My Seahorse Plan, any Advice?

[aarond21]

I'm planning my first SH tank. I've kept a handful of different tanks. I currently have a 72 BF mixed reef tank. What I want with this tank is: A SH tank, with a few fish, and corals, medium to heavily planted. This is just a idea of what I want to do so any advice or criticism is welcome and wanted. If I'm way of in the deep end please tell me.

This is the plan so far:
54 Corner Tank

Substrate: Sugar Sand 4" sand bed
Rock: I'm creating a rock structure. There's a rough sketch of my plan below, basically long shelf pieces running the edges of the aquarium and various small pieces stacked up where the tank comes together in the back.

Filtration: I'm going to get bashed for this but I'm using a canister filter. I found a Canister filter rated at 525GPH and a UV Sterilizer with it.
Heater: I will be using a inline heater within the canister filter hoses. My daughters tank stays at 69 in the winter 72 in the summer, my understanding is 72-75ish is the temp for SH's.
Skimmer: I have a aquac remora, ran by a maxi jet 1200 planning on this unless I can find a lower profile skimmer seeing how it will be hanging on the back.

Lighting: ?????? Would like to make some type of DIY LED with 15 LED 4 soft whites, 4 neutral white, 4 royal blues, 3 blue: Very open to suggestions from people using LEDs.

Plants: Fern Caulerpa, Red Mangroves, Grape Caulerpa, Red Gracilaria, Would like a yellow plant also but I don't know of any maybe go with a fake one.

Fish: Clown Goby (Citrus or Green), and a couple Cardinalfish (Orange Lined or Banggai), Purple Firefish

Inverts: Sex or Fire Shrimp, Starfish

Corals: Sun Coral, Cove Polyp, Zoas,

SH: Just planning on having Dwarfs was hoping to have a total of 4.

The shelves will not go all the way to the end of the tank just a quick drawing of my idea.

 

[mtc1966]

Dwarfs require live food and a small tank i think you can do like 20-30 in a ten gallon tank. this would not work at all they would starve . as the fish would eat all the food and tank is way to big.

 

[mtc1966]

a pair of erectus would be a nice start in your tank but i would hold off on fish for 6-12 months to make sure you have the hang of things and horses are healthy.

 

[rayjay]

You definitely won't be able to keep dwarfs in that set up. For the most part, dwarfs don't hunt down their food, preferring to stay hitched and have the food come by them so they can snick it up. The food density of enriched live bbs would have to be immense to accomplish this.
Also, they are so small, you most likely wouldn't see them anyway as normal adult range of mine are about 1" to 1 1/2" in size.
If you've seen some that an LFS called "dwarfs" and they are bigger than that, the store doesn't know what they are talking about and I'd recommend staying away from them. Very few stores know the needs of seahorse keeping, and very few will be handling true captive bred, even though they might claim to.
The rock work needs to be positioned such that detritus and uneaten food will not get trapped where it cannot be seen/removed.
Also, a cannister filter is going to need to be cleaned out at least once a week.
Seahorses are messy eaters, eating only the select pieces they think are ideal and leaving the rest. Also, when they snick up a piece of food, they masticate the food and particulate matter is expelled through the gills into the water.
Because of their propensity to bacterial infestations, the water quality needs to be kept better than reef tanks.
The UV is only going to work on anything that is in the water column, and will not help any benthic bacteria that will colonize detritus and trapped food in the tank and in the cannister filter.
If you haven't already done so, I'd recommend reading the links at the bottom of "My Thoughts on Seahorse Keeping" that have been written by experience keepers and one by Dan Underwood of seahorsesource.com.

 

[ann83]

This is a good picture of dwarf seahorses that gives a pretty good idea of their size http://gallery.seahorse.org/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=2218 So you can see that they are much smaller than I think you originally thought. And, as mentioned, do not train to frozen. I agree that a pair of H. erectus would do well in that size tank, possibly even two pair down the road depending on how well your filtration keeps up with the first pair. H. kuda, H. barbouri, and H. reidi would also be fine species and all are available captive bred.

 

[aarond21]

Thanks everyone for your input. Yes the dwarf sh's my LFS had were already about 2" so they were wrong. I wasn't going to get them from them, my LFS is a really shady store I only deal with them for certain things. I planned to order my SH on line any suggestions on who to go through?

I will definitely hold off on adding the fish and corals. I also will quarantine the fish for 30 days before I add them to the tank. And dip my corals.

I understand the maintenance with the canister filter. I used canister filters on my Piranha tanks. The only reason I'm going that route is that my tanks not drilled and I want it pushed as far back in the corner as possible.

 

[tvoydan]

From what I could find online in my searching, Aqualand or Cramer's Carribean Critters or SeahorsrSource carries them. Reefs2Go and LiveAquaria has them on their web site, but are out of stock. I think it's "out of season" for them and not sure how well they'll survive shipping in cold weather. Prices seem to vary.

SeahorseSource seems the be the most respected and probably sells captive breed. But you would have to call them to verify this. I'm sure the others send out wild caught. So delays can occur as they need to go out an collect a them for your order.

As mentioned, they HAVE to be fed live baby brine shrimp daily. 2 or 3 days of no food can doom them to certain death. Again this is from what I've been reading and not personal experience.

 

[mtc1966]

so what kind are getting then? my lfs gets ora erectus and kudas at a great price . the quality of the two erectus igt were great. but if you cant do that others like seahorsesource.com

 

[tvoydan]

I meant to say those links I gave you are dwarf seahorse's only. SeahorseSource online for all others would be my choice.

Tom

 

[ann83]

www.seahorsesource.com would be my choice. Dan and Abbie are really great, and I rarely see a company follow through on customer service the way they do.