NPS corals and Seahorses/Pipefish

[aes]

Hi
I was curious to know if guys would recommend keeping NPS corals and Seahorses/Pipefish together. As in the way of needs seahorses hitching getting stung Could it be done has it been done?
Just looking into options doing my research for my next tank I have just recently just shutdown my Reef tank of 2.5 yrs and now am planning my next adventure into NPS corals

Cheers

Rob

 

[CuttleKid]

I had a dedicated nps Gorgonian and seahorse display before. All I can say is that it ends disastrous for the gorgonian. The seahorses hitch onto them and they mostly refuse to open their polyps and feed. And the longer they stay hitched the more their tails rub off the flesh of the coral.

I tired it against the warnings and I met the same results as everyone else. If you interested in a dedicated species tank I'd say do anglerfish with the nps corals and it would be a stunnIng display. THe anglers colors would really POP with all the colors. You. Could definitely do pipefish but you would not be able to keep any dendros/rhizos/ balanophyllia due to their powerful sting. You could possibly keep sun corals but once the pipefish start to eat frozen they may pick off the food fed to the sun corals befor they finish eating. This is much more of a concern with seahorses though.

Good luck and keep asking questions. That is the only way to learn

 

[nicewicz]

I've had mixed success keeping gorgonians and seahorses with pipefish. The gorgonians do retract their polyps at first when the seahorses hitch, but become used to it after a while and only retract the polyps on the part that the seahorses are hitched to. What I'd recommend is providing tons of hitching points other than just the gorgonians (i.e. rocks, dead SPS coral frags as well as some macroalgae).
The NPS corals require higher flow which have led some to believe that seahorses cannot handle the flow. I've found that once the seahorses have reached the adult stage, they seem to do just fine with pretty strong flow provided that there are pockets of low flow and plenty of hitching spots. Seahorses do like to steal food from sun corals, but the problem is minimized if you encourage the seahorses to feed away from the corals. I've kept all of these things in the same tank with great success for about 8 months until I had a nitrate spike (after I had to remove part of a sand bed) and I lost my two red flame pipes. Things are slowing getting back to normal, but I'm undeterred and will try again with pipes when things stabilize.

 

[aes]

Sorry for late reply guys but thanks seems verying differences in peoples success with keeping things might have go on caution would love to dendro's and other NPS corals. But Im not willing to lose any seahorses on chance wondering if 2 tanks hooked to the same system would work both dedicated systems both sitting at 22-24 degrees?

Cheers

Rob