Substrate for Seahorse/Pipefish tank

[noy]

I'm in the process of a 60 gallon build. This is a cube with a corner overflow.
This will be a tank with primary gorgonians and maybe a few other NPS corals. I'd like to keep a few seahorse and pipefish in the tank. The tank will be fed continuously with both dry and frozen coral foods (for the gorg's). The tank will also have an integrated brine hatchery. I will also be hatching rotifers for the gorg's. The tank will be kept at 72-74.

1) Does it matter if I go bare bottom or have a substrate. Bare bottom makes the tank easy to clean which is advantageous because of the amount of food that will be introduced. However, is a substrate better for seahorses (pods, plankton or other reason).

2) If I go with a substrate I was thinking sugar sized black live sand. Does anyone see any issues with this.

3) How sensitive are seahorse to nitrates/phosphates?

 

[rayjay]

The biggest obstacle I see for your objective is having seahorses and pipe fish together in one system.
Unless you get captive bred pipe fish and captive bred seahorses from the same breeder, you will most likely end up loosing one or both species due to pathogen transfers that seahorses don't deal well with when they haven't been exposed to them while growing up.
All my tanks are barebottom, although I had one with substrate for a while.
An integrated brine hatchery should use sterilized or decapped cysts to lessen the chances of introducing nasty bacteria that is known to be found on cysts.
While these brine nauplii may be eaten by some pipe fish, they won't be eaten by seahorses other than fry.
Brine nauplii are not all hatched at the same time, with earliest ones usually a lot lower in nutrition by the time they are fed to the tank. Far better to grow them out for a day when they develop their digestive tract and can feed so you can enrich them first, especially with a DHA product.
In the case of seahorses, you would have to grow them out to adults before enriching them.
Best to plan on using rinsed frozen mysis as the staple food, and you can feed live enriched foods once or twice a week for seahorses.
I've never heard of seahorse sensitivities to nitrates and phosphates.
I never test for anything other than ammonia when cycling, and nothing once the tank is cycled. I haven't done nitrate testing for about 20 yrs, and phosphate testing for about 15 yrs.
I've never used that substrate so I can't comment on it.

 

[ndnreefer]

I have read a couple of threads where people seem to have problem with fine grain sand in seahorse tanks because of them snicking at their food from the water column and the ground and ingesting the smaller particles, sometimes causing impactions. As for the nitrates trying to keep them as low as possible is the best. Keeping macro algae tends to help soak them up, but seahorses are messy creatures esp with the amount of food they take in and leave behind.

hope this helps

 

[noy]

thanks rayjay and ndn - very helpful responses. Leaning towards bare bottom.

Rayjay - I actually live in the GTA area. Where would you say is a good source for seahorses?

 

[rayjay]

First choice would be http://www.seahorsecanada.ca/en-contact.html
Second choice http://www.seaumarine.com/