New Set up

[Foody]

First off, thanks to all for the wealth of information here. I am grateful for all of your feedback.

As I've stated before, I have a 30gal reef with HOB filter. I very much wish to set up a 75 with a sump, eventually transferring my livestock to the bigger environment and creating a seahorse system (for my wife) in the 30. Here is my question:

Is it possible, after having set up a new 75gal with sump, to put a HOB overflow box on the 30 and run it through the same sump? Would the 75 need to be fully cycled before connecting the 30?

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

is it possible?

is it possible?

yes.

Would I do it?

No.

Seahorses occur in a much different environment than your average reef aquarium. I would rely on water changes and algae to filter the 'horse tank. You might even wish to run the HOB filter on the horse tank. That's what I would do.

 

[sedorusc]

Seahorses live in colder and dirtier water than a reef. Or at least they make the water dirtier. Like gary said not really a good choice to run them together.

 

[mr86mister]

I've seen it done many ways but I think Gary hit it on the head.

Species only, slow moving water, light filtration, overgrown macroalgaes, and a ton of edible inverts!

 

[tmz]

Temperature is an issue.
I run my seahorse tank lintegrated into the main system with an overflow box to the sump. I use a 35 gallon high and have 4 erectus seahorses in there with gracilaria algae , yellow plastic chains and artifical corals or hold downs. I've kept it this way for alomost 4 years.
They need a lot of food( they have no digestrive tract. and are inefficient at processing what they eat which could be a nutrient problem for a smaller sytem ; mine flows with a 600gallon puddle.
I've often thought about sepaarating it out to get lower temps for the seahorses (72 to 76 or so) and higher temps for the rest of the reef tanks( 79 to 81). Right now I'm running the whole system at 77 to 79) as a compromise and it's worked well.

They eat frozen mysis, brine , bloodworm and cyclopeeze. Ther are also pods, etc coming in from the main system for them to peck at. Iuse some flourescent spiral spot lights obverthat tank and a15 hour lights on schedule to extend feeding times.

If I separated it I'd watch ammonia ,nitrates as smaller well fed independent systems tend to give me trouble with those.

I have lots of corals and fish but the seahorses are favorites. They are fascinating. They socilaize too and are great fun to watch. I raises some of them from fry several years ago.