Wanting to join the hobby

smithsherps

New member
I have kept freshwater fish before and ive always kept various reptiles but I have recentley decided to set up a small saltwater tank. I have a sorta special tank that is a 10 gallon upright on its side makeing it about 20" tall. Id like to do sea horses for my first tank but I am open to sugestions. I plan on doing most of it diy. But id like help with the basics and sugestions for fish, corals and what not. As well as feeding.
 
If you are thinking of useing this tank then it could be to small for seahorses,but would be ok for dwarf seahorses,but they will only eat live food which will be enriched brine shrimp.
 
First off, IMO, a ten gallon tank is much too large unless you plan to REALLY populate the tank, like over 50 dwarfs.
(you can fit about 3 or 4 adult dwarfs on a silver dollar as their average adult length is aroun 1 1/4")
Reason for this is, food density has to be VERY high for proper feeding.
Most dwarfs won't hunt down the food, but rather, sit on their hitches and wait for food to come by close enough to snick it up.
Now, for the feeding part, they need live foods, and, because it is nearly impossible for the average hobbyist to provide live copepods or other live foods naturally, or to culture enough to add, it is normally done by enrichment of day old brine shrimp with products like Dans Food from seahorsesource.com.
This means decapping or sterilizing the cysts before hatching, and after hatching, grow them out for a day and then enrich them in two 12 hour stages with new water and enrichment for each stage.
Any food not eaten before next feeding should be removed so that the dwarfs will only be eating the newly enriched brine nauplii, not the depleted ones from last feeding.
This feeding regimen alone causes a lot to quickly loose interest in the dwarf hobby.
Someone else will have to recommend any corals as I choose not to put corals in my seahorse tanks, dwarfs or standards, as recommended operational temperatures of 68° to 74° rather limit what would survive.
 
Yeah the food wad what I was concerned about. I may avoid them for my first tank and get a true nano later. Any recommendations for the set up I'm maneuverability however. I want the most visibility posible since seahorses are out. My set up is going to have a over flow to a small bucket filter with basics and a uv sterilizer. Probaly a rain bar as well or whatever is recommended. And the water volume is probaly going to be closer to 14 gallons.
 
Here is some pics of the tank for size.
7ery7uqu.jpg
eba8u5a9.jpg
 
Is this the tank you want to keep sh in,I would think it's too big for dwarfs and too small for the bigger sh,sorry you can always ask someone else I may be wrong
 
In my opinion and for what it's worth, I think keeping seahorse is not a good start for a beginner. I would suggest you start out with fish first before even attempting a seahorse tank. It's better to learn and gain experience of what's involved in starting your first saltwater tank. Seahorses are complex and delicate animals for a beginner to tackle.
 
Hi Smithsherps,

Just by looking at your tank,I have no idea what you could keep in it,it very tall so will be very hard to keep it clean,best of luck when you decide what you are going to do with the tank.
 
Back
Top