Sharing my Seahorse tank with you all

[finding nemo]

Hello everyone. Just thought I would drop in to share my horse tank with everyone.
It is a 45 gallon tank with a coralife fixture over it.
Aquaclear filter.
All live rock and feather caulerpa.
The tank has been set up for over a year with nothing in it but the live rock ,live sand seeded from my other tanks and some xenia and a few frags of zoos and some large purple mushrooms have been added to make it look pretty.
A pair of mandrins and 3 young Hippocampus Mohnikei .
The tank is full of pods and I keep a pile of rubble in the front of the tank and the back corners for a hiding/breeding place safe from all of those hungry mouths.
They eat out of my homemade butter tub feeder and are doing well.
I am just getting back into seahorses after a few years of not having them around and am enjoying them a lot.
Here is the tank.
<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v346/karenssaltwater/6-10-06-1-2.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting"></a>

<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v346/karenssaltwater/5-21-06-2.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting"></a>

<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v346/karenssaltwater/mandrineyesbest.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting"></a>

<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v346/karenssaltwater/eating6-28-06.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting"></a>

<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v346/karenssaltwater/newhead.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting"></a>

 

[lfduty]

Im in LOVE with your tank

 

[finding nemo]

Thanks Lf.

 

[hawkfish21]

Very nice!

 

[sloshesv]

That's a little bit of seahorse heaven right there.

 

[Jordan55]

Karen, I love the tank. I like how the rock work is actually in the sandbed and the macro is all over the rock. It looks like their natural habitat.

Keep it up!

 

[finding nemo]

Thanks everyone, I have always strived to have the natural habitat in all of my tanks, it is a bit more work to clean out the caulerpa and thin things but it keeps everything stable and natural and the horses are happy. Constantly in the rocks looking for those elusive pods
Hi Jordan.

 

[finding nemo]

Also wanted to point out, I have one 4 pound rock right in the center of the tank, then I bought some live rock rubble on ebay and just poured it in the front of the rock. It is full of bugs and stuff and it gives the pods a place to breed away from the horses and mandrins.
Tanks don't have to be messed with in the way of rock, just pour it in and let it set where it lands and let nature take it's course.
That is just how I do it anyway.
I don't like the set up look, like someone spent days fixing each rock in a certain place.
Think how boring the oceans would be if everything was stacked up nice and neat.

 

[mr_miagi32]

Thats a beautiful tank finding nemo. I love the planted SW tanks! Have your mandarins bred or spawneD?

 

[pledosophy]

Miagi Aye!

Good to see you over here. I'm Pleder on Fish Forums.

 

[finding nemo]

HI Mr. no they are new to the tank and young, but are a pair from what RM says.
I to love the planted tanks. All of mine are planted.

 

[mr_miagi32]

Wicked finding nemo! As soon as I catch and sell my macro eating hermits, im going to try macro in my display.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7662621#post7662621 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by pledosophy
Miagi Aye!

Good to see you over here. I'm Pleder on Fish Forums.

Hey Pleder!

 

[Shiva1]

Nice set-up!

Can you tell us a little about maintenance/filtering/equipment?

 

[finding nemo]

Good morning Shiva. Happy to.
I do little maintance on all of my tanks, I have them as close to the ocean as I can get.
I do not drip, drop nor add anything to the water. Water changes are every month or so when I get around to it.
I do top offs with tap water as dont have my RO system set up yet.
I use aquaclear 500 on all of my tanks, none have fuges or sumps.
I do use powerheads, in the seahorse tank I have one small waterfall pump, the table top kind to move a bit of the water but one half of the tank barely moves with the low flow, one half gets the flow from the filter which I run a small bag of carbon and a filter pad in, changed every week or so.
Light is a coralife 96 watt times 2 bulbs. 1/2 actinic and the other sun light.
Thats all I do.
And I do have to pull the caulerpa several times a month or it would take over the tank.

 

[finding nemo]

Oh and it is a 45 gallon

 

[Shiva1]

Sounds like you know what your talking about !!

What's the quality of the tapwater in Texas?

 

[finding nemo]

I try to learn all I can and do a lot of experimenting with my tanks.
Don't know about the water quality. It is well water however and only Chlorine is added. I let the water sit for 2 days before adding it for top offs tho.

 

[sunfishh]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7661113#post7661113 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by finding nemo
Also wanted to point out, I have one 4 pound rock right in the center of the tank, then I bought some live rock rubble on ebay and just poured it in the front of the rock. It is full of bugs and stuff and it gives the pods a place to breed away from the horses and mandrins.
Tanks don't have to be messed with in the way of rock, just pour it in and let it set where it lands and let nature take it's course.
That is just how I do it anyway.
I don't like the set up look, like someone spent days fixing each rock in a certain place.
Think how boring the oceans would be if everything was stacked up nice and neat.

I love your low maintance philosophy and it seems to be working because your tank is awesome. I suspect that part of it is the macroalgae you have. It tends to do the work for the aquarist.

 

[finding nemo]

Morning sunfish, yes your absolutly right on the maintance.
I do not believe you need sumps, fuges and such to have a well balanced tank.
They do seem to take care of themselves when you get as close to mother nature as you can.
I do have to harvest the caulerpa often or it will take over everything.
I have a few zoo frags in there on top of the big rock that get over run fast so I have to keep up with pulling it often.
I also have cucumber in there, and loads of bugs and bristleworms.
At the end of the day before lights out I take my turkey baster and blast any uneated food out of the feeder so that the bristleworms can clean it up before it spoils, it is all gone withing an hour.
Yesterday I changed the filter to an aquaclear 300 for the tank as needed the 500 for my large tank.
I need very little filtration on the tank and I have a problem now with the smaller filter creating bubbles in the water as it falls in, so need to figure out how to elliminate that today.
All in all, natural is the way to go and much less maintance.
The closer you can get to there natural habitat the healhtier they will stay.
I also have two pink clams in the tank, the small ones that lay on there sides.
They are not the red flasher kind and I cant think of the name of them but they are very cool, great filter feeders but stay hidden in the caulerpa most of the time. I have a few pictures of them someplace if you would like to see them.

 

[luvabunny]

Hi Nemo,
I used to live near Canton - can't say I really miss it much tho =)

I'm now in Okla and have never seen Mohnekei offered. Where did you find yours? Do you have a positive ID on them? They certainly are a little different than most I'm used to seeing around here.

BTW, beautiful tank. I, too, try to use the KISS method as much as possible. No sumps, fuges or additives for me, and I also use tap water, only I use it straight from the tap with chlorine neutralizer and PH buffer. If it's not in the salt, then except for DT's, it doesn't get in the tank.

The club I'm a part of tried to tell me for 2 yrs you couldn't keep a SW tank that way, then I held one of the monthly meetings at my home. They've never questioned it again..........

It looks like you have both male and female horses. Are you going to try to raise some? Just interested, since you don't hear much of this species.

Very, very pretty. Thanks for the pics!