HELP!!!!!!!! With Pipefish & Seahorses.

Well yeah I know but still better safe than sorry

 

Definitely

 

I'm sorry to hear that you have these fish under the conditions they are in.
Unfortunately there is no quick fix if you don't have a system this is more conducive to the success of seahorsekeeping.
While occasionally seahorses can survive in less than optimal conditions like a reef tank, many many more die in the attempt to do so.
Even keeping seahorses in recommended conditions is no guarantee of success, only that the odds are much more in your favour.
Most offshore seahorses coming to this continent are tank raised, not true captive bred and as such have many pathogen problems the same as wildcaught have.
The only true captive bred seahorses coming out of Sri Lanka are H. reidi that come from Aquamarine International and those have a good reputation for success when kept in suitable conditions.
In your tank, if it has been set up for some time there are probably good populations of pod life and being live, the seahorses will go for that before going for frozen foods. As that live food disappears they should go to the frozen foods unless they are wild caught.
If you want to read on some of the recommendations about keeping seahorses, click on the link in my signature and go to the bottom of the page where I have placed links to information that is very helpful in understanding the needs of these creatures.
You may then decide to set up an appropriate system suitable for seahorses although you are making it harder by keeping pipefish and seahorses together right off the bat.

 

I appreciate your concern, comments and ideas. I have been doing salt water for 30 years and don't claim to know everything. In fact I'm still a novice. The wholesaler claims that yes they are from Sri Lanka and yes that they were captive bred and eating frozen food. I originally set up this 50 gal tank for seahorses so I do believe that they are in a good environment with alot of growing grape colerpa etc. I've made the tank look like shallow coastal waters, thriving with nutrients. Other than the one banded pipefish there are no other fish. There is however a peprmint shrimp and a sole brain coral. I agree, I think that these guys are eating the many pods that have been thriving in the tank for tha last 8 months. I hope that you are right and that when they run out of live food they will swicth to frozen food. I'm planning on buying sime brine shrimp eggs today and starting to harvest live food for all of them, and mix it in with the dead stuff to hoepfully fool them.

 

Before i forget, the squamosa clam could be a problem at some point if it closes up on a tail dragging across it. The damage to the tail can end up as a location for vibriosis to set in.
The squamosa will quickly outgrow that tank anyway.
My squamosa grew from 3 1/2 inches to 18 inches in about 7 years.
I agree also that the chromis you originally mentioned would be best moved elsewhere as you appear to have done from your last post.
As for hatching brine shrimp cysts, be sure to decap them first, and after hatchout, grow them out for a day and then enrich them in two 12 hours stints with new water and enrichment for each stage.
You will find the pipefish will eat these, but it's unlikely the seahorses will when they are 2".
As my reidi fry grow, I grow out the brine to larger size and by the time they are that 2" size they don't have much interest in small nauplii any more but will consume the juvenile artemia.