Jake's 50+ gallon seahorse tank

Well I'm no expert at this as this is my first time keeping seagrass too, so I can only offer possibilities.

I have read that it is not unusual for the seagrass to drop leaves when it is introduced to an aquarium. After several weeks, it may come back. This did not happen with my Halophila ovalis however.

How did you plant the seagrass? I cut the rhizome in as long of sections as I could, dug a shallow trench by dragging two fingers across the sand, placed the seagrass rhizome in the trench and gently covered it so that only leaves were above the sand. I found the rhizome of Halophila ovalis to be fragile as it is easy to damage.

Nutrient load is another possibility, but I planted seagrass in my tank when it was quite young too. I use Seachem flourish tablets to provide extra nutrients, but I am not sure they do anything. Lately I have been using more and I think the seagrass has been growing more quickly. I currently have about 6 tablets pressed into the sand in my 24" cube.

If you have some pictures I could help identify it. There are many different seagrass species in Australia, so if you could tell me what region you got it from that would help too.

 

I was taking a few pictures of the seahorses today, thought I'd share.

 

Very nice. Beautiful horses.

 

Beautiful pictures, as always Thanks for sharing!

 

they are just magical looking! Love seahorses!

 

Love the pics. Especially the one with the ywg in the background lol get away from my house!

 

love your tank!!! can sea horses be kept with other fish besides the goby? such as clowns, hippo and yellow tangs, mandarins, and such?

 

really cool

 

Thanks everyone!

They can be kept with low-aggressive fish, like my yellow watchman goby, Baggai cardinals, mandarins etc. The main issues are aggression and competition for food. It would be very difficult to keep them successfully with clowns, hippo and yellow tangs, or any other damselfish or surgeonfish I know of.

Aggression - My yellow watchman goby sometimes behaves aggressively by nipping at the seahorses tails, but it doesn't cause any damage and the seahorses do not react much to it. I would be concerned over an aggressive interaction with a surgeonfish/damsels though, due to their speed and ability to inflict damage with their spine.

Competition for food - the YWG is a good choice as it does not usually feed high up in the water column, making it easy to target feed seahorses which have no problem feeding there. Damsels and surgeon fish however would out compete the seahorses for food. They are faster than seahorses and times of spatial separation between the fish and seahorses would be short.

Honestly, with highly targeted feedings and a large tank it may be possible to keep seahorses with a broader range of fish than is usually seen, but I cannot stress enough this is not something that should be attempted by hobbyists new to seahorses.

 

Thx for the input! I'm new to marine tanks and in the process of building my first 75g tank and just trying to find out what fish/corals I want/can keep together.