Seahorse tank setup

[bluetang<3]

Just starting to look into keeping ponies, have been in the hobby keeping sps, clams and carpets for a few years now. We have always been intrigued by the beauty of the seahorses, never had the room recently started to looking into there husbandry. I have recently moved my anemones into a new tank leaving my 24x24x22cube open. The tank has been running and stable for 2 years or so, currently running a deltec mce 600 skimmer a mp40 and 250w hqi. Realizing my flow and lighting is out to lunch what is more realistic and sea horse safe. Need to have enough light for mushrooms. Have removed the heater and temp is been stable at 70 deg alto its winter. My questions are; does running carbon have any effect on seahorses? What kind of lighting should i run(thinking maxspec g3 leds)? How much flow? Keeping the tank at cool temperature effect mushrooms or will proper acclimation not effect them?

Thanks Wes

 

[namxas]

The "old" rule of thumb for flow was 3x-5x turnover, however, SH are better swimmers than they're given credit for. Most peeps now go 10x-15x turnover as long as it's done so the SH can get around without being plastered against the tank. So set up your flow creatively, less laminar flow, less direct flow, and do have some "rest areas" with lower flow.

Lighting can be pretty much whatever you want from NO fluorescents on up. I do like to run a dawn/dusk/moonlight schedule on my own setups. Believe it or not, there have been several incidents where SH are afraid of sudden/total darkness.

IME, shrooms, softies, zoos have never been a problem at low to mid 70's.

I do however, like to recommend live macro, esp. in SH setups. It gives them places to hitch/hide/hunt pods, and is an aid in water quality via nutrient export. Besides, it looks nice.

HTH

 

[bluetang<3]

Thanks, we have been looking around and love the macro algae and mushroom look. I will pick up some tunze power heads most likely as they can be directed, altho the vortechs have such a broad flow. Ill have to look and see what i can find. As for lights i was told by a lfs here that power compacts were too much as there seahorses were getting slime algae growing on them.

 

[namxas]

I have pretty much always kept SH under PC's, but also under LED, NO, and MH with no issues. The live macro will really help, and another super important thing is to thaw and RINSE the mysis (rinsing under the tap is fine) before you feed them out.

Also, make sure whatever PH's you use have a guard on them (intake and outflow) as SH can, and will find a way to stick their tails into them.