SH/Frag tank?

B

BigGimp77

New member
So I have a 30g L sump/refuge, a 40G breeder, and a 39g high.

I wanted to turn the breeder into a frag tank and the 39g into a SH tank.

I thought it would be cool if I could plumb it all together to have a nice water volume that would be easier to maintain.

However idk how well a Frag tank would do at 72-75 degrees, and idk how well SH's would do at 78ish degrees.

Has anyone ever heard of something like this being done? Does it sound like it could possibly work?
 
It's possible, just not probably successful.
First, the seahorses may or may not handle the tank temperature of 78° but if you maintain extremely high water quality it would be your best chance of success.
If your frag tank is going to have sps corals, they don't do well in seahorse tanks as they need cleaner water normally.
Seahorses produce dirty tanks. First, because they only eat certain pieces of the food you put in, leaving the rest to decay and feed bacteria beds, and, as they snick their food, they masticate it and expel particulate matter through the gills, further degrading water quality.
 
I figured there would be some complications with the plan.

You don't think the 100+g plus water volume would maybe offset some of the dirty water issues (assuming 2 SH's)?

I'm also kind of curious what you could expect growth wise from corals in 75 degree water. Leather would be OK probably, but I wonder about sps/lps.

Edit: also thanks for the reply. I've skimmed through the forums and have read some of your posts/website. I appreciate the advice!
 
Ive seen seahorses in frag/coral tanks before and they are living, but ive never scene what happens to them long term. I have seahorse and coral tanks. Personally, i like to keep my seahorse tanks at 72. There is alot less chance of bacterial issues at that temp. 74 would be my highest.
 
I tried 2 small seahorse in my 200ish gal reef system for a few weeks and I'm still dealing with the issues from the almost constant feeding that the ponies required.

The only way I could see it working ( and this ignoring the very real temperature issues) is if your tank had swarms of pods and mysis shrimp just hanging out for the horses to eat rather than you needing to dump in frozen.
 
So SH's are that dirty huh... Hmmm. Bummer.

If its not plausible to do both, I'd probably end up doing neither :(. I tend to feed my 120g quite a bit of food, and my SPS are growing like crazy. SH's must be on another level lol.
 
Jcohen9999 said:
The only way I could see it working ( and this ignoring the very real temperature issues) is if your tank had swarms of pods and mysis shrimp just hanging out for the horses to eat rather than you needing to dump in frozen.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, the seahorses will decimate any natural population of pod and mysid life in very short order so that you have to add food of some kind for them. That goes even for in a refugium.
 
Just doing some more research, sounds like its going to be near impossible to pull this off.

I wouldn't say impossible, but I don't have cash to burn on a wild experiment. I haven't found one thread of someone who keeps SH's at 74+ consistently, and I'm leaning on the side of SPS wouldn't do too well in 72ish degree water.

I'll probably just empty my Old system out and store the tanks in the basement. :(
 
I don't really know about others' experiences, but my seahorses don't even look at copepods. They're *way* too small for my seahorses to consider. Good thing too cause my mandarin would be ****ed. :) One thing you can do is target feed them to keep the waste down. They can actually be trained to go to a feeding trough from an audible cue. I used to tap on the glass prior to feedings and eventually they would go over and wait for the food to descend into the trough. Very *very* little waste that way. What they didn't eat (which was generally very little) the snails quickly scooped up, as I realized they TOO learned to respond to the call of the dinner bell. It was actually pretty funny to watch the bottom of the tank come alive when I tapped on the tank as the detritavores made a bee-line for the feeding station.

On the temps...you can keep tropical seahorses at higher temps...the issue is that most species are more prone to diseases at higher temps
 
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Depending on the species of SPS many would do fine in the temperature. I have seen them in the wild in colder waters then what I keep my seahorse tank at, which is 68F.

As far as what other corals you could grow, I would say most of them really. I think in terms of the seahorses being more beneficial LPS and soft corals that appreciate nutrient rich water would be more ideal. Blasto's, Acans, chalices, rics, tubestrea, anenome's, etc. Just things that like dirty water and lower lighting (lower light just to keep down the heat)

I have the sump of my 125g reef tank about a foot away from a 65g tank I plan on keeping seahorses in soon (I have a 120g seahorse tank in another room). Even though it would be cheaper to just plumb that seahorse tank into the reef, and even though the reef has it's own large refugium, skimmer, and sump as well. I still run them seperate, just because seahorses are that dirty and my reef does not like nutrient rich water.

JMO
 
pledosophy said:
Depending on the species of SPS many would do fine in the temperature. I have seen them in the wild in colder waters then what I keep my seahorse tank at, which is 68F.

As far as what other corals you could grow, I would say most of them really. I think in terms of the seahorses being more beneficial LPS and soft corals that appreciate nutrient rich water would be more ideal. Blasto's, Acans, chalices, rics, tubestrea, anenome's, etc. Just things that like dirty water and lower lighting (lower light just to keep down the heat)

JMO
Click to expand...

As far as sps's go, I have a couple acros, birdsnests, etc. IDK if those would do good in a tank like that.

And now with the past 2 posts, I'm debating this again. Ugh! Anyone else care to chime in with thoughts?
 
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