Seahorses in a Tank??

[brandoniscool]

Hello there,

My name is Diana, and I am a tutor in Mr. Rutherford's third grade classroom, The Awesome Squad. I am also a student at UIUC. Although marine biology is not my strong suit, I have had the opportunity to learn about it by working with the Awesome Squad and helping them out with their beautiful tank. I have also become very fortunate because not only am I learning all this marine life information, but I get to learn it from these smart and amazing students who are just always so enthusiastic when it comes to working with the tank!!! I get impressed by all the knowledge they get from helping take care of their aquarium. The tank has very cool anemones and crabs and fishes. My favorite pair of fishes that they have are the clown fishes. I am assuming that because of the size of their tank, it limits them as to the types of organisms they can have. I was wondering if it is possible for a regular size tank to carry seahorses. I am not quite familiar with them or their environment, but would there be something differently that needed to be done to the tank in order for there to be seahorses??

Thanks Again,
Diana

 

[dwalker]

Hi Diana,

A "regular sized" tank is likely to mean very different things to different people. Seahorses do have some minimum size requirements, the rule of thumb is usually 30 gallons for a pair of standard-sized seahorses, and an additional 15 gallons for each additional pair. That has as a lot to do with the biological load that seahorses present to the tank, due to their eating habits. Dwarf seahorses, which are much smaller, have different requirements.

Seahorses also do best in a seahorse-only tank (along with some other safe animals for cleanup duties). Because they are fairly sedentary compared to many other fish, they can either be picked on, or out competed for food if kept with other more active and aggressive species. They are also incompatible with animals like anemones that could sting the seahorses.

Seahorses also do best at temperatures a bit lower than most tropical/reef tanks are kept at, another reason to set up a tank especially for them.

 

[Han Solo]

To expand on what dwalker has said, a few things unique to seahorses in a reef tank are:

- It's important to remember they usually only (and only willing) to eat by sucking up food that floats by them while they are perched with their tails; they are very sedimentary like he said and so much so that they can starve to death if they have no other choice but to search for food much more dynamically.
- To even expand on that if you have a lot (some times in a smaller tank, any at all) of fishes like those clown fish, they will bite up all the little food floating around and the seahorses will be left with nothing
- Another thing to remember is that they do really need those hitching posts for their tails, but even fake plants will do most of the time
- They also need zooplanton food only, most of the time actually live food like brine shrimp

Check out a 'Black Seahorse, Erectus species' on google image search or something just to see how beautiful they are amazing looking guys and I'm very much considering making a pico sized tank catered to just one. Something less than 5 gallons!.... I'll let you know how that goes!



edit: and one more thing the dwarf species of seahorse can do well in small tanks! look into those.

Good luck.

 

[rayjay]

First of all, a pico tank is inappropriate for a standard seahorse.
Secondly, seahorses do better in pairs or more, not as individuals.
While dwarfs need live foods live copepods and brine shrimp, the standards are usually trained to eat frozen foods.
Dwarfs indeed tend to stay hitched for the most part, waiting for their food to come by them, but standards will hunt down their food.

 

[Han Solo]

Inappropriate or impossible?

 

[rayjay]

Possible in the short term but not possible in the long term IMO. You'd be wasting the life of the seahorse in trying it.
Why not learn what their needs are to offer the best chances of success and then go that route?
There are links at the bottom of "My Thoughts on Seahorse Keeping" written by experienced keepers and one by perhaps the most helpful seahorse breeder in North America, that can give you some insight into what would work best.
Even doing everything right doesn't guarantee success in this seahorse hobby.

 

[Han Solo]

Possible in the short term but not possible in the long term IMO. You'd be wasting the life of the seahorse in trying it.
Why not learn what their needs are to offer the best chances of success and then go that route?
There are links at the bottom of "My Thoughts on Seahorse Keeping" written by experienced keepers and one by perhaps the most helpful seahorse breeder in North America, that can give you some insight into what would work best.
Even doing everything right doesn't guarantee success in this seahorse hobby.

Thanks for the link and info. I'm not going to try and keep a normal size seahorse in my small tank and just hope for it's survival. That's wrong.

I'm still trying to figure out the best alternative for a fish/center-piece in my 2.5 gallon. It's setup now with all chemicals in order and with two blue-legged hermits and one colony of zoas. Do you think two dwarf seahorses would work? I've read they are not even supposed to be keep in tanks > 20 gallons or so.

 

[dwalker]

Thanks for the link and info. I'm not going to try and keep a normal size seahorse in my small tank and just hope for it's survival. That's wrong.

I'm still trying to figure out the best alternative for a fish/center-piece in my 2.5 gallon. It's setup now with all chemicals in order and with two blue-legged hermits and one colony of zoas. Do you think two dwarf seahorses would work? I've read they are not even supposed to be keep in tanks > 20 gallons or so.

About the only fish I would even try in that size tank would be something like a clown goby.

It would be OK for dwarf seahorses, but probably not with hermits and zoas, and you have to be committed to hatching and enriching baby brine shrimp every day.

 

[rayjay]

Yes, the 2.5 definitely is a good size for about up to 20 dwarfs.
Unfortunately as the tank is already set up, it would not do well in it's current state for dwarfs.
For dwarfs, it is recommended to have a sterile tank to start out, and then after cycling you add the dwarfs.
Adding anything else that is not sterile, like corals or live rock means that the tank will probably end up with hydroids which are deadly for dwarfs.
None sterile contents coupled with constant feeding of live brine shrimp is a recipe for success in producing hydroids.
Before you actually get into dwarf keeping, I'd suggest starting off with hatching, growing out and enriching brine shrimp to get an idea of the workload you are going to be dealing with.
The greatest majority of dwarf keepers drop out due to the PITA feeding regime.