Jake's 50+ gallon seahorse tank

Thanks!

No horses yet. I have ordered some from the Sea Horse Corral (Florida) via a Canadian store, however they are waiting on some permits, which are required since sea horses are listed in CITES.

I could have some today if I were willing to buy net pen/tank raised horses from my LFS, however since this is my first time I want to maximize my chances of success, so I'm holding out for aquacultured ones.

 

Jake,

Haven't checked the thread in a while, but it looks great. Can't wait to see the horses in action. Are you going to set up a feeding station at all and try to ween them onto frozen?

 

Thanks Aaron!

The aquacultured seahorses I have ordered should already be eating frozen food. If they are not, I will have to come up with a way to ween them onto frozen. Maybe it would be a good idea for me to raise some brine shrimp before I get the horses, just in case.

 

Hello Jake, your set up is great looking, but the clam is VERY risky as you have already mentioned. However, taking it out AFTER finding a problem is not good.
What can happen is that the tail can be dragged across the clam causing it to close on the tail for a bit. The seahorse struggles until it gets free, but the damage is done and not really visible at this time. When you do notice it, it's because a bacteria like the vibriosis species has set in and now you have to remove it to a hospital tank and treat, hoping you catch it in time.
Some have had them together quite a while before a problem occurs as it requires a moment when the seahorse drags it's tail across the clam and that probably, with law of averages, doesn't happen often, but most likely will at some time. Then too, sometimes the clam might close without catching the tail.
IMO, it's not worth the risk increasing the odds of failure, when keeping seahorses can already be a formidable task in itself.
I've seen estimates that probably only 1% of seahorses in the wild survive long term, and, in our aquaria, again, only 1% survival is suspected due to inherent problems like hobbyists slacking off after a year or so (or less) and allowing conditions to deteriorate. This on TOP of the fact that seahorses often come with problems to start with.
IMO, seahorse tanks need even better husbandry than reef tanks because the eating habits produce such dirty water that can't be seen until sometimes too late.
As for the H. erectus from Sea U Marine, they are the best seahorses I've ever purchased as far as quality goes. The go after frozen Hikari mysis better than any seahorse species I've owned.
As for raising brine shrimp, that can be a formidal task in itself if you want to get any meaningful numbers of them to adult so adult seahorses will eat them.
Bbs, enriched, are excellent foods for seahorse fry, but for juveniles or adults, the seahorses usually ignore such small food, and, it would take an inordinate amount to be of any value to them if they did eat them.
It took me a while to be successful in raising dense cultures of brine but if you really are interested, you might get some ideas of a set up by seeing my Brine Shrimp Page and scaling it down to suit your needs.
I feed live brine shrimp once or twice a week to my seahorses, enriched with Dans Feed from seahorsesource.com.

 

I was hoping you would comment on this thread Rayjay, thanks!

I'm really torn on the clam issue, but with you weighing in I will try to sell it or possibly move it to my refugium. I have had the clam for about two years now and will be sad to see it go. A big part of me does want to try these things though, and learn from experience. I can always try that when I am a more experience seahorse keeper however.

I have raised brine shrimp in the past and am not really keen on doing it again. Like you said it is a lot of work. Since you say the seahorses I have ordered will likely accept frozen foods I will not produce any for now. If the seahorses reproduce I will try to raise the fry, in which case I will have to produce my own.

Here is my present and planned stocking list. All are listed as threat level 1 or under on seahorse.org.

Fish:
Yellow watchman goby (added Mar 2, 2013)
Hippocampus erectus x 2 (added Apr 11, 2013)

Softies:
Ricardia florida and yuma, Discosoma mushrooms (added Mar 2 and May 2nd, 2013).
Pulsing xenia (added Mar 2, 2013)
Pachyclavularia spp. (added Mar 9, 2013)
Sarcophyton spp. (added Apr 27, 2013)
Zoanthids (added May 14, 2013)

Stony:
Lobophyllia
Platygyra
Acanthastrea (added May 8, 2013)
Tubastrea (added Apr 27, 2013)

Algae/plants:
Halymenia spp. macroalgae (added Mar 2, 2013)
Halimeda spp. macroalgae (added May 2, 2013)
Padina spp. macroalgae
Halophila ovalis seagrass (added Mar 15, 2013)
Dichotomaria spp. macroalgae (added Mar 15, 2013 - moved to sump due to herbivory from Astrea snails/ring cowries)
Udotea spp. macroalgae (Mermaid fan) (added Mar 15, 2013)

Gorgonians:
Briareum abestinum (corky sea finger) (added Apr 13th, 2013)
Pseudopterogorgia spp (sea plume)

Inverts:
Ring cowries (added Mar 9, 2013)
Regular astrea (added Mar 2, 2013)
Spiny astrea (added Mar 9, 2013)
Sand sifting star (added Mar 9, 2013)
Haliclona spp. (blue sponge)

 

It is not "likely" that they will eat frozen mysis, it is "definite".

 

Can't wait to get them

 

I added a lot of live stock over the last couple of weeks.

Algae clean up: 5 regular astrea, 5 spiny astrea, and 5 ring cowries
Sand sifters/detritivores: 5 nassarious snails, 1 sand sifting seastar
Coral: GSP frag, fox coral

The tank is now a lot cleaner. The snails definitely did their job! The sand sifting seastar really cleaned up the sand bed. The diatoms are almost gone.

Played with iPhoto a bit...



This fox coral is 5-6". I think it is a perfect LPS for this tank given the lack of feeder tentacles and low flow.


Lot's of space to fill in yet!


I'm not expecting seahorses for several weeks.

A few other comments:

- I'm enjoying keeping the tank at 73-74 F. Evaporation is really low and cyanobacteria doesn't seem to grow well at that low of temperature.
- The pulsing xenia does not look healthy. They had a rough stay in my Q-tank, so hopefully they recover.
- The tigger pods I added a couple of weeks ago have multiplied like crazy. I'd say I have 6-10 per square inch on the glass right now!

 

Very cool! It looks great

 

Haven't updated for a while as not much as happened, but here is a small one! I expect to receive two tank bred H. erectus seahorses next week.

I added seagrass (Halophila ovalis) 3-4 weeks ago. There is another species that I have not identified too, but its mostly H. ovalis. I had not planned to add it this early, but the seagrass arrived about a month sooner than expected. It was a bit of an adventure haha.

I don't really know what I expected, but the seagrass came in a giant clumped up/tangled ball and was difficult to plant. Basically I just tried to untangle the longest segments I could, cut the rhizome with a sharp pair of scissors when I couldn't get any further, then made a trench in the sand/mud with two fingers, put in the rhizome/roots (seagrass is very negatively buoyant BTW, which made it much easier), and covered the rhizome/roots in substrate, leaving the leaves above the sand. The other thing I noticed was that it smelt terrible out of the bag, there were probably a lot of things dying in those clumps of seagrass.

It did not look good initially, but about 3 weeks later new leaves started poking up all over the place. Yesterday I trimmed away the older dying leaves and things look much better. Still a long ways to go, but it has been a fun experience.

Nitrate in the tank has hovered around 5 ppm up until this week. Now it is at 0 ppm (undetectable with API... need a better test kit) despite heavy feeding. Hopefully once the seahorses arrive there will be more nutrients available. For now, I have slowly added Seachem Flourish tablets to the sand bed. Two weeks ago I added one tablet, this week I added two more. Next week I'll add another.

H. ovalis... two "old" leaves, surrounded by new buds. The other unidentified species is in the background.


Another "old" leaf in the centre, again surrounded by new buds.


A mermaid sea fan that I added with the seagrass. About a month ago:


Today... grows like crazy! Kind of an odd growth pattern. A new stock is sprouting from the base.


Tank shot... the Halymenia spp. macroalgae has grown like crazy too. This shot is after I pruned it (compare to my last post).


GSP is slowly starting to move onto the surrounding rocks. I think it is growing slowly due to the low temperature. My goby (Goby-won) had to photo-bomb this shot.


Nitrogen bubbles in the sand bed. The sand is dark due to the mud mixed in, not hydrogen sulphide pockets.


So now for the bad...

The Xenia just doesn't want to recover from the Q-peroid. One head was killed by brown jelly, which I siphoned out immediately and fortunately have not seen it come back. I thought this was unusual as my tank is kept at 73-74 F. I'm tempted to cut it out and introduce some new, healthy Xenia.

I added a nice looking Dichotomaria spp. macroalgae. Unfortunately as soon as it was introduced the astrea snails and ring cowries in my tank started eating it. I was surprised as I have read many times those species do not eat macro... but they seemed to like the Dichotomaria! After a week it was about half the size it was when I added it, so it is now in my sump refugium. This was quite disappointing as I really liked it.