Which Horse - Kuda/Erectus/Reidi

[Tmoriarty]

So I am in the process of setting up a dedicated 60g cube for horses and have been trying to decide on which seahorses to get. I know that Erectus have some of the easiest fry to raise but most of the colors I see from them are fairly drab, grays/blacks. They have awesome patterns but never seem to be very colorful (I have seen a couple pics of orange ones, but rarely)

I have seen a lot of Kuda's that are either orange/yellow with some very good coloring and patterns, but far less that are drab colors. Reidi's have seemed to be close to kuda's in coloring.

I know that seahorses change colors with their surroundings so I am changing the background color to blue and putting macro in the display that will be fairly colorful, as well as some NPS gorgonians to try to give as much red/orange/yellow as I can in the tank.

I guess my general question is which horses have the most vibrant colors in general and would be a good first seahorse to keep. Reidi I know have some of the hardest fry to raise so they are probably out of the question just for that simple reason. Any other advice?

Tyler

 

[Tmoriarty]

Forgot that I would like to add in if there are some temperate water species that are colorful could be a possible option if there are enough options for macro algaes out there. I know pugent sound has some cool stuff. I have a 1/2hp chiller and can keep the tank temperature down to the low 50's if I wanted to, so the sky is the limit with my options.

 

[mtc1966]

from everything i have read on this forum and others tank colors will not effect seahorse colors

 

[Tmoriarty]

I have read quite the opposite stating that a dark background contributes to darker horses. I have also read many articles stating that the colors inside the tank (tree sponges/macro/corals) have a large affect on what colors the sea horses change to. In fact I just got through reading yet another article that agrees with this. While I respect everyones opinions very much so, I disagree that the coloring inside the aquarium does not affect seahorse coloring. Here is the article if you wish to read it as well.

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_4/V4I2/hippocampus_color2/Color_In_Hippocampus2.htm

 

[rayjay]

The only thing I found to help was to paint the back, bottom and ends sky blue.
Also I don't have live rock in the tanks as it's all in the sumps.
I believe that the rock tends to make them stay dark as well.
I have experimented with painting the tanks bright orange and red with orange and red decor only but they never retained their colours.

 

[Tmoriarty]

I know that it isn't a positive response and that stress/other factors play into the color as well, but I figure why not give the best chance I can to have colorful seahorses. From what I have read a black background often leads to darker seahorses so I figure painting the back of the tank blue instead is an easy enough solution to the problem that at least has a possibility to give brighter coloration.

I will also be adding in tree sponges and gorgonians to keep bright colors in the tank as hitch posts. Hopefully it helps.

 

[TamiW]

Color and seahorses is a weird thing. Try as you might you may not be able to influence their colors. Or what you least expect to will. I have some young tigertails that were black for the longest time, first with a blue background and orange hitches, then and orange background and yellow hitches. I moved them to a black background with white and yellow hitches and they all turned creamy white. Oh, and before they were black, they were bright yellow.

I've also seen green hitching posts (plastic plants) on blue backgrounds encourage yellow coloration. Eventually I'm going to play with this more, but this makes some sense; not the why necessarily, but a lot of seahorses that come from seagrass beds go with yellow as a color. Perhaps they're trying to emulate sponges that often mix in seagrass beds? I don't know, but green is certainly a color seahorses can do, so why yellow is beyond me.

This article on color is really excellent:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_4/V4I1/hippocampus_color/Color_In_Hippocampus.htm

Another color consideration is food. Food with astaxanthin is thought to encourage better coloration. Feeding krill, brine shrimp enriched with a food containing astaxanthin and hawaiian cherry shrimp will help.

As for species colors, I'd argue that H. erectus has the widest range of colors. What you find is that wild H. erectus tend to be very bland (though not always) and wild H. reidi and H. kuda have some striking colors. In captivity, there are a lot of reidi that are black, and kuda seems to be a mixed bag. Rarely do you see the bright oranges. With erectus though, they seem to display the widest range of colors, and are more likely to change between those colors. At least that's been my observations, both with my own seahorses as well as hanging out on the seahorse boards for 10+ years.

 

[Tmoriarty]

Thank you for the post, I know that I may not be able to influence things as much as id like, but I might as well try to influence them a bit. I read the article you posted already, its the one prior to the one I linked up above, it is what has got me looking more into seahorse coloring.

I think I have narrowed down my choices to either a pair of H. kuda or H. erectus to start. Would it be possible to keep both breeds in the 60g if I bought them from the same source (most likely seahorsesource). I know different horses can carry diffrent pathogens, I just wanted to know if it is ok as long as they are from the same source and CB.

 

[TamiW]

Yup, you should be able to mix them if you get them both from the same source. I'd contact Dan to verify he's keeping them on the same water system, but I believe that he is.