What horse will fit my 7 gal. saddle?

[Milleme]

I am setttin' up a custom 12 in cube (approx 7 gals). It will have very open rockwork and I will be keeping mainly sps. The Mag drive 2 return supplies all the flow (225 gph after head press., around 30x turnover).

Will all these conditions be suitable for a seahorse?
If so what species would be the best choice after concidering size and hardiness?

If not a seahorse would a pipe fish do okay?

Still researching these animals so any links concerning them would also help.

 

[Fredfish]

Unfortunately, your tank is too small for all but dwarf seahorses and I do not think dwarfs will be compatible with your setup (too much flow, stinging corals, hydroids on live rock).

Pipefish may be a better choice for your setup although they seem to need live food. Hopefully someone with more experience with pipes will chime in.

Fred

 

[Milleme]

Well I was thinking that also but I came across this thread http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=624863&perpage=25&pagenumber=4 which inspired me agian. Why arent dwarfs compatible with sps? will they get stung.

thanx

 

[Fredfish]

I do not have direct experience with dwarves so I am repeating from others who do. Yes, they are much more sensitive to stings.

There are corals that do not have nematocists (stinging cells), but most sps do.

If you look around at posts in the last 3-4 days you will find a long post on casper, who is now having problems with tail rot. Whether or not this is directly related to tank size I do not know.

The issues with tank size are these. The smaller the tank, the harder it is to keep water conditions stable. The less stable your water parameters are, the more risk you run of stressing your horses and having them get sick. Horses seem to get hit hard and fast by a number of diseases and can be difficult to cure (read melev's thread on casper).

Also, the seahorses we keep come from seagrass beds and have, by aquarium standards, fairly large defined territories that they roam. They will be much happier and less stressed in a larger tank.

Out of curiosity, why are you setting up such a small tank?

Fred

 

[Milleme]

Thanx for the info .

I have a 58 as my main display and just wanted to try a nano. Im trying to make it look like a perfect little sculpture sitting on a nightstand that i will wake up to. Im setting it up so that you cant see any equiptment so it will have a clean look. The main reason was probably b/c with my 58 i took lots of shortcuts in the begging and didnt make it a very fullproof system. The idea behind this one was to make a fullproof system from the begging resulting in more success. Not having enough money, room, etc. to upgrade and create a bigger system I decided to do it with a nano.
I started a thread on it in the nano forum a while ago but ran into some problems in making the tank so had to start over but will post a new one soon.

Any one want to give me some more info on pipefish. This tank is gonna be BB, will this be a problem?

 

[ReefNutPA]

While pipefish are more agile in swimming than seahorses, a turnover rate of up to 30x would, IMO, be too strong for them to navigate.

Most pipes are on average 4" - 6" in length. A small cube of 12" certainly does not give them much room to manuever nor navigate with a 30x turnover rate.

IMO, the tank you're setting up will make a decent nano-reef, but it's not suited for any of the syngnathid species (seahorses or pipefish).

Tom

 

[pledosophy]

To be honest I do not think the setup will favr any type of syngnathid. It sounds like a great tank and a nice setup, just not a good home for the syngnathids. To many mods would have to be done to keep dwarfs, fll size seahorses would be to small, and it sounds like the mods would be detrimental to the other things you are looking to accomplish.

Good Luck.

 

[Kati]

Dwarves are pretty sensitive to anything that stings, because they are so small. and also, they are hard to feed, because they will not hunt there has to be a ton of food in the water, so unless you wanted to have a ton of dwarves in the 7 gallon the water would be filthy because of all the excess food. I don't know a whole lot about pipefish, but i found a frozen food called cyclops (not cyclopeez) that my dwarves eat, and i have seen a pipe fish eat it as well... so feeding one might not be as hard as everyone seems to say.
Good luck!

 

[LisaD]

Definitely way too much flow, seahorses are not strong swimmers. As stated, dwarf seahorses are vulnerable to even what we would consider mild stinging animals. They can be EATEN by even medium sized aiptasia, and killed by hydroids (which don't bother larger seahorses or other fish). Too small for pipes, too.

Sounds like a great tank, trying to put seahorses or pipes in it would be a mistake, I think. I'll bet there are some nano-sized fish that would do ok though. I wonder if the flow is too high for a coral creeper?