Seahorse with SPS

[The River Reef]

I know this has been asked before. I have read allot including the tank mates lists. There seems to be a lack or broad catergory to ranking SPS corals in regard to being compatable with Seahorses. So my question is this:
What SPS corals have you kept with what species of pony successfully? If you have the experience or know directly of one please comment. It is hard to find the answer to this question so I will rely on your past experiences

 

[Tmoriarty]

I have heard of some success (not experienced it) but the problem is that the general temperatures/low flow settings of a Pony tank are not what you need to keep SPS. On the other hand if you have some SPS that is lower flow or can be placed in specific areas it may do alright, but the temperatures would need to be under 75 to be good for the seahorses, and as such may be to cold for some SPS.

 

[rayjay]

Another big problem with the sps corals is that the water is too "dirty" for any sps corals that require pristine water conditions.
Seahorse water is "dirty" because they pick and choose which food pieces to eat, leaving the rest to decay or be eaten by clean up crew which then in turn leaves behind excrement to decay or be eaten by micro life, further repeating the actions.
To make matters worse, when a seahorse snicks it's food, it masticates the food, passing residual micro particles out through the gills, further adding to the problem of clean water.

 

[The River Reef]

I have been thinking of getting a few pieces of Montipora species that are known to be "hardy" for SPS that is... I was hoping someone has had success before I spend money on them. I do not have the ponies and it will be a few months before I do...
If you can keep the Nitrite and Nitrates down then would the coral know the difference? I guess what constitutes pristine water?

 

[rayjay]

It's been my experience that the things we test for are not normally the cause of the problems I've experienced. The dirty water comes from the fact that the seahorses only eat selective pieces and that they masticate their food, passing particulate matter out through their gills, further degrading water quality.
I think that the problem is more that the dirty water is probably providing food and bedding grounds for nasty bacteria.

 

[The River Reef]

Fair enough... I have a few low priced Montipora pieces offered in my local club. I will try a few and post the results

 

[KimP]

I kept some sps in my seahorse tank and they did fine. I agree the temp is an issue, so don't expect fast growth. Montis did well enough at the top and a birdsnest frag placed in front of a powerhead did fine. None of my corals really grew fast and I'm certain it was the temp. Do what you need to do to keep your water clean. Just because you keep seahorses doesn't mean you have to have dirty water or high nutrient water. Skimmer, water changes, purigen, refugium,low stocking, etc, etc, will help with that.

 

[Tmoriarty]

I will be vodka dosing my Seahorse tank along with macro algae in the display and possibly the sump. I will also be running a skimmer rated at over twice my water volumn. While I agree that seahorses are messy animals as I have read time and time again, I know that I can still keep my nitrates under 10 without issue through proper maintenance. Also having NPS/SPS will help remove the "snicked" food because the coral polyps will pickup the smaller bits.

 

[rayjay]

Keep in mind that very low nitrates does not indicate that you won't have problem with dirty water and seahorse mortalities.

 

[Tmoriarty]

Understandably so, but it helps with one of the issues that comes with keeping SPS, higher nitrates/phosphates are detrimental to SPS ability to survive. The decaying food is not an issue with the proper CUC and the proper bacteria strains to convert the nitrite to nitrate and to remove the nitrate from the system as nitrogen.

 

[rayjay]

Understandably so, but it helps with one of the issues that comes with keeping SPS, higher nitrates/phosphates are detrimental to SPS ability to survive.

Agreed that it helps with sps.

The decaying food is not an issue with the proper CUC and the proper bacteria strains to convert the nitrite to nitrate and to remove the nitrate from the system as nitrogen.

That's what I thought too when I started this seahorse keeping about 10 yrs ago as I had been reefing for about 9 yrs at that point. (and many many others if you go by posts on the "org")
However, while ammonia and nitrite are definitely bad for seahorses, nitrates by themselves are NOT going to kill off seahorses.
The damaging things are not testable by hobbyists, but are still water quality related. You can have low nitrates and poor water quality leading to internal organ problems.
You can also have the best clean up crew you can imagine but they still don't get out ALL of the trapped uneaten food and detritus sufficient to prevent nasty bacteria beds that then affect the seahorses.

 

[rlpardue]

When in doubt, always go with Rayjay's opinion. I think Montis have the potential to do fine in a seahorse tank that has enough water volume. This might be unusual, but I have a seahorse tank that runs at about 72-74 degrees, and there's a green encrusting Monti that's rapidly expanding. I wouldn't plan on having an SPS-dominated seahorse tank though. But if you happen to find a hardy specimen, it might be pretty along with a couple of appropriate gorgonians and a pair of seahorses.

 

[rayjay]

When in doubt, always go with Rayjay's opinion.

That should read, when in doubt always do more research.
My opinions are just that, opinions, and they are based on my own research plus personal experiences. That doesn't make them necessarily correct for someone else's application.
My opinion on something is just to be considered along with other opinions so you can form a decision that you feel will be best for your own conditions.

 

[btreyes]

I keep orange monti plates, bird's nest, and digitata's with my seahorses that I reef epoxied high up on the aquarium walls by high flow and have had no problems, they just grow slowly. My tank is pretty high flow for seahorses, but they have tons of hitches and seem to love the flow.

 

[rlpardue]

Wow, that sounds like a very beautiful tank! I love smaller (30g-ish) tanks with lots of montis glued to the walls. I think I'm going to use your idea when I get home from work and have a monti-covered rear tank wall.

It's hard to have a stunning aquarium with seahorses; at least, you have to think a little more than in the case of a usual reef-wall. I used acrylic rods (I bent them with my wife's blow-dryer) to make a simple bansai-tree inspired structure in the seahorse tank. I used little rock so the ponies would have lots of room to swim around, and put 30 pounds of live rock in the refugium instead. It's like a seagrass bed with a sprouting rock tree. Clam and Xenia and some corals on the top level. I keep waiting to see some kind of sign of unhappiness from any of the inverts (due to low temp), and I'm ready to move them to the reef, but so far they're good. Anyone have any other cool ideas on decorating seahorse tanks? Maybe I should start a new thread...

 

[rayjay]

You need to be very careful with a clam in the same tank as seahorses.
It has happened often enough that a seahorse tail has dragged across a clam, causing the clam to close on the tail, with resulting damage that could end up being deadly.

 

[rlpardue]

Argh, that's always been a remote fear for me. The clam is still small enough that it is able to close up all the way... I've watched tails go into it and back out of it without the clam noticing but I don't like the risk. I'll move it to the reef so it can enjoy the metal halides. Thanks!

 

[Jaguar]

I kept some SPS with seahorses as well. I had a really nice 70g tall tank. I aquascaped to have an upper ledge area, and kept birdsnest (bad coloring), monti, cap, encrusting, and digi (decent color on green and purple rimmed, brown digi). I made a huge spraybar which allowed the flow of the overpowered return pump to push more water through a spread out area for the seahorses and the top upper ledge was the highest flow area, and obviously closest to the MH for the SPS. It is possible, just challenging.