What now?

[whatnot45]

I live in california, and after a heat wave of 118 degrees, our power went out for 2 days. My 3 erectuse in my 29 gallon tank all died. I sat for hours manually circulating the water, but it did not help. The power company is going to pay me for the seahorse loss.
I have not had very much luck with seahorse. I have been keeping them for about a year, but I have lost 6 of them total. Im going to try and fix my tank up so to speak and get all my hair algea and other problems under controll, but after that I dont know what ill do. I need suggestions. Should I just do a reef tank w/ no seahorses at all?

 

[hydroid]

Wow, sorry for your loss. That's the third power outage disaster I've heard in the last 2 months.

You don't need to give up on the horses ... there are probably things you can do to improve your chances.

1. Where did you get them? Captive bred horses from professional breeders are typically hardier and less suseptible to disease.

2. What did you feed them? Brine shrimp isn't nutritious enough ... even enriched. Mysis needs vitamin enrichments, like VitaChem.

3. What temp did you keep them at? For best results, keep the temp between 73 and 75F.

4. Was your flow too high? ... common mistake.

5. What tank mates did you have? Many tank mates can cause stress, even if they don't actively pick on the horses.

6. etc.

The idea is to look at why they died and try to adjust before getting more horses.

HTH. Again, sorry to hear about your loss.

 

[Samala]

Very sorry to hear of this! I wondered if we were going to see posts from reefers who were losing stock after the blackouts and such. I know it isnt much consolation, but keeping anything happy at 118F would be impossible in almost all situations. I'm sure you did the best you could in a very difficult situation.

Whatnot's had threads before on the three previous horses that were lost. I think the ideal situation, considering those past threads, is too let the tank go fallow for SH for some time. If not, setting up a reef is probably a great alternative that would keep it from getting too boring. The potential pathogens in the tank may affect other species of fish though, you really need a Vibrio expert to weigh in on this.

>Sarah

 

[whatnot45]

ok yes that is what i was going to do let it sit for a few months and let my macros and corals grow out, then maybee get just one pair in a few months or none at all that is the big debate.

 

[RichConley]

Honestly, if these sorts of blackouts, etc are common in your area, I'd look into buying a generator, and possibly a chiller before you get any more of them.

 

[whatnot45]

yes well i am going to wait untill summer is over at least if i do we dont have blackouts that often. It was very unusual we have never had them before. I am going to get a battery operated air pump though just incase of another

 

[pledosophy]

Sorry you lost you horses. You have had quite the struggles. These blackouts have hit many keepers hard. Unfortunatley since nothing is being done about the pwoer situation I do not see the problem going away.

Rich is right, the best option for you if plan to continue to keep seahorses is to look into a chiller and a generator. I know they are expensive but in a pinch it is possible it will save your tanks.

Again sorry for your losses.

 

[whatnot45]

It wasnt the temperatures that killed them though, it was a lack of oxygen. I got Ice bags from safeway and put them in the tank and the temperature remained between 75 and 80 degrees without the fan

 

[pledosophy]

Nice work on the Ice Bags. You get a

for that.

If the problem was just aeration then look into batteray powered pumps.

I have a back up car battery and a converter to power my main pump if the power ever were to die. I could then recharge the car battery with my car battery. IME a tank can be fine for 8 hours with no flow but it does depend on several things.

Good Luck.

 

[jashort]

One of the things that I regularly recommend to my customers is that they have battery operated air pumps to keep the water oxygenated. They are not very expensive (about $15 here on the east coast, and the guy I have been working for really marks things up), and worth every penny. Something that I did for my seahorse tank was add macro algae. That and a purigen pack are all I use for filtration, and my nitrates are extremely low.

 

[whatnot45]

I tried to get a battery operated pump after the power went out, but all 4 of my LFS's were sold out