My Seahorse Tank

[Faerl]

I've posted before but it's been ages. Anyway, about ~6 months ago I finally got the new seahorse tank setup but realized I never posted pics so thought I'd do that finally.

Specs:
35 Gallon Tank (24" tall)
15 Gallon sump
Protein Skimmer
UV Sterilizer
1/10 Chiller
LED Lighting

Inhabitants
2 Erectus Females (no plans to breed)
Watchman Goby
2 Spot Goby
Scooter Blenny
Cardinal Fish

Inverts
Pistol Shrimp
4 Sexy Shrimp
Few dwarf hermits
Various snaiils
1-2 Porcelain crabs

Corals
Lots of Zoas
GSP
Xenia
Wire Coral
Flower Pots (only 'risky' item in there, marked a 3 on seahorse.org page. Didn't see it on the site until it had been in there for a few months but they seem to leave it alone)

Overall the tank has done well. The led's rock. Two issues I'm running into and working on fixing.

The first is that in an effort to keep bubbles from the main tank I'm running quite a few filters in the sump. That basically won't allow any coepods (if I get them propagating) into the main tank. This next week I'm planning to adjust things a bit and see if I can strategically put filters in an area to stop the bubbles but still allow coepods through. Then add live rock/chaeto for pods to reproduce in.

Second issue is diatom's in the sand. It's a combination of so much feeding and circulation. I have two vortech 10's in there (set at their lowest setting). This allows low flow that's low enough the seahorses don't get bounced around but they're not directional so I can't point them at the sand in the front area. Need to try some different positions, possiblly add a koralia nano up near the return pointed down. Side effect of the current setup is that the flow doesn't send debris out of the tank to the overflow very efficiently either so I get little sand debris in the tank. Not a problem but I'd like to clear it up a bit if possible.

Anyway, onto the pics. The blue's are pretty close on color (finally found a camera that could take them properly. The white images are a bit too purple compared to reality. Still working on how to get the camera to take them correctly with the bright led's.



I'll get some pics of the horses this week. They were being shy the day we got the camera.

 

[basser1]

Awesome pics, awesome tank!

Question though.... Do you really need a sandbed that deep?

 

[Faerl]

Need? No. Certainly not for the seahorses. I did a deep sandbed for a couple of reasons. One, many believe it helps with filtration. Mostly though it was so that the pistol shrimp would have someplace to dig. As a side effect though it allows a little more space to deal with the tubes of the coco worms.

 

[Kay Tickle]

Very nice! I love the shape of the tank. Do you have any pics where you can see the SHs?

What LED fixture is that? I have 2 PAR 38 bulbs and a blue stunner strip, but I think they are too high. Your colors really POP!

 

[Faerl]

Very nice! I love the shape of the tank. Do you have any pics where you can see the SHs?

What LED fixture is that? I have 2 PAR 38 bulbs and a blue stunner strip, but I think they are too high. Your colors really POP!

I'm going to try to get some pics of the seahorses this weekend that I can post. We had just gotten a new camera that could capture the blue lights so I was mostly playing with that. Plus the seahorses were being very shy at the time.

The lights are a Maxspect 110w LED. They're an even mix of white's and blues so when the whites are off you hit 50w of just blue. That's where the pop is coming from. I love this light. The only thing you have to watch is that led's are more powerful than the t5's. I have 8" of water between the light and any corals and the par rating is high enough that at the top of the rock I could grow stony coral without much of an issue. Just below that I can grow any softies I want which was the plan to begin with due to the horses.