Tank opinions.

[Meus]

Well, I'm finally preparing to get some dwarfs. I just have a few questions about some aquarium "options".

The plan is to have a ten gallon standard glass aquarium. I have a small hob filter with a sponge on the intake. I also have a simple light hood and enough stuff laying around to diy a few things(like an auto feeder, ATS, etc.)

These are all opinion or experience answerable questions:
-Sand bed. DSB or <1.5 inches?
-Filtration. ATS, not planning on keeping many live plants or no ATS. Although, I really don't want to spend half my money on a skimmer or other manufactured filters.
-Greenwater with bs feedings or no greenwater.
-Heater or no heater
-Should I get a powerhead? If so what kind.

Thanks for the help, Meus.

 

[rayjay]

How many dwarfs are you going to have?
I have 20 in my 5 gallon tank and think they would be lost in a 10.
There would be a lot of waste for feeding as you need to feed live enriched ongrown bbs in very dense numbers for the dwarfs to feed properly. Then it would be a bigger PITA removing all that excess after feeding.
I don't know of an auto feeder that works for these.
My set up is very basic and bare bottom for easier cleaning. No power heads but I do have two air lines (with no air stones) that provide water motion.
It has artificial hitches and a little live rock that was sterile before using, as was everything else.

 

[Meus]

How many dwarfs are you going to have?
I have 20 in my 5 gallon tank and think they would be lost in a 10.
There would be a lot of waste for feeding as you need to feed live enriched ongrown bbs in very dense numbers for the dwarfs to feed properly. Then it would be a bigger PITA removing all that excess after feeding.
I don't know of an auto feeder that works for these.
My set up is very basic and bare bottom for easier cleaning. No power heads but I do have two air lines (with no air stones) that provide water motion.
It has artificial hitches and a little live rock that was sterile before using, as was everything else.

Well, if I have a 4' DSB, the 12' tall ten gallon aquarium would become 4' of sand and 8' of living space, therefore having 2/3 of the original 10 gallons. So I would have about 6 gallons living space, not including hitches, rock, etc. But I would still have a larger water body, providing more stable parameters. I was thinking about starting with three pairs in my 2.5, then as my herd grows, moving them to my 5 gallon and eventually ten gallon.

The auto feeder is something I found on another forum. But it consists of an inverted 2-liter bottle filled with a days worth of enriched brine, situated above the aquarium. Once every hour for 15 min. a small air pump would turn on, forcing water through another air tube at the bottom of the bottle. This causes brine shrimp to flow into the aquarium. On top of the hourly flow, I plan on having a few NPS gorgonians that will take a few brine shrimp as well. So the auto feeder would provide lower amounts, many times a day. Which is, from my understanding, a better option to two or three big feedings a day.

I wanted to use a ATS, because it can keep up with the high nitrates and phosphates produced from 2-liters of brine shrimp and a small cube of cyclop-eeze(for the gorgonians(check out Coral magazine volume 7 number 6 pg.75 for reference) everyday. Plus my small hob filter to physically remove extra food and the DSB's effectiveness at quickly turning ammonium, to nitrites, to nitrates, and eventually nitrogen, should any nitrates be missed by the ATS.

I plan on sharing the babies(much like coral frags) with first local aquarists, then interested peoples in Asheville. Because I want to get my community educated and interested in seahorses. And when one question is answered that answer leads to more questions, and eventually, maybe a bit more effort towards conservation of Florida coastlines where they hail from, and Carolina coast lines as a result of the new learning. It is a small effort, and probably won't have an effect on the mass public. But hopefully I can open the eyes of some who are only dreaming of utopia. Hippie bits aside I still want to know what others think of my plan. And I still want to here about others setups in comparison.

p.s. Congrats on getting some dwarfs rayjay.

 

[rayjay]

That is a great idea to start of with the small tank.
I think that as you progress, you will almost certainly change your mind on some of the things you plan at the moment, saving time and money.
As for the feeder, the bbs need to be ongrown and enriched before going into the tank and having them in the "feeder" bottle they will consume the enrichment in their digestive tract in short order.
Unfortunately you can't have enrichment in the bottle with them because the enrichment would get into the tank and you really don't want those problems.
The other problem is that dwarfs need a very high feeding density, and keeping that density up all day will lead to pollution aggravation and any of the bbs that are in there for any length of time, again, will be devoid of enrichment.
For the people that I know that experimented with the bottle feeder, a big problem was that there was no circulation in the bottle until the air was turned on to pump bbs into the tanks, and the bbs congregated all together and basically smothered themselves.
I'd suggest you experiment with it yourself to find what problems you may have develop, before you actually plan on using it.
I never worry about nitrates in ANY of my tanks, even the reef tanks. I don't think I've done a nitrate check in over 15 years.
The thing that concerns me is that with seahorses, the major concern is keeping bacteria at bay, and deep sand beds tend to aggravate this problem.
Because of this concern, I do a lot of water changes in the dwarf tank, vacuuming out uneaten food and detritus. In small tanks this is not expensive at all, so I don't need much in the way of filtration and have only two small pieces of live rock in the tank.
Normally, I don't like the rock in the tank because it makes viewing the seahorses much harder, but for the dwarfs, I don't use much and they tend to stay in certain grassy decor and don't swim around a great deal.
I have the odd few that do swim fairly well but most won't even leave their hitches to capture food, rather waiting for it to come to them.
Water movement is accomplished by two airlines, open ended.

5g tank with 20 dwarfs and they are hard to find.


.

 

[mikencarol]

I see 8...do I hear 9...???LOL

 

[Peka]

I see 8...do I hear 9...???LOL

LOL... lighting will help to get the brine to congregate...