New to Seahorses

[Minhle100]

I'm going to be setting up a 33 gallon cube oceanic that i'm going to have seahorses in. I have had no experience in them what so ever and i would really love any of your opinions. from everything that i've read i'm a little confused about somethings.

1. i know that a variety when it comes to food is a great thing. but do i have to start to hatch or raise food for my horses when i get them? i'm going to be honest when i read most of the threads about raising food i'm at a lost b/c i don't know what most of it means. i can read and read but i just don't see most of then things.

2. how many can i place in the tank? i was thinking of getting four, two pairs (mated). or i have also read that i should get several females and one male. what is everyone's opinion.

 

[Fredfish]

You do not need to hatch live food for your seahorses. The only prepared food most horses accept is frozen mysis shrimp. Pyscine Energetics (PE) and Hikari are the best brands.

Some people soak their mysis in selcon, a liquid nutient supplement, or add beta glucan, and imuno-system stimulant.

There is a thread stuck to the top of this forum that has lots of good links to basic info on keeping seahorses. I would suffest starting there and then coming back here with more questions.

Fred

 

[Minhle100]

fred thanks for that...i've read the post but like my orginal question i've also read many other threads on other site about raising my own foods and such.

can you help me with my second question. i'm going to have a 33g cube and wold like to know should i get two pairs or three females and one male?

 

[Fredfish]

Either is probably fine. I lost a female and ended up with two males and a female.

My personal preference would be two pairs.

Fred

 

[pledosophy]

Any mix is fine.

Raising your own food is only needed with certain species, like zots. Meduim to large size horses will not respond to bbs. Culturing shrimp is not cost or time effective IMO.

Make sure you get your seahorses from a reputable breeder of Captive Bred aquacultured seahorses like seahorsesource.com or dracomarine.com

If you get Wild caught's (WC) then you will have to deal with the live food issues. It is not fun IME (In my experience which means I've done it myself.) Feeding live food is lame because it is 10x as expensive and you hve to keep feeder tanks. Not the way to go.

Seahorses can live avery long happy life only eating frozen food. My WC Reidi (wild caught means it was harvested from the ocean) never ate anything but ghost shrimp and lived with me for 5.5 years.

If yo have any question on a thread or a word or acronym you don't understand, just ask. We are all here to help when we can and learn when we can.

Good Luck.

If you have more questions please ask.

 

[Minhle100]

thanks fred and pledosophy for the info. i'm about to start the cycling process on the tank that is going to be the home of a few seahorses. the next question that i have is what kinds of things should i have in there, i guess what is mean is. the tank is only going to have the factore lights that it came with, i was told from someone that i don't need and probably shouldn't buy any other kind of light. well i'm going with what i was told and i'm going to not have any other lights so that leads me back to the question of what should i have in there. what kinds of things, since the lights are factor lights most corals are out of the question. i would assume mushrooms are ok but is that it?
from what i've seen at many of the lfs seahorses like to hook their tails on things like monkeys do. do i or can i place a type of macro or seaweed in there...if so what kind (most macro grows so fast that i don't want to get the wrong kind and it takes over the tank)

you guys can see i've got some many question. thanks again

 

[Fredfish]

Yup, horses love to hitch. While you are cycling the tank, get your macro algae going. The horses will use it to hitch.

Control your macro by pruning. That way it is also your main method of nutrient export. Caulerpas and Chaetomorpha (sp?) are the most commonly available and most often kept species. There are many different caulerpas. If you find a caulerpa you particularly like, select it and try to weed out other competitors you don't like.

On cycling. You probably already know this, but I would consider 2 months a bare minimum for cycling and 3-4 months as preferred. I know this is a long time to wait when you are excited to get going, but proper cycling is key to establishing good water quality.

I have two 40w fluorescent bulbs over my seahorse tank. Its plenty for macro algae to grow well.

Mushrooms (discosoma sp.) are pretty much bullet proof. I have a small group of 4 that have been completely covered by macro for the last 3 months and they are still alive. I expect that if I did not continually let them get covered with algae they would now cover half the tank.

EDIT: more on discosoma. In addition to photosynthetic energy production, they feed by direct absobtion of disolved nutrients from the water and through mucucs capture of detritus (Borneman 2001,2004)

Keep the questions coming. We are glad to help.

Fred

 

[Minhle100]

ok so it sounds like i "SHOULD" place macro in there. but i would assume that the macro is going to kind of go crazy and cover everything even with pruning. are there other options, as to what i should or could place in there. i think that there is some bladed macro that i can get that looks ok and doesn't really attach to things like caluerpa does. cheato is ok but i just looks like a big blob.

can you give me a suggestion on keeping the tank looking like a reef tank without giving up too much intergrety in regards to the seahorse.

and here is the really really big question....what kinds of seahorse should i go with. i've looked on oceanrider.com and really like some of the one's on there. the color seems to be awesome, but i'm just going to make an assumption that sometimes there are people like me that get into buying and are willing to pay for the seahorses with viabriant colors just to see them die b/c i didn't do something right. should i just buy the regular black ones at some of the local fish stores for the regular price of 40-60 dollars. or is my success rate normally the same regardless of the type of seahorse that i choose.

 

[pledosophy]

I love the responsible keepers o this site who research before. Kudos.

Hitches,

I like to use tonga branch rock in horse tanks. Not only is it liverock, but it's also a hitch. It's like a two for one deal. If you buy this excellent biological filtration, we'll throw in 20 free hitches.

I also like to use macro alages. Not all of them are fast growing. Look at red grape caulphera, prolifera, red kelp, halmedia, and mangroves. All make great hitches, all are beautiful, all are slow growing. Prolifera can spread, but is easy to pruin and I love the look of the grass bed on the sand without the expense and heat of MH's.

As far as keepingcorals, what excatly is your lighting situation?

There are many low light corals. Mushrooms are some of the bullet proof ones. Many gorgonia's are non photosynthetic. Xenia's can work well and are intresting. Carnations are also cool. Sponges are cool looking. Many leathers are also low light to name a few.

On the seahorses. You need to buy CB from an aquaculture facility. Do not be fooled by imitators claiming there horses are tank raised. Buy CB from a breeder. OR does have some nice horses, but I would do a search on there business practices. IMO you can get better horses from places like Seahorsesource.com and Dracomarine.com for much less money. I think in the long run you woul dbe happier with some of there stock as opposed to OR JMO based on my experience.

WC seahorses and Tank raised seahorses have very special needs and IMO should not be kept by newbies. Honestly after keeping WC's for over 5 years, I will buy every horse I have in the future from Seahorsesource until I move to a house and attempt to breed horse species that are not available on the market to help alleviate there species from being harvested from the wild. But that is at least 3 years away.

 

[Minhle100]

awesome that is the type of answer that i was looking for. many of the macro that you gave me i know but one that i don't so i will take a look at that. also i never thought of the tonga branch rock. that is a great idea. do you know where i can get some when i need it. and the info on the seahorses is also great. i've already bookmarked those sites so that i can look at them later.

i just have one more question and i think that i'm set. what kind of flow should i be looking at. let me tell you what i was going to do and let me know if that sounds ok. i've got two 33 cubes that i'm going to place on a custom stand. one for the seahorses and the other for sps growth tank. they are going to both share everything under the tank...the skimmer, sump/fuge, and the return. i was going to use a pump (3000gph) split to have the water go to both of the tanks. i don't know if that is overkill or not but i was told that against normal thought seahorses really do like flow. i am going to place a ball value on that tanks return to help control the flow but even still i would like to know what kind of flow i should have in the tank.

 

[pledosophy]

Sharing tanks could cause temperature issues. With seahorses you need to shoot for a temp around 74. Also sharing tanks can be problamatic if shared with a SPS setup because seahorses are messy and will foul the water quality.

Rule of thumb on flow for seahorse tanks is 3-5x the tank volume per hour. If you split the returns into multiple places then you can go a little higher. Just make sure the seahorses have the ability to swim comfortably without being blown around. It will probably be hard to measure using a ball vlave as to how much flow goes into each tank. Either way 3000gph split between two tanks is going to be way to much for both tanks IMO. Even if you run the horse tank at 10x an hour, which is high, you would be turning the SPS tank over 700x an hour. Maybe look at a Gen X PCX 40.

Tonga branch is pretty common. Try liveaquaria.com

Good Luck.

 

[Minhle100]

thanks fred and pledosophy for your help...i'll post some info on the tank when it is up and running.

 

[Fredfish]

Looking forward to seeing your tank. Good luck.

Fred

 

[reefcrazed]

Does anyone keep sea horses at a temp of 80f? What about pipefish?

 

[pledosophy]

No one keeps them at those temps for extended periods of time.

Higher temperatures encourage te growth of more virtulent bacterias which will cause the seahorses to become ill. Since this has been recognized recently, keepers who adhere to the lower temperature ranges have had far better succsess long term.

 

[Downdraft]

keeping my eye on this thread

keeping my eye on this thread

looking forward to your tank also!!
i should start cycling now if i want SH soon!
:eek2: