' seahorse is probably either reidi, or kuda... reidi get up to a foot, kuda around 8 inches... or so, give or take. erectus around 8 inches too, so yours is full grown.

adult horses of the large variety should not eat brine shrimp-not healthy for them, so you made a good choice not even getting them!!!

I'm confused: why mention bringing him to a store? why would ya do that? cause its big? its not the bigger variety if its from florida. you'd have to get ingens or pot-belly horses for that: they're the ones that get over a foot in captivity (reidi-the other bigguns-get about 10 in captivity normally) and none of those come from florida.

Just try to get your horses to eat frozen mysis, and train them to eat out of a feeding dish... that would be *my* goal. Can be accomplished in a smaller tank: bare bottomed 10 gallon (tell hubby its only for a month at the most) with a feeding 'dish' (I use half of a clam shell) and the turkey baster. they'll learn to eat from the dish: then you can feed your more aggressive feeders first, THEN the horses can eat out of the dish...

oh, the only thing I'd worry about: what types of corals are in your tank? anemones aren't good, and clams aren't good, well, anything that stings is a problem. may not be yet, but sometime... it can be!

 

[Swanwillow]

oh, and YES they are vulnerable to stinging corals: I dunno bout your jellyfish story (maybe the jellyfish was dieing, and had no stinging cells left?) but once you see one get stung, you'll never forget it!

people have had them killed by apistasia before... seahorses don't have scales: just skin... and its not an exoskeleton, thats thier ribs your seeing.

 

[cbear]

Hi there! And thank you for replying. I can send you an email with photos but I do not have a web page.

Well, when you see a seahorse starve to death over 3 months, the one that did was the same kind as Wee-snaw. The front of the chest actually went down, as if you would go from breathing in a deep breath to all the way out. It's body was the same size as the base of it's tail right before it died. That is what I mean by getting thinner. I didn't know the spaces in between concaved. I put zooplex in a syringe and blew it gently toward Mystery's mouth and she did the head jerk type motion they use to eat. That is not enough food, I know, just seeing she would eat. I was watching her across the room and I saw her do it at the live rock she was hanging out at, so maybe she is getting the copepods. I put some frozen raw shrimp in front of her...... the rock is toward the top and has a "dish like" shape where she was. She seems to go there a lot, so I may be able to train her. Raz, my solar was stealing the shrimp pieces, so I tapped the glass everytime he got near.....he will learn, I have actually been able to alter bad behavior that way! Wrasses are VERY SMART! I kid you not!

Anyhow, Reeftopia said they get it locally, now I do not know if that is the Gulf OR the Atlantic. Would it make a difference? Mystery has a BIG HEAD and LONG WIDE snout. NOTHING like Wee-snaw unless Wee-snaw is a baby. But over 5 months I would have thought she would grow.

About the store, I WOULD NOT EVER give Mystery away, because I was not "prepared". See on Wet web media you are like hunted down and shot verbally about this kind of stuff and a lot of times they say "take it back". I do not believe in that. I know I am dedicated enough! My featherstar loves zooplex mixed with cyclopeeze and phytoplankton.... spot feed like you do a coral, but slowly.

Okay, now for the corals......yes you will all burn me and throw me out of a plane, but my observations so far are not causing me alarm.....that would be a feverishly guarded Ritteri or Heteractis Magnifica for you science majors. I have SEEN my mollies (for giving birth to food for everyone!) TOUCH the anemone and not get eaten, this has happened many times. I really think most anemones may only eat dead fish. People see their dead fish in the anemone, and it is probably because it died for some unknown reason and floated to the anemone. No one can get near it anyhow, in fact, out of a 6 foot 150 gallon tank, the anemone is the HOT SPOT! My dumb cleaner shrimp hangs out on the other side of the rock! The blue-green chromis sleep SIDEWAYS UNDER the anemone's rock between it's rock and the one it is on top of. I kid you not, even the shrimp's antennae hits it and it doesn't reaction (though I am sure the shrimp knows not to get closer) So I really am not worried. I DID notice when it is hungry, I can feel a "weak sting". When it is fed, it is just sticky. Besides this anemone is so picky it is not funny! lol!

I have a tongue coral, candy canes, frogspawn (frag), torch (small) Galaxia (2 1/2") I always feed and have not see the tenticles yet! Cup coral, 2 VERY hairy mushrooms, monitpora digitata, red mush, white mush, watermelon mush zoos and cyanobacteria...lol.....by the way, the freshwater erithromycin, given at the 10th of the dosage will kill cyano! EVEN in a reef. I have done it before, I guess I have to now, I just noticed it earlier. Thing is, with my 3 lyretail anthias, I need to feed 2ce a day. One of them is changing to a male, but for 3 weeks now is still not totally there. I think it is my midas blenny (got him as a fake "male anthias" to prevent changing) This is, mind you an experiment. I wouldn't purposely get anthias......they were free from that place I worked.. The supplier forgot to charge us and told me I could have them. Makes you wonder how much they make!!!!

BTW. fish? 2 tomatoe clowns guarding the anemone
2 saddleback clowns that got kicked out and need an anemone
3 green chromis
1 goldenheaded sand sifting goby (amazingly still alive despite the tales)
1 Starry something goby.....looks like a lawnmower to me!
1 blue/black cleaner goby
1 male molly w/ 4 harem female mollies....interesting how their behavior changed in salt water!!
3 cirr. wrasses
1 weesnaw, 1 mystery
And the normal snail group w/out hermits....I hate hermits, sorry. My nassarius will out eat hermits hands down! I have ONE blue legged and I have to find the red legged, he is knocking over my corals so I have to send him off to detention at a LFS!!! AHHH NO THE HORROR!!!

Okay, when you say "ribs", I have never seen a seahorse without the "squares" on their sides.....maybe I haven't seen a healthy seahorse? lol!

I will get the mysis today!! Thank you SO VERY MUCH for your kind and helpful words!

 

[cbear]

Oh yes, by the way, the research I did about the giant seahorse did reveal their inhabited areas and that included around florida. I don't know how new/old the info is, but I forgot to mention it.

 

[Swanwillow]

well, I'll warn ya: be prepared to pull the horses out if ANYTHING EVER stings them or harrasses them!!!!

and I'm the one person thats not going to yell at ya-yet wait til the more responsible horse keepers get on tonight or tomorra!!!

 

[cbear]

lol! Yes I know, but unless they have the ultimate solution that does not involve dropping another 2,000 dollars for a new salt set up, I really hope they will keep it nice.

As far as the anemone goes, I talked to 2 different experienced aquarists and BOTH said they have never heard of an anemone eating a seahorse. Not to say it has not happened mind you. I have heard of giant clams and I saw FIRST hand a chocolate chip star, after a seahorse hooked onto him at that place I worked, literally GRAB the seahorse with 3 of it's 5 arms!!!!! That seahorse would have been dead if I wasn't standing right there! Heck the starfish FOUGHT me over it!!

But the thing is, seahorses do not latch onto "mush", they do latch onto stinging acroporas, and that would hurt them! I have several mangroves they hang out in.

I got the mysis shrimp and she could care less, but she is hunting. I am getting like 300 salt water shrimp and a ton of copepods Monday. Please send me you email and I will send you the pictures I took. I am here now.

 

[ReefNutPA]

Wow. So much in that tank is so wrong for seahorses, despite what BOTH the experienced aquarists advised you. I'm impressed that your first seahorse is doing so well. Kudo's to you! I wish you continued success with the two of them.

Tom

 

[DanU]

The Giant Pacific Seahorse usually refers to H. ingens which can get quite tall. However, I believe you have an H. erectus if it was collected by a collector in Florida. Almost all the larger seahorses collected in Florida are H. erectus and the collectors locally refer to them as the Giant Seahorse. Probably in relation to the other species, the dwarf - H. zosterae. Post a pic and we can confirm it.

Dan

 

[Swanwillow]

ya don't need my e-mail to post a pic.. I don't know how!!!!

I just use photosite-download the picture there, and you can either post directly for the picture, OR post a link to the site ie: mine

http://jschmidt657.photosite.com/Album1/

or, go to the picture, right click on it, copy image location: then, do an advanced reply and use the img button above the text box

PS: those are my horses, about god: 2 months ago?... they are kinda bigger, and theres LR in the tank now...

 

[Swanwillow]

ps... sorry bout the size, I don't know how to re-size the pics either yet!!!!!

oh, and my setup has cost me a total of 300 dollars, INCLUDING re-siliconing the tank that I got after it sprung a leak... not the cost of the tank though, cause that was free. it also inclues the LR, the fish, the horses, the corals, the filtration, the PH, the sand, the frozen mysis.

but not in lost time, I'm afraid... having a sedintary tank is SO incredible, that its hard to not stare at it for hours an hours

 

[DanU]

As far as the anemone goes, I talked to 2 different experienced aquarists and BOTH said they have never heard of an anemone eating a seahorse. Not to say it has not happened mind you.

A local LFS found out the hard way. A seahorse got moved to a tank with a very large anenome. The next day the seahorse was missing and a dark seahorse shape blob was in the anenome.

But the thing is, seahorses do not latch onto "mush"

Instinctively, seahorses will wrap their tail around just about anything including mush.

One day, 6 months ago when I worked there, I think it actually was Wee-snaw, (before I bought her) wiggled past the lame barrier he put up and before I could get to her, a jelly fish LANDED ON HER, and she DIDN'T EVEN FLINCH! It sat on HER and reacted like she was stinging IT! So I wonder if, because of the "outside" skeleton may not be that prone to all "stinging" corals as we once thought.

Brings up an interesting point. Seahorses do seem to have tough skin, but I also wonder if their sense of feeling on the skin is somewhat muted. It would make sense to me if that is the case, given how they hitch onto everything. Seahorses are famous for hitching onto heaters and burning themselves, you would think they would let go immediately instead of just hanging on. Lessened external skin sensation would explain it.

Periodically. I receive a help calls from hobbyists with a similiar story of keeping seahorses in a large reef tank successfully for a period of time. It is usually for several months. Unfortunately, the reason they call is their luck ran out. Even though the seahorse had lived in the tank for several months without injuries from stinging, eventually on one occasion they did. Some of these have a happy final outcome, many do not!

Regardless of the species of seahorse you have, the general care should remain pretty much the same. Most wild caught seahorses require live foods. It has been my experience that adult larger seahorses can easily eat 4 to 8 ghost shrimp per feeding twice a day. If you have to use live brine, make sure you enrich it. This can used as a temporary short term measure, but wouldn't recommend it as a staple. Converting over to frozen mysis would be ideal.

I would really like to see a full tank shot and a good side profile shot of the new seahorse if you can get them posted.

Dan

 

[Sun_Shining]

Today, Mystery is looking at the rock, so I hope she is figuring out she needs to eat something. Funny thing is when the nassarius snails come up for food, she looks like she wants to eat THEM when there are upsidedown, but when they flip and their shell is up, she gets confused!!!

Larger species of seahorses, erectus, reidi, and ingens (the giant pacific) will eat hermit crabs. They will get right down and snick them right out of their shells. We have watched and video taped them doing it.

Since she is taking a big interest in the snails, I would definitely put in some small hermit crabs for her to hunt naturally. get her eating. You can also put in red shrimp which will live naturally in you reef. You can get them from ocean rider (I have not checked their website recently so I don't know how much they are).

As far as the anemone goes, I talked to 2 different experienced aquarists and BOTH said they have never heard of an anemone eating a seahorse. Not to say it has not happened mind you.

We have also seen this. We have also seen amphipods killing and eating adult and fry dwarf seahorses (zosterae). Its a wierd world.

Seahorses will latch onto anything to test it for security. So yes, they will latch onto a jelly fish arm, a starfish leg, a heater, the antenna of a lobster, ANYTHING.

 

[cbear]

Hi everyone and thanks for all the things to think about. I do understand about the risk of seahorses in a reef as you have said. I think about how often people have to replace their fish that died of crypt, or oodium or whatever. Seems like fish sometimes have a short life span in most aquarists tanks. I have a solor wrasse I acquired in June of 2005 still. Not that it makes it right that they die, mind you, but my point is, if everyone had a species specific tank for each KIND of fish, then that death rate would be low. Sort of like the seahorse, yes in a species specific tank, it WILL live longer. When in the wild, they DO eat copepods and white shrimp (which are a staple to all ocean creatures in temperate waters) so what is cool is you can put a TON of the tiny shrimp in, and when all the fish are sleeping, the seahorses hunt them down. Pretty cool and a better solution than adding 4 to 6 shrimp in everyday. I did that with wee-snaw and the one that died for what ever reason and they didn't just eat them all, they ate as they needed and I don't mind it. With ghost shrimp, they die in the salt water and that is a pain!

My idea was this with probably 200 to 250 lbs of live rock with a TON of copepods living in them, that would almost be a selt sufficient situation.....like a mandarin. Most people are not going to set up a 150 gallon tank for 2 seahorses. In my situation, I have noticed that they do "learn" per say. Yes, about the insensitivity of the tail, that is interesting and makes me want to get my 60 gallon refugium going under the tank and house my heaters there! I have quite a few "preferred" latching spots with mangroves, etc, and they seem to actually STICK to those spots....so far!

I think why it has worked out is this. In the back of the tank, I have 2 large Powerheads (with baskets, so even if a fish is swimming by it doesn't "suck" them in, and I have NEVER had a fish die that way on the power head intakes. So I have addressed that. Anyhow, BOTH powerheads face eachother on opposite ends of the tank and the back wall is where the heaters are, right in front of the powerhead's current. The seahorses do not care for the fast current in the back and generally stay in the front/middle and top to bottom. So there is no real desire for them to go anywhere near the heaters. At least that is my thought. My rock formation is across the middle with openings everywhere which allows the current to dissapate and I have water movement everywhere. The smaller powerheads (aquaclear) have this LONG filter type thing on it, so there is no suction issue.

I have seen Wee-snaw do something interesting and maybe someone can shed light on it. Every once and a while, she will hitch onto the nozzle of the smaller power heads (270 gph) and PURPOSELY stick her head in front of the flow, she will then sit back up and do it again for a little while and then go hunting again. I THOUGHT about that bubble thing that kills them, and I wonder if out in the wild, (which is, I am sure there are anemones, slow medium, and fast currents) if they go to an area with a faster current and use it to somehow prevent or cure the bubble thing. I am SURE I am totally OFF on that, but I do not know about that disease/problem and so far I have not seen it (no bubbles in my tank, only a powerhead blowing across the top and even then I do not allow any small bubbles to form)

I really do not know how to do the picture thing, but like I said if anyone wants to put it on the sight, I can email them. I have a good side and back shot of both. Wee-snaws is not that great as she was inbetween rocks hunting when I had the camera out.

I am getting like 300 white shrimp and a huge supply of copepods on Monday. I have a long skinny refugium hanging on the back of the tank, but it is only like 6" wide, and I don't want to put them in there to live! I MAY do that for a few days if I go out of town and just put a TON of shrimp in there with them. Once I have the big Refugium under the tank going I can keep a good supply of shrimp under the tank and put in what they need or just put them down there.

You know, I would LOVE to have one of those corner tanks to put on this dead area of counter space and have seahorses in it. Please tell me what is necessary. Do you need a skimmer? Do you need some major oxygen input? With a smaller living space though, they would need daily feeding which is why I have them in the big tank.

I am going to try to see if I can do something about posting pictures, but I have tried before and just got frustrated with the "proceedure" and unclear directions on one web site and just quit! Sometimes they over explain things to the point of making it confusing!!!!

Please tell me, asside from the "dangers" of what I can do to my existing tank. Besides the anemone, what other corals are harmful? I have never seen them hook onto the frogspawn or galaxia or the other non-branchy, nothing to grab on things. I have seen Mystery grab onto the stick part of the candycane, but I didn't know if that coral was bad. I really do appreciate everyones input!!