Dwarf Seahorse Nano

Actually there is live rock, and live plants if you count the curly macro-algae in the corner. The tank itself was treated with panacur in granuals to keep the lasting effects since I don't plan on getting snails that are affected by it. I do have creatures, but all of them (except the firefish) were treated in a separate tank with panacur first. And now that the firefish is in the tank, any worms or hydroids -should- be taken care of by the dewormer - but I'm not 100% sure it worked like it should. I treated every other day with 3 treatments, and took out dangerous hitch hikers and aiptasia - I haven't seen signs of hydroids yet, but if they appear, I have more panacur to treat them with. I think you have some time from when they first appear in jellyfish-ish form to when they become a real problem and kill dwarfs. If they managed to survive the panacur I will treat them and hopefully go away, but I want to stress that this is NOT a sterile tank - I don't want to portray that just because I have fake plants. That is only because I can't keep plants alive In case anyone got the impression that everything except the livestock was fake - it's not. Just the patch of plants you see

 

Thats well thought out at least you have already done some panacur work most people do not do that, they set the tank up first to see what will happen. the tank looks great, well done thanks for describing it to me. I will link it to someone I know wanting a similar setup

the general thought is that live rock is so porous its nearly impossible to sink the panacur down into it all the way, vs the hydroid medusae/progenerative material that have been able to seat as the years went by making the live rock a continuing source of hydroids. having panacur onhand to treat an outbreak helps, at leat you have a ready action if you detect them. im sure there is some way to treat live rock to kill it, treating in other containers was a nice call I will do the same if a dwarf seahorse tank ever comes my way

nice thread
B

 

There is but I didn't do it. You can boil it - Rayjay mentioned it on another forum I saw him at I may still do that a rock at a time, but I didn't want to part with the life already on my rocks lol it's a little bit risky, but I have panacur on hand just in case.

Thanks for the comments on my tank! I really appreciate it. I'm also keeping a breeding journal blog to document all of the issues I have and solutions I try. Eventually I would like some -breeding- to occur to write about lmao :

 

thats a great idea. you should sell them, not hard to move online thats for sure. Lots of people would want them.

those would be very easy to ship, in the 80's I ordered them from mail order companies several times and they just arrived in styrofoam plus a tiny baggie of water, nothing fancy, and that was us mail. no next/two day like today

 

Very nice - that seems a lot of work for something so small. Lots of dedication.

 

I think dwarf seahorses are among the most challenging animals to keep long term, as in years, in a given system.

SPS coral are much easier, much much easier. thats why when I see a dwarf thread I like to ask some questions and this thread has a very strong backbone, its one worth watching~

 

Yes it can be extremely difficult to keep dwarfs for years as that is more than their lifespan.
Now if you are talking keeping the tank going for years with original and offspring of the originals, that can and is being done regularly.

 

I think one hurdle is finding someone to hatch brine and feed and enrich. Keeping the daily feeding up for years might be hard for some - but the way I look at it, you do that with a dog. You can't just leave them without planning on someone to take care of it.

I have heard there is something like a 6 month hump where you either know you are doing everything right or don't. And I have read that some dwarfs can reach 2 years in captivity. But I have also read that it is hard unless they get their nutrition needs met. And baby brine shrimp arw nutritious but aren't their natural food and don't have the nutrients dwarfs need in the long run. But I would like to find all of this information out for myself, first hand. At some point I would also like some type of automation with their brine feeding station, but I haven't really thought of anything worth-while yet. I would love for a way to have the brine voluntarily leave the hatcher and go into clean water as soon as they hatch, and they are attracted to light.. The only thing is, wherever they go, the dirty water goes with them. It's a stumper.

 

I think some of your advancement would lie in gut loading of the brine somehow, what you can get them to eat in the 2nd or 3rd day to pack their little guts full of something to xfer into the dwarfs. some combination of selco, phyto, who knows

additionally, Ive always thought it would be great for a seahorse tank to order and sustain mixed amphipods from one of the many online breeding sources (ipsf.com for ex) and it wouldn't be primarily the large gammarus pods, that seem to big too eat, but ideally a mixture of the tiny tiny glass crawlers we all see on the tanks at night poking about. just some way to boost those natural levels of pods to a strong level where the horses have access to both gut loaded brine and varied bugs within their size range. If I were doing a seahorse tank it would be some combination of this

we're interested to watch you unfold it Cyn nice job

 

I missed this on a previous reading but now I have to comment.
Doing it a rock at a time defeats the purpose of doing it as anything killed off by boiling the first piece will be negated by water born stages of pathogens or direct movement of pathogens from the other pieces of rock so you end up right back where you started.
The first time I did this, I removed the seahorses to a hospital tank and redid the whole tank, rock, decor and hitches with the rock being boiled and everything else being bleached.
I cycled using ammonium chloride and then matched the water temp and s.g. in DT and HT before returning the seahorses to the DT.
This doesn't prevent pathogens from being introduced later either by foods or simply from airborne spores, but it's at least a start.