Setting up seahorse tank. Any advise?

[Hnguyen85]

Hey guys, I'm been planning a seahorse tank for about a month now and have done lots of research on them. So far I've gathered what I believe is all the equipment I need to get the tank started. Equipment as follows:
29G Bio-Cube retrofitted with an AI Sol blue led light.


20 gallon DIY sump.


Reef keeper light with temp probe and ato setup and a bubble Magnus nac7 skimmer. 30lb of brs rocks.


The rock have been curing in the tub for 3 weeks now and I plan to leave then in there for another 6 weeks until I get some cabinets built which will act as a stand for the tank and a book shelve as well.


Sink in the basement which will be the fish room for my larger 210g build soon to come. RO DI unit produces 720 gpd.

JBJ 1/10th HP chiller


Few test kits and other misc equipment. What else would I need for a successful tank? I also plan to put a few zoas in the tank as well and all the colorful plants and micro algae.

I'd appreciate any help and advise from you seahorse vets out there. Thanks.

 

[gnu]

Welcome to the obsession! My advice: 29g is only big enough for 2 seahorses, do your research on breeders, use probiotics, use a feeding station, clean like a lunatic, keep meds on hand, and find a source for live food, just in case.
Are your lights dimmable? They're a bit bright for SH.
Good luck!

 

[Hnguyen85]

Thanks, I only plan to have a pair of seahorses in this tank and no more then that. I plan to get my seahorses from seahorse.com. I'm very good at keeping my tanks clean as this isn't my first saltwater tank, I've had a 150 SPS dominate tank about a year ago and it did great for years. Besides, the skimmer I have for it is rated for over 150 gallon so I'd say that's more then enough. Also, the LED's are dimmable, their on an AI controller with sunrise, morning, afternoon, sunset and lunar cycle.

 

[gnu]

Ocean Rider has an email course on seahorses that is VERY thorough. I read that before ordering my seahorses (even though I went with a different breeder), and I think it's worth the read.

 

[DanU]

Overall your setup sounds well thought out and appropriate.

Lighting is one area that we need more research with seahorses. I have noticed that seahorses that have more natural sunlight exposure grow faster and are more colorful. You also see this with seahorses that reared in outdoor facilities in South America. We don't yet fully understand the optimal lighting with seahorses. In your light setup, over time if you slowly increase the lighting, they will get used to it.

The protein skimmer may seem over rated, but it isn't IMHO. Seahorses are very different than most fish in many ways. One of these is they way they put pressure on the bio-load of a system. Unlike most fish, seahorses snick their food and macerate it. If you watch them, it looks like smoke coming out of the back of their head. This is actually tiny food particles being injected into the water column. They also lack a true stomach. This creates two issues, first being that they don't digest everything completely and food moves through their digestive relatively quickly. Thus they excrete a lot. Secondly, because of their digestive system and their apparent lack of ability to store reserves, they can eat a lot. A pair for example can eat 1/2 to 1 cube of frozen mysis per feeding, 2 to 3 times a day. Lastly, many folks try to put additives on frozen foods and this ends up in the water column as well. Put this altogether and you end up with a lot of dissolved and non dissolved organic content in the tank. A great performing protein skimmer goes a long ways at helping keep this under control.

One thing I would recommend is to use a filter sock in the sump. Ideally in the 50 to 100 micron range. Depending upon the size, it may need to be cleaned and/or change somewhat frequently, but it will help remove a lot of junk from the tank.

Dan

 

[Hnguyen85]

Setting up seahorse tank. Any advise?

Great info Dan!!! Thank you very much. I have read that seahorse do dirty the water a lot more ten a normal reef tank. That was the main reason why I went with just a higher rating skimmer in hopes it will help keep the bio-load down. I will have an external fuge running inline with the sump and I'm going to load it with micro algae in hopes it would help as well. I plan to run the AI Sol at about 30% to start with and see how they behave and react to that setting. Then ill increase it by 1% every week until I reach 40%. I plan to have a few zoas in the tank as well so I don't want the tank too dark but ill see how they react to 30% light first. I the corals seem fine then ill just leave it at that. Overall, with the tank, sump and fuge, in looking at about 65 gallons total water volume for a pair of seahorses. The sump is 20g and fuge another 15g. I hope I have my bases covered as I really want to be successful with these ponies (the wife too, all her idea).

As far as feeding, I plan to feed then frozen mysis. Do you guys have any advise as to what type of vitamins to soak the food with before I feed to keep the ponies healthy?

Oh and I don't plan to run filter socks in the sump as they are a pain to clean. My dad has a friend that works at a fish market and he can get me 2'x500' rolls of filter floss for free that I will use instead of filter socks. That way i can throw them out about every 2-3 days without going through the trouble of cleaning socks. That's what I've been doing with my reef tanks and it seems to work great for me.

 

[DanU]

I am not a fan of trying to add stuff to frozen foods. I think this way; If I were to cook something on the grill and then added a finishing sauce then dropped into some water, where would most of the sauce be? Point is, this can contribute to organic loading of the water column. I do believe live foods should be enriched. For frozen, a variety of foods or maybe switching between brands for variety.

I understand on the feeding socks. They are a pain because they collect more. I run 5 micron canister filters. These have to be changed almost daily. 20 micron last 3 x longer but that means the 5 micron are catching a whole lot more.

Dan

 

[Hnguyen85]

So I can just feed them different frozen foods without having to soak it? If that's the case then it would be awesome because I don't like to soak my food for the exact reason you mentioned. As far as life food, what kind of life food do you feed and do you culture them yourself? Also I'm still not too clear on the "enrich" part of life food. What do you do to enrich them? Sorry for all the question. I just want to understand this fully.

 

[rayjay]

I feed frozen Hikari mysis (after rinsing well) for my standard feed.
I grow out live brine and enrich with Dan's Feed from seahorsesource.com.
You can gut load and boost the enrichment in a matter of about 4 hours for adults, (24 hours for instar II) but they are much more nutritious if you enrich them for a day as they assimilate the nutrition into their bodies as well as have a full gut of enrichment.
http://www.seahorsesource.com/cgi-bin/shop/search.cgi?&category=Foods-Enrichments

Many people don't like to grow them so they usually have access to a store that sells them, or they buy them from a place like livebrineshrimp.com.

 

[Hnguyen85]

Sweet, thanks for the info. Ill look into it and do some research on how to culture live food for them. It should be a nice treat for the weekend for the ponies.

 

[rayjay]

This is a page I've got on my site that might be of some help to you.
You would have to scale it down to a size suitable for your needs.
My Brine Shrimp Page

 

[Hnguyen85]

This is a page I've got on my site that might be of some help to you.
You would have to scale it down to a size suitable for your needs.
My Brine Shrimp Page

Holy cow!!! That's a huge set up!!!

 

[tmz]

I took the Ocean Rider cetification on line course at Ocean Rider /Seahorse. com. It was excelent and thorough,imo, and free.

I started with seahorses about 6 years ago. I was given a 2 liter bottle full of new fry from a friend who has an lfs. They were turned in by someone who didn't choose to raise them. I had no idea how to deal with it but read up and manged to get just a pair to adulthood. I enjoyed them for 4 and a half years . Then I purchased some from seahorse source .com an then some more from Ocean rider. Both are excellent vendors, ime.

I now keep 7 erectus in a 75 gallon which i pumbed into the main mixed reef system with a total water volume of 650 gallons and low NO3 and PO4. The 75 receives about 500 gallons of water exchange with the main system per hour.

I feed a mix of frozen foods including: mysis( about 70% of the mix ) enriched brine, bloodworms and cyclopeeze 2x per day. Fry get newly hatched atremia . After a few weeks some cyclopeeze is mixed in along with 1 to 2 day old enriched atremia for the ry..

Lighting is just an old 130 watt power compact fixture with 65 watts of 10 k white and 65 watts of actinic blue. It's just enough to give some macroalgae a chance to grow. Atificial corals and platicchain hold ons dominate teh aquascape. Lights are on for 13 hours pr day.
Here are a few pictures of the 75 from about 6 months ago shortly after I set it up as an upgrade over the 35 gallon I had been using, I have since added balck sand to the bottom:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2246803&highlight=seahorses

 

[Hnguyen85]

Wow those horses look awesome!!

 

[tmz]

Thanks, They are healthy and breed frequently. They are great to watch. plenty of interaction and social behavior.