How much work are seahorses?

[Redcastle]

This is probably a pretty dumb question. I have a 50 gallon reef set-up at home, which obviously takes some work and attention.

How much more work and attention are seahorses? I would imagine that the biggest issue would be feeding? If you go away for the weekend, do you need to have somebody come in every day to feed them?

 

[km133688]

There are lots of better experts than me to answer this, but since I am here first I'll tell you what I know and do...

I have 2 pair of breeding Kuda I got from DanU. Nice horses and they were big and trained to eat frozen mysis when I received them. They took about 5 days to get into the mood to really eat heavy but every day they ate more and now after nine months they eat well.

I feed twice / day, morning and evening, 12 hours apart more or less, 8 cubes of Hikari frozen mysis each time; 6 go to the horeses, 2 to the rest of the tank. My tank is a 125g half seahorse zone and half softies reef.

Aside from initially creating a zone for the horses to live in, I have had to do nothing new for the tank or it inhabitants that I was not already doing. Only change I made was to reduce the temperature down to 76. Nothing was affected by the temp change. My water change, feeding schedule, topoff needs, and other maintenance are the same.

So... there are no new issues to deal with that I have found. I am sure others will have different opinions.

There is one thing though. Seahorses have no real stomach. This means you need to make sure they get feed twice/day. Many people skip a meal or even a days meals. They say it is good to clean out the horse's track once in a while. But if you are going on vacation, you need someone who can keep the tank and feed the animals.

I find this can be achieved by creating a detailed script to follow and getting either an experienced reefer to stop by each day, or train someone who stays in your house while you are gone. A relative works well as you can invite them over for dinner and a training session.

Good luck, Kevin

 

[hydroid]

Due to availability of captive breed seahorses, they aren't as difficult as they once were, but they do have requirements unlike most other fishes or reef creatures. You should understand these requirements before going forward.

Also, feeding can be an issue. They can go 2 days without feeding, but shouldn't go any longer. You should also enrich their food with vitamins.

Two things can greatly add to the time spent on seahorses. 1) Disease and 2) Fry. You can spend a lot of effort caring for sick seahorses, which can include a form of tube feeding, pouch flushing, etc. Not fun nor particularly easy. Also, happy seahorses will pair up readily and can produce fry (Hundreds at a time depending on species) every couple of weeks. Raising fry can be overwhelmingly time consuming and expensive. Watching them die every couple weeks can be worse.

Get truly captive bred seahorses from a professional breeder. They eat frozen mysis, are hardier, and far less disease prone. Go with a single gender tank if you don't want fry. Read all you can on here and the other seahorse sites.

HTH

 

[WaterKeeper]

Except for the need to feed regularly, I like to feed three time per day, they are fairly easy. They do appreciate some live food like newly hatch brine a couple times a week. They also need a low flow tank compared to a reef as they are poor swimmers. As was pointed out, choose captive bred for success with the ponies.

 

[BruceW]

Most of the "work" in keeping seahorses should be done before your purchase them. If you set them up in the right environment and keep on top of water quality, temps and feeding you should have happy healthy seahorses.

Wild caught ( or pen raised sold as tank bred) should be avoided as they will be carrying diseases and sometimes will not convert to frozen foods. Try to find captive bred stock from a breeder not a LFS.

Take your time and do your research and you will find that seahorses require less time then reef tanks.

Bruce

 

[Big Ying]

After setting up the tanks the right way, I've found them to be less work then a reef tank. But I only have a pair of horses in each tank, nothing else except a clean-up crew. No other fish, shrimp, nothing. Just some live rock, plants, and a Prizm skimmer and a medium power filter, both with prefilters on the intakes. I can keep the amount I have to feed lower that way which helps the water quality.

 

[sdreefers]

I have been told that 2 days max. without food. For example, if you left on Friday after a feeding, you would be ok until Sunday.... that said, I have also been told not to make it a regular habbit.