keeping seahorses color

[timinnl]

Sorry to hear that. For one pair of H. reidi it is recommended that they have a minimum of 29gallons & 15/20gallon for each pair after that. *** Are you sure they are H. reidi?***

If you have a chance, have your water tested at the store & compare the results.

Chances are it is a number of factor causing the demise of the seahorse.

1: At the price you pay for them, I think they could be wild caught or tank raise. Same difference in my humble opinion. That being the case, they do come into the trade with a number of health problems. I am leaning more towards wild caught due to the live food only issuse.

2: Four of them in the tank could have stress them out to the point of causing them to not eat or triggering a underlining illness.

3: Put in a few live brine before putting in some of the frozen.

4: What is the temp of the tank? If it is high, lower it to 72 - 74 degrees.

5: Any other fish, coral or living thing in with them?

Here is a trick a friend told me about. In order to explain why his kids pet hamster died, he put in the lion king and watched it with his kids. After the video, he told them the hamster died. Thus completing the circle of life. Its corny, but it worked for him.

Let me know if there is anything else I can help you with?

tim

 

[didimcginty]

i appreciate that, not a bad idea. the temp of the tank is always around 78, no chiller on it so i will have to get creative, i remember reading about the temp having to be lower for seahorses and i forgot all about that. there are a couple of mushrooms, couple of zoas, and a dying finger gorgonian that was beautiful in my tank, the lights in this tank are to intense and the flow is slow, the exact oposite of what i needs to survive. no other fish, just horses, figured it would be easeir since i know they are delicate, oh and a rock of pulsating xenia, it is not staying though, it is just in there until i can take it to the lfs for credit
thanks

 

[timinnl]

See if you can drop the temp. Everything else in there seems ok.

So I think the cause of the color change is do to stress/illness, high temp & tank size.

With three of them it might be doable? Also I hope other will see this thread & chime in. You might need to put them in a hospital tank & deworm them.

 

[timinnl]

Just checking to see how you are doing?

 

[didimcginty]

cleaned up the tank and here are some shots, let me know what you think,
all is well no more deaths, still trying to get these guys on frozen cube

 

[timinnl]

Nice looking horses. If all goes well & you do get them to start eating frozen, that well be good. Just keep at it. It can take quite a while, so don't give up.

Now for the good news/ bad news: Good news is you have a nice looking tank & everything seems ok with it. The bad new: Your seahorse might not become that bright yellow in your tank. They like to blend in with their enviroment & in your case the primary color is black. Maybe that will all change once you get them onto frozen mysis & they are settled in.

How is the temp now.

Take Care,

Tim

 

[didimcginty]

76 now, i am going to freeze water in little soda bottles and switch them out to keep a cooler tank, i was affraid that the all black wall in the back would be the issue, not to sure what to do about that, probably nothing i can do. the problem w/ frozen mysis in the cubes in my fish store are so big, i think that turns these little guys away. the owner is going to order me some different make of mysis to see if they are smaller, we'll see.
i just changed to the black sand yesterday, i took out the other stuff, i thouhgt it might make the big yellow thing look brighter, i added a bottle of the live bacteria just incase
thank you again for your help

 

[timinnl]

72 to 74 is ideal. Good thinking with the ice bottle. Just keep an eye of the water quality with the switching of the sand.

PE or Hikari is smaller I think? They don't carry those brands here.

Just keep posting if you need any other help.

Take Care,

PS. I couldn't get that song Circle of life out of my head. I keep humming it.

 

[TamiW]

Hikari is the small stuff, try that, and try getting it in the cubes, they're often smaller than the flat pack. Also see if you can get it form different stores. Different batches seem to have a lot of size variation. SFB brand Hikari is also often on the smaller size. H2O life makes "mini mysis". The stuff I have is pretty broken up, and that might work well for really small seahorses.

 

[didimcginty]

i think i've seen hikari before, i will try it out if i can find it
thank you all again

 

[keith20]

Are sea horses that hard to keep? Seems the like 72 to 74 degrees. Most tanks seem to be running at 78 degrees. What other fish can you keep with them?

Thanks

 

[Mo2]

Nice looking horses. If all goes well & you do get them to start eating frozen, that well be good. Just keep at it. It can take quite a while, so don't give up.

Now for the good news/ bad news: Good news is you have a nice looking tank & everything seems ok with it. The bad new: Your seahorse might not become that bright yellow in your tank. They like to blend in with their enviroment & in your case the primary color is black. Maybe that will all change once you get them onto frozen mysis & they are settled in.

How is the temp now.

Take Care,

Tim

I don't totally agree to this. I don't have any bright colors in my tank, its a aquapod. black back with liverock and a few ricordea and yumas and thats it. Each horse does change color a bit but have tend to stay a certain range of colors. I have a male that goes from chocolate to light yellow and white, a female that goes from pale yellow to pearl white, drk green to brown, etc. They do change color with they're surroundings, but I don't think its as easy as saying they are trying to blend it.

At any rate, I think bright light is the key factor in a seahorses choice of color. My horses were black when they were in the breeders tank (low lighting) and have all changed to lighter shades of yellow and white. Nothing saying all are like this, but I mean Erectus are notorious for being plain blk and white, but not in my case.

 

[rayjay]

Lighting is only one of the many factors that seem to affect the color seahorses choose in a system. In fact, with similar lighting, and similar decor, similar species can be different colors from one tank to another based on unknown factors.
For reidi bright reds and bright orange, the breeders use fluorescent decor and ambient lighting.
When these horses go to stores and then on to hobbyists, they generally change to browns and reddish browns even before the hobbyists get them into their tanks, many times.
For years, people have been searching for a way to get a seahorse back to the colour it was when they purchased it and so far, no one has come up with a foolproof way.