my Seahorse adventure starts tomorrow

Have you checked on those shrimp? Are they common tankmates? They can be fast food-snatchers. It might be difficult for the seahorses to compete for food with them. No experience here just thought I'd bring it up.

 

Cant wait to see some pictures.. My wife wants a seahorse badly.. Unlike you, I have not done any research yet .. So seahorse's wont be in my future anytime soon.. Good Luck

 

While it is an interesting point they don't snatch a particularly large amount of food and being that a lot of food has a chance of going uneaten with 'horses and they will scavenge. They are a very good thing for cleaning up. Many people keep shrimp with seahorses.

 

Good luck on your seahorse venture!

My girlfriend really likes them and wants a tank in the worst way. I am just starting to research them.

 

There are 3 peppermints in there right now with 40 lbs of live sand, 5 of live rock, and the canister is running. Today or tomorrow I will pick up 15 more of live rock and the setup will be complete. Then will begin my test of patience.

 

and the start of your digital camera record for us?

Steve

 

its coming. very sorry

 

Good luck with your horses. They can be tough to keep. Depending on your species, I would get the tank temperature as low as you can. They are extremely vulnerable to viral and bacterial infections when they are in water above 74-75º. When I had my horses, I had them in 68º water and they loved it. They are best left in a species only tank, even shrimp will outcompete them for food (as mentioned earlier). The best CuC for a horse tank is snails. Horses need VERY SLOW (10x or less) turnover in tank. They are not good strong swimmers and even moderate current will blow them all over the tank. And another word of advice, cover any filter, powerhead, skimmer, etc. intake that is in the liveable area of the tank. I lost both of my horses when they got sucked into my AquaticLife 115 skimmer.

 

This is an old wives tale!
You can have high flow areas as well as lower, more moderate flow areas so that the horses can choose where to go.
Many seahorse keepers find their seahorses "playing" in the high flow areas at times.
Even my Reidi fry hold on to the rigid air line tube, being buffeted by the bubbles as they rise.
In a 40g tank, I have a Hagen 802 powerhead (400gph) and a HOB (225gph) plus air bubbles rising up a 1" dia. tube and directed across the water surface.
Of course, all intakes are protected so that horses cannot be damaged.