Seahorses with SPS?

[OUBrook]

I've heard several rumors from all kinds of people that say you can or cannot put seahorses with sps. I haven't done much research on it due to lack of time with school, but I thought a quick poll may help clear up the rumors. I don't really see why you couldn't, and my answers have been coming from people not owning seahorses or not having seahorses with sps. But I am a little concerned (like sps will need a lot of flow). If you can't put them together, please let me know! I want to get all angles covered before considering taking on that challenge.

Thanks so much!!
-Brook

 

[Eron]

I was concerned with buying a seahorse and putting him in my reef. The main reason was that i have several large fish and bristle stars. I felt he might not be able to get enough food. Plus all of the info from other seahorse owners on the difficulty of keeping them alive and happy. My aquarium has quite a bit of flow through it along with the 3 powerheads coming on sporaticly. But he holds his own. He can be fairly fast when he wants to and has no problem grabbing his share of food. At night when the night lights are on he will glide to the top and ride the currents thru the tank. As long as you don't have any stinging corals or anemones i think you will be fine.
Also this is how hardy my little guy is. I saw a bristle star snag his tail once and he actually did a big flip and pecked the star several times. Good luck OUBrook.
P.S. mines a dwarf Horse

 

[ReefNutPA]

Brook,

The biggest problem is reef tank conditions for your corals are not conducive to good seahorse environments. Corals prefer high flow and reef-tank temperatures. Seahorses do best in low to medium flow and temperatures under 76F. Most SPS corals would not fare well long-term at those temperatures.

The other problem is, as Eron noted, sweeper tentacles with some corals. Additionally, seahorses will hitch on anything - something your SPS corals won't take too kindly too.

Yes, it can be done but you'll have to find the fine line between what the SPS corals can handle and what the seahorses can handle. Since that line is rather small - most seahorse keepers, myself included, prefer to keep the reef tanks as reef tanks and the seahorses in their own species specific tanks.

Hope that helps a bit.

Tom

 

[panmanmatt]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8750420#post8750420 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Eron
P.S. mines a dwarf Horse

This is highly unlikely as you would most likely never be able to find a dwarf seahorse in a 75 gallon reef tank. Hippocampus zosterae, aka dwarf seahorse, has a full grown adult size of 1 inch. That plus the fact that dwarf seahorses main staple of food is baby brine shrimp and copepods. Whom ever sold you him as a dwarf seahorse was not being honest with you.

Brook,

As Tom said the flow and temps needed for SPS are not conducive to long term healthy seahorses.

 

[reefD]

take the forums word as we want to save you the money, time, and heartache....will NOT work!

 

[OUBrook]

Thanks for the opinions. I doubt it would be something I could pull off financially right now anyway. But I think ideas need a lot of research before acting on them, so don't worry. If I do anything, I will do my homework first and not hurt my little ponies.
Thanks again!

 

[pledosophy]

I think monti's or caps could be cool. Some people keep acro's but the horses bug the acro's.

Flow can be worked ut with varying areas of high and low. IME SPS don't need a massive wave just water moving around, better to be indirect with them. This is how I've always run my seahorse tanks as well. (although my horse tak was at 20x and my SPS tank is currently pushing 45x) I think the flow could be worked out with some custom spraybars and such.

Temp is an issue but IME I ran T5's on my horse tank anyway and SPS can do well under T5's. Just get some good exhaust fans and use a chiller or fan in the sump if needed.

JMO.

 

[Fredfish]

OK, I'm in a feisty mood tonight.

Some of what we have come to believe about seahorse is based on a mistaken belief that seahorses are a 'special' fragile species. They are not. They will survive in a wide range of flow, temperature and salinity conditions.

For example, the tropical horse, H. kuda, is found in inshore environments from bays to estuarys to river mouths. River mouths and estuarys tend to fluctuate a lot in salinity. You do need to consider the species though. Some, such as H. kuda are from shallow waters, others tend to stay in deeper water. I suspect that deeper water species will be less exposed to salinity and temperature fluctuations.

H, kuda has been found in waters from 9 C to 30C. The low is darned cold, the high is pretty warm.

Water flow in estuary areas and river mouths can also be pretty darned high, a lot higher than what some people have in their reef tanks.

On to corals. They also live in a very wide range of flow, temperature and salinity conditions (see Borneman, Schimek). In fact, If you look at the reefs in the Lord Howe Islands, a high lattitude reef, you will see that the dominant hard corals, Pocilopora, Porities, Acropora, live in temperatures that range between 17C and 22C. Thats pretty darned cool compared to what we normally keep corals at and quite reasonable for tropical seahorses. Note, in experiments on one Acropora, it continued to calcify even at 17C.

On the other hand, the horses we keep do not live on reefs, but in seagrass beds and are not exposed to many of the corals found on reefs, so there is the risk of the unknown.

OK, on to a reef tank.

Water flow is a funny thing. You can have two tanks with 15 times turnover with very different flow conditions. Is the flow distributed or concentrated? are there a lot of things in the tank to deflect/reduce flow and create areas of low flow in the tank.

As an example, I recently put a Tunze Nanostream 625 in my 40g horse tank. Thats 15x turnover. "Yikes!" you say, "Thats way too much." ...BUT the stream creates a very distributed flow to start with and after a day of playing with the positioning of the pump (and having enough rock and algae to break up flow) I have a setup where ALL the water is moving, but most of it is moving slow enough that the horses are quite comfortable AND I can give corals I plan to add good flow as well. I have volume flow, but not high velocity.

Temperature was nicely covered above. There are lots of corals that you can put in with horses even at 72-74. If you want specific recomendations, I asked the question on Eric Borneman's MD forum two days ago and he listed some specific species. Given what I have read about the Lord Howe reefs, you have a much large selection than that though.

You do want to be careful what corals you do choose though. Some corals (Trachyphyllia, Catalaphyllia, Rhodactis) are known fish eaters and others (Euphylia, Galaxia) pack a strong sting. There is a good list at seahorse.org (except that it has Rhodactis as ok).

Also, as one poster mentioned, your horses may cause your corals some problems if they decide that a particular coral makes a nice hitching spot.

So, to contradict what several others have written here, I would say that you can keep horses in more of a reef setup, but there are special considerations and you will want to watch your charges carefully in the beginning and be prepared to make changes as needed.

Argumentatively,
Fred

 

[mal40]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8768599#post8768599 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Fredfish
OK, I'm in a feisty mood tonight.

blaaa blaa blaah blaaah blaaah


Argumentatively,
Fred

I summerised your post for easy reading, leaving in just the important parts.

 

[OUBrook]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8768599#post8768599 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Fredfish
I have a setup where ALL the water is moving, but most of it is moving slow enough that the horses are quite comfortable AND I can give corals I plan to add good flow as well. I have volume flow, but not high velocity.

What corals are you planning on adding?

 

[Fredfish]

I just added a rod type gorgonian. I will be adding Ricordia floridia and possibly Porities cylindrica, though I don't know if I have enough light for the latter.

Fred

 

[Charlie97L]

watch that gorg, some don't like being hitched on, especially the non-photo ones... the photo ones generally are more tolerant.

 

[reefD]

okay this is true stuff ive sen it done but as said we are steered away but also some species have become very hardy in raised situations like kuda's ....very true see the seahorse vidoe on this site

http://www.reefvideos.com/reefshowcase_04_content.html

 

[pledosophy]

The link is cool but the video about seahorses are just with some rics. Keeping rics with seahorses is nothing new. We've been doing it for years.

You will also notice the behavior of the seahorses in the tank. They seem shy and are hiding. This is typical behavior IME when seahorses are exposed to fast moving fish like clowns and damsels. JMO. JME I did n't watch the entire video, but it is just what I noticed. Like I said JMO.

SPS and ricordia conditions are way way different. I do think SPS is doable, but will be challenging. Keeping mushrooms with seahorses is easy IME.

 

[acrodave]

in the wild seahorse and sps come from 2 diffrents parts of the reef so they never are around one another and im willing to bet that if they are hooked on the acro that the acro would be slimeing like crazy some of mine u just look at them wrong and they slime

 

[Fredfish]

I do think SPS is doable, but will be challenging.

It is pretty much impossible to lump all branching hard corals into one catergory.

Corals grow in a wide range of habitats, from crashing waves and huge flow on a reef crest, to low flow calm water environments like lagoons. Some acroporas have been found in depth ranges from 5 to 30 metres.

I expect that there are some branching corals that will do just fine in lower light and water flow. I seem to remember, but am not sure, that Montipora digitata will do fine in lower light and flow. It is certainly one of the easier to keep branching corals.

Another and possibly more serious challenge is keeping branching and other corals in a tank with macro algae. Macros compete quite effectively against corals for space. They release a class of chemicals called terpenoids that are quite toxic to corals. They also tend to overgrow things quickly and are very hard to remove once in place.

I use a pair of long teweezers to pull strands of caulerpa away from my gorgonian almost every day.

Hmmm. Monty digitata frags are easy to get hold of. I might just put one in the corner of my tank to see how it does in a tank lit by NO fluorescents.

Fred

 

[pledosophy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8801787#post8801787 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by acrodave
in the wild seahorse and sps come from 2 diffrents parts of the reef so they never are around one another

This is not true. Seahorses can be found in acro beds. It is a common reidi habitat. While the seahorses are not at risk from the sps, the threat to the sps from the seahorses are apparent.

You can read about it here
http://seahorse.fisheries.ubc.ca/IDguide.html

Of course I'm not saying all SPS will be great, but I think there is room for some exploration. Which I take pride in saying I will begin in a couple months from now. I will be starting with some caps, and an oregon tort. Also a branching yellow acro. They are thriving in the system they are currently in and the conditions will be similiar, with a little less flow and a pair of horses. There will be an increase in feeding since now I am feeding only calcuim, but we will see where that leads.

I'm not worried about them with macro's as it has not shown to be an issue yet. Infact I have kept several mushrooms including rics and yumas, 4 species of leathers, xenia, multiple sponges, carnations, many many zoo's, several LPS including cynaria, lobophyilla, euphyilla (frogspawns, and a couple of hammers), carnations, torch corals (candy canes), a few species of acro's (can't keep up with those crazy SPS guys on the names look like colored sticks to be but gorgeous, I'm still a newb over there) , some gorgonia's (red, yellow and blueberry) paly's, and GSP with several types of macro without issues to the corals.

In my current reef tank the environment is to clean for macro's which has been the only issue I have experienced. Even the chaeto went sexual in my reef, but nitrates, and phosphates have been at zero for a long time now. I feed the tank nothing except calcuim. Everything is thriving off the light and the food the pod population produces. The mangrove is hanging in there.

Lighting is another issue. I am planning on using MH's. Where I live the ambient room temperature rarely exceeds 70F without the air on so I have little issue keeping temps down. SPS have shown to do very well under T5 lighting which is what I ran my 65g horse tank at so IME with a couple of exhaust fans, or a colder climate, or a chiller the heat issues can be dealt with.

My biggest concern for my system is flow. I'm thinking spraybar that makes a U down the back of the tank with the U meeting on the floor of the sandbed, then stacking the rock on top of the spray bar so there is continual but low flow throughout the tank. I'll be shooting for about a 15 to 20x turnover.

 

[reefD]

awsome info! guys. the ricordias are known to be done with seahorses but i was just amazed with the success even with the fish/high flow. hes not getting luckey but they are striving fromwhat he speaks of and what i see. so high flow reefs are plausablable as well as sps for all we know. right? keep up the chatter!

 

[Fredfish]

Didn't see a reference to reidi and acros in the link you provided pledo, but I didn't spend a lot of time poking around. There was a brief mention of 'stone corals' in the reidi document.

In all my reading I have not yet come across a specific reference to horses living on a reef predominated by stony corals. In general horses do seem to be found in a wide variety of environments, but I suspect that they are predominantly found in algal/seagrass areas.

I also suspect that, given a choice in our tanks, they probably prefer macro over corals for hitching/hiding.

Still, there is probably not a lot to worry about for most sps corals. Most do not have a particularly strong sting. I would be more worrried about a coral should the horse decide to use it as a regular hitch.

There is a lot of info in the litterature on corals and algae, and corals do not fare well. The Caribean is a good example of what happens when algae communities are allowed to grow without predation.

In a tank it may be a little different, particularly if you are already using a good skimmer to export nutrients.

In my tank, where algae is the only export, I have to pull the macro off my shrooms several times a week or they get overgrown. I have also had sps overgrown and killed by macro in a previous reef tank. So, its a mixed bag.

Pledo. Have you considered one of the nanostreams to generate flow in your new tank? I am really impressed by mine so far. Lots of distributed flow.

Fred

 

[pledosophy]

I have been looking at that powerhead for sure. Until recently I had only ever tried the rio's and the maxijets. I recently picked up a SEIO after DianeB said she was using two in her 65g horse tank. It pushes large amounts of water but the flow is broken up more so the stream is not so intense. I think that these will be great in horse tanks Feel silly for not broadening my horizon's earlier.

IME with prolifera I had to pruin it a few times a week also. I let it completely colonize the sandbed but would remove it from the rocks.

I think macro growth is dependent on a few things. I do want to pick up a sprig of prolifera and gie it a chance in the corner of my reef to see how it does. it is pretty hardy IME and hopefully it can last where the green grape caulphera and chaeto did not. I really think the tank is just to clean for the macro's at this time. Will be a bit different after I get seahorses I imagine.