Jake's 50+ gallon seahorse tank

Thanks everyone!

Thanks Corailline. Not much to report regarding live stock health... the old gorgonian's look good, the new ones are too new to gauge, and all of the fish eat vigorously and are fairly active. I am away from home until Friday now so I won't be able to check on the new gorgonian's, which I added on Saturday, until then. Fortunately my better half feeds the tank while I am away.

Thanks for the feedback Rayjay. I am not worried about nutrient levels. I stick to a strict, yet basic maintenance regime to keep the tank clean. I change filter floss twice a week, change 10 gallons weekly, and change ROX carbon in an active reactor monthly. This basic maintenance, along with my oversized skimmer and plenty of macro algae (both in my display and sump), keep nutrient levels under control. The system is also well circulated in every area to keep detritus from settling. There are powerheads in every chamber of the sump and two Vortech's (MP-10 an -40) in the display. The gobies/dragonettes and sand sifting sea stars actually help quite a bit too by consuming the food the sea horses either miss or chew up and spit back out.

I do no think hair algae necessarily equates to problem nutrient levels, although it can be a warning sign. My tank obviously has a high nutrient "flux", as is required to support macro algae growth. The hair algae appeared because my snails do not graze on the macro algae. I view the aquarium system as a "balance" between nutrient demand from corals and macro algae, and fast growing pest algae (hair mainly). For a while, hair algae took hold as I had introduced a place in the tank (new macro algae) for it to grow uncontrolled by snails. Once I took out that macro algae, the hair algae had no place to grow in the display and went away (as can be seen in the recent full tank picture). This shifted the balance back toward favouring nutrient sequestration by the decorative macro algaes (seagrass, Halimeda, Halymenia, and two others that are unidentified).

I agree with you about the concave shape. It has concerned me in the past, but I ignored it as the seahorses were growing so fast (and still are), which I took as a good sign. Looking at H. erectus on google, I see most do not have the concave shape, so I'd like to rectify that. How much do you feed your seahorses (in terms of say, cubes of Hikari Mysis per day)? I currently feed a cube of Hikari mysis to the seahorses, along with half a cube of either Hikari krill or spirulina brine shrimp (the latter of which they are not fond of), each day. Right now I am planning on increasing the mysis portion of the diet gradually by about 25-50% over the course of a couple of weeks.

 

Well Jake, I can't tell you how much by the cube as that is too expensive for me to feed cubes for all I would go through.
I buy one pound Hikari flat packs and cut it up into 8 pieces with one piece thawed, rinsed and fed a third at a time, three times a day for 12 seahorses.
I also raise live brine shrimp to adult, and I enrich some alternating with Dan's Feed or Algamac 3050 before feeding the brine to the seahorses once or twice a week.

 

That is enough information for me. You feed 56.6 g/day to 12 seahorses, or 4.7 g/seahorse. I can calculate my sea horses diet based on the number of cubes in a pack and the total weight.

 

I hate to complicate things, but there are more variables that affect how much food to feed.
Different species eat different amounts. i.e. my erectus types eat generally more than my kudas, and more than any other species I've had in my 11 yrs of keeping.
That being said, within the erectus species, I have some of them that are "dwarfs or runts", not having grown as much as others. Smallest are 3 1/2" while the largest one is 7".
While each tank has the same number of seahorses in them, I determined the amount per tank based on feeding and watching each one on it's own so that I put in an amount that gives enough pieces that they are interested in to feed them until they loose interest.
This amount often varies with a new purchase of mysis (I usually get between 6 and 12 one pound packs at a time) as sometimes the packs have more "garbage pieces" than other times, just like the size varies from season to season of harvest.
I had to a couple of years back, cut the pound packs into 6 because there was so much garbage pieces I needed more total mysis to get sufficient good stuff.

 

There are a million variables that will affect a fishes food requirement... temperature and DO concentration, size, life stage, stress level, activity level... to mention just a few. I was just looking for an approximation so I could get into the right neighborhood with feeding, and I got one.

 

I just read this whole thread and I have to say Im very impressed.This tank makes me want two things I was never interested in before,gorgs and sea grass.Good job on the build,I cant wait to see where this tank goes

 

Thanks!

Been busy lately as I started a new job outside of my home in Vancouver, but I will try to get an update within a month or two. My girlfriend has been feeding the seahorses while I am away during the week.

Recently, my RLSS return pump joined the numerous others of that brand that have failed. I replaced it with a Sicce Syncra. I won't buy any of those rebranded DC pumps again. Whether it is RLSS, Reef Octopus, Orphek, Speedwave etc it doesn't matter to me. They all seem to be the same unreliable pump.

 

ah dagg.....I was hoping to see an updated FTS of your tank!! I guess I can wait

 

Wow..stunning tank
It looks better with mitras..
Is it 6100hv or 6200hv?
If 6100hv maybe we can share project

 

Hello everyone!

It has been a while! Since January I have been working at a new job on a land based coho salmon farm, which takes me away from home 5 days per week. The first several months were a major adjustment, both for me and the tank (which is high maintenance!). Now I have found out I will be moving to Saskatchewan for school, so this may be the last update for this tank as it is for sale.

First with the bad news, my female seahorse died while I was away. She got stuck on one of the Vortech pumps. This is my fault as I didn't clean the pump cover as often after I started the new job. The cover obviously became clogged, and I think this created an area of really high suction, which led to the seahorse getting stuck. After this incident, and a few other near misses that occurred before this, I don't think Vortech's should be considered "seahorse safe". A closed loop may be a better option for someone looking to give the tank lots of flow, but not worry about seahorses getting stuck against an intake. There may be other ways to make the Vortech's seahorse safe with a custom cover, but I wouldn't be comfortable using a standard vortech only covered with a sponge in a seahorse tank again.

As usual I changed the coral and micro algae again, just trying to find balance in the tank. This is how the tank looks today:



I switched to feeding the seahorse in a teacup, which works a lot better than the old pipette method I used. I'm also using GFO now to limit macro algae growth, which combined with a sea urchin has really reduced the amount of macro algae in the tank. The seagrass didn't seem to be affected. The replanted halymenia finally took off recently growing in my sump, so I moved a bundle to the display, where is has continued growing well.

The dragonettes are also trained on the teacup:












This is a new favourite of mine! Not sure it is even a gorgonian








The tank is for sale now On the bright side, I will begin an entirely new tank after I get settled in at my new home on the prairies. This tank taught me many lessons, both in good and hard ways. I can't wait to use those lessons to design a new seagrass/gorgonian dominated system.

Oh and this new 3reef is awesome!