New Planted Macro Tank for Seahorses ideas and progress

[NMETCALF]

So here's my idea. I've seen lot's of these freshwater planted tanks and like em, but wanted to try a saltwater tank and use mostly macro algae for a seahorse setup. So I have used a 15 gallon column tall aquarium as seahorses like some vertical room. I'm running an aquatop cf500 canister filter (rated for a 75 gallon tank) with an internal UV sterilizer. I have an inline heater and I custom made mw orn lily pipe and intake out of clear polycorbonate tubing to give it a very clean look inside the tank. don't freak out, but I"m running a skimmerless system as it is a very heavily planted tank, and will have a few more macros that haven't arrived yet, I believe that it won't need a skimmer. the extra large filter and the macro algae should be sufficient to remove the wastes from the water. I also ordered a custom light setup from a guy on ebay that sell lights called reef bars, and I could get the exact colors I needed, so I'm running a 6500k strip, a 10,000k strip, a 50/50 10,00k/460nm blue, a 460 nm blue strip, a red strip, and a uv strip. the red and UV are there to promote plant growth. these are 1w led lights rather than the 3w leds on most reef tanks and pony's don't like as much light, and I don't have any coral in the tank. I am planning on adding some purple/blue sponge a bit later also.. oh, I also spray painted the back of teh tank (when it was empty) to give it a clean background with a sorta sunset fade.

here's some photos of it so far..

Day one set up, got it scaped, and added some Chaeto. I also put a bunch of live rock rubble in the canister filter for those of you who are gonna say I don't have enough actual live rock in there..


My custom leds


Week 2: added some shaving brush plants to look like trees and provide some hitching posts. I see some chaeto growth, and pods are multiplying well. also added a lettuce nudi.. we'll see how he does... I'll update later when the seahorses come in, so far water parameters all look good, zero ammonia, and no spikes in nitrites, nitrates, or phosphate. I dose with Iron and manganese for plant health, and kalkwasser in the top off water.

 

[rayjay]

I hate to be bearing bad news, especially when you've already progressed so far, but a 15g tank would not normally be considered suitable for long term survival of seahorses.
It's seldom a heater is necessary as the temperature range is best kept 68° to 74°F and more likely a chiller would be of more use for many.
Canister filters are not my favorite as for a seahorse tank they need to have the trapped matter cleaned out very frequently and it's too easy to get lazy and let a cleanout go too long.
Trapped and especially unseen detritus is a nasty bacteria bed waiting to happen, and seahorses are VERY susceptible to bacteria problems.
Other than for a fry tank set up, the UV will probably not be of much help as the more common problem pathogens for seahorses colonize surfaces, and don't end up going through the UV itself.

 

[NMETCALF]

I should have specified that I am only doing a single pair of dwarf sea horses... The bio load is also much lower than most tanks as I have no corals anemones, fish, or shrimp.. I will add a few snails shortly, and there is a pod population that is doing great, and I'll add to it every once in a while so that the ponys have some food variety besides brine shrimp..and I am aware of the bacteria issues of the canister tank, I will clean it out quite often, however I believe the large amount of macro algae I am using will help maintain and cleanse the water of most of the wastes that would normally be a problem in the canister, especially since my canister is half live rock rubble.. the tank is in my basement studio room, and I live where it gets cold, so yeah, if I don't have a heater in the winter it will get colder than 60 degrees in the water... I also live right on the Oregon coast, so it really never gets very hot here, and no one uses chillers unless they have a bunch of metal halide lights that are cooking their water.. The average temperature in the summer is about 60. Also the canister filter holds about 3.5 gallons of water so I'm really closer to an 18 gallon system. This is my first foray into a seahorse tank, so I appreciate any help and suggestions.

 

[rayjay]

A single pair of dwarf H. zosterae seahorses would be LOST in that size tank. You could fit about 3 maybe 4 adults on a silver dollar.
I had no problem with up to 50 of them in a 5g tank.
As they basically need to be fed enriched live brine nauplii, the feeding density required would make this tank almost prohibitive for dwarfs as most, but not all dwarfs prefer to stay hitched and wait for the food to pass by close enough to snick without leaving the hitch.
Without sufficient density of food, the dwarfs will gradually starve.
You would be much better off with small standard seahorses like the Ocean Rider H. fisheri which are almost twice the size of the dwarfs, or the H. capensis which are bout 2 to 3 times the size of dwarfs but need cool water. ( out of stock at the moment)
Problem with standard seahorses though, feeding frozen mysis is going to foul the canister filter and any other mechanical filtration quite quickly, providing nasty bacteria bedding. The macro is also likely going to trap uneaten food and again fuel nasty bacteria growth.
The best helpful information I can provide you with is the links at the bottom of the page at "My Thoughts on Seahorse Keeping"
And the thread about the seahorse article from Marine Depot

 

[NMETCALF]

I already have a very large supply of amphipods and copopods, along with an army a micro brittle stars. These guys will keep the macro algae clean and provide a constant food source for the dwarfs. I am considering removing all filter media from the cannister and just running live rock in it, as well as turning down the flow rate a bit and then seeding my tank with various types of free floating pods, rotifers, plankton and phyto plankton as well as brine shrimp. the idea is that without mechanical filtration these creatures would thrive in the water column and reproduce naturally. dwarf seahorses, even if I have a large amount of them aren't gonna be enough to diminish the populations especially when there is so much macro algae and breeding grounds for them. The idea is that I won't have a lot of dead food in the tank, but rather a large variety of live foods that the dwarf sea horses can eat. They will forage all day rather than just eat at feeding time, which is much healthier for them and their lack of stomachs.

 

[rayjay]

I doubt that rotifers will survive and reproduce, but Brine shrimp will NOT live and reproduce in that tank, and you don't want rotifers OR brine shrimp in the tank that aren't enriched. They loose any enrichment quite quickly and therefore their nutrient properties will be deficient other than for protein in the case of brine.
You will have to be selective when buying the dwarfs as the majority WON'T chase down the food.
In the wild, they stay perched on their grasses and wait for the food to come by.
Out of my original 20 I started with, there weren't more than 4 or 5 that would hunt their food.