Some old pictures of my Seahorse tank

novahobbies

New member
Did I ever tell you this? I keep a seahorse tank in my bedroom. It's a 37 gallon column, with a custom stand and canopy, with a cabinet on the side to hide the ATO unit. On stressful evenings, you could always find me in my bedroom, chair drawn up to the tank so I could lean forward and watch the horses' antics while they ate their evening Mysis.

A few months ago, I had a large Sarcophyton leather basically dissolve in the tank. The resultant release of toxins and general nitrate threw the system out of whack, and I suddenly found myself from four H. erectus horses....down to one. The nuked tank caused the horses to develop Internal Gas Bubble Disease, which they were not able to recover from. The nitrate saturation also caused a Caulerpa bloom that to this day is still a problem in the tank.

Last week I made the hard decision. I'm going to take a break from seahorses for a little while and use this tank for a few small non-reef safe fish my wife has always been asking about. I'm going to see if one of our local NFP orgs (Miami Museum comes immediately to mind!) wants to take the last female seahorse to aid in their display and further the education of the people who come visit. I've already started transferring the some of the corals from the horse tank to the main display.

I just wanted to share some of my old pictures with you. Of a tank in its heyday. Of happy seahorses messing around, just doing "horse" things. Of an aquarium that went through 2 moves in its 3 1/2 year life span, and made me happy to come home and see these weird little faces dancing against the glass.

It's kind of a bittersweet decision to make. But I think it's the right one. Here's some pics of the tank.....some of these are old....some of these just a few months ago. Hope you like them.

One of the females:
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The male made this his permanent hangout spot..under the feeding cup, next to the Kenya:
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Checking out the food bowl:
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For a while, I had my two Mandarins in this tank as well (while I was setting up the big tank). They were both mysis-trained. And they both REALLY enjoyed that food bowl, also:
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Sometimes they'd share...
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This pic always made me smile:
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Here's a decent overall tank shot:
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And another mealtime shot. The little girl is hogging the bowl:
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Late night family portrait:
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This is a very early shot of my only wild-caught H. erectus. She was the first in the tank, and had to go through an extensive de-worming procedure, then an even longer weaning to frozen food period. Took about a month for her to decide that frozen mysis was acceptable fare, with me freezing my arm off while I waved individual shrimps in front of her in tweezers. But then again...this was my favorite horse of the 4. She eventually lost those beautiful cirri, but she retained longer "horns" than the captive bred horses all the way until the end.
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And a full shot, April of last year:
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Hope you enjoy them.
 
Great pics rick.

Btw person above is josh. Whom you met in the science museum and who has one of the most beautiful zoanthids tank in the world. ;)
 
Nice! Would love to see a horsey tank in person one day. Would make a great bedroom tank like you had it. I'm sure you'll be back to them soon. Thanks for sharing!
 
This is what this Forum is all about to share others people experiences and how awesome it can be. I'm sorry about your lost and i hope that the last Horse does well in the Museum.
 
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