Okay, so Mom wants Sea Horses -_-

Ever since I've started keeping Salt, my Mother has said "Get Sea Horses!" .

Personally, I'm not a fan of them, I've heard enough horror stories about Horses dying overnight. They lack personality, and kind of just float around.

But here's my questions, because I'm a nice son, and maybe my Mom will stop badgering me. xP

Can Sea Horses be kept with Sexy Shrimp?

Can they be kept with any kind of coral, or will all of it sting and kill them?

Would I have to basically start over as far as scaping goes?

 

The biggest issue with seahorses is the temperature. The temps for seahorses are supposed to stay in the low 70's, as vibrio, one of the most common seahorse killers, is more active in warmer waters.

That being said, my tank with 2 seahorses is generally in the mid to high 80's all summer long. They're the only fish my tank has ever had, and they came from a hobbyist who kept them entirely to themselves (they've only ever lived in two tanks). They do fairly regularly have babies as long as I feed them more often. I keep my tank in the high 70's.

It is true that they aren't as active as other fish, but they do have personality, they are fun to watch and feed, and do a really neat mating dance. They do need to be fed more often - in general once a day- as they have a bony stomach that doesn't expand - the one that died was because I got to busy and didn't feed them often enough.

I have all sorts of corals hard and soft, lps and sps (mostly monties). The other issue is flow - they can take fairly decent flow, but you have to make sure that they can't get their little tails stuck in the pump and chopped up, and most circulation pumps have grids too wide. So I do have quite a few sps that doesn't do as well as it could because of the lower flow.

seahorse.org - Tankmates
Seahorse Tankmates, by Will Wooten

Sexy shrimp are fine. Anything that can sting isn't - nems, things with sweepers, euphylia, elephant mushrooms, large lps, etc. Most fast aggressive fish are not either.

 

Well I have a lot of Euphyllia, but that will most likely be going into the 90 when it's set up.

 

How long have you had your sea horses? I've read they only live about a year, so I never got them. Seemed like a lot of money to spend on something that'll die in a year,but I've always wanted them and I have a lovely 20 gal tank with low flow sitting empty right now except for hermit crabs and one cool lookin' hitch hiker crab

 

I don't know much about sea horses, except that they do need to have something to wrap their tails around to anchor themselves. Maybe some sort of algae or seaweed. Also I've been told by a friend who raises them that you need to make sure not to get any of the natural oils from your skin on them or into the water as it can damage their skin which will never heal. Don't know from personal exp though. In other words, don't handle them even to put them in, use gloves or a net.

 

I don't know what the lifespan of SH's is, but mine are going on 2.5 years old. Hippocampus erectus. Googled it and they can go for 5 years or so.

I don't handle mine much, but haven't worried much other than making sure I don't have chemicals on my hands (like soap). Never had a skin lesion. (them or me !

 

With the exception of zots (H. zosterae/dwarf SH), which can live about 1.5 to 2.5 years. Large species SH tend to live 3 - 5 years in general, but I know someone who had a male reidi live to around 8 years.

As for natural skin oils harming SH, I'd like to see the study on that one...seriously. SH actually have pretty tough skin when compared with most fish, actually. They can also handle flow a lot better than previously thought, and they are better swimmers than the old wives tales state.

IMHO, the biggest mistake peeps make is keeping tropical species too warm. SH are very susceptible to bacterial infections, particularly Vibriosis, and keeping them below 75*F goes a long way to mitigating the bacterial count in a captive system.

Sexy shrimp will become a sexy meal for SH...many will snick larger shrimp apart until they can eat them.

As for Euphyllia, that's a big SH no-no...don't keep them with anything that can sting them, as the resulting injury opens them up to bacterial infection. You can keep SH with mellow softies, zoanthids, smooth mushrooms (no Rhodactis sp.) with no trouble. Lots of live macro is also a good decor for SH setups, as it allows them to hunt pods between feedings.

You'll go a long way if you obtain TRUE CB stock from a reputable breeder such as Seahorse Source, the ultimate place for captive bred seahorses., which is the absolute best place for SH IMHO. Dan and Abbey are great folks.

FWIW, Renee and I bred and raised SH for several years (that's how we met!), and we are both on the moderating staff of SH.org.

 

I am thinking of getting dwarf seahorses. I would like to know how do you keep your seahorses fed well? I know they need a lot of food. I have brine shrimp eggs but what other methods should I use to raise enough food for them?

 

I have been thinking about keeping sea horses myself. I have a friend that had them. I've done a lot of researching online about this for the past 3 months. Like someone said before me the main issues with keeping them is the water temperature, flow in tank, and getting them to eat. I found several sites with sea horses that are captive bred and have already been trained to eat frozen mysis. seahorse.org saltandseahorses.com seahorsesource.com and seahorse.com southwatchseahorse.com are websites that I got info from along with several other sites that I found. Saltandseahorses.com has pictures of the actual sea horse that you will be buying and are trained to eat frozen mysis. Good luck!

 

I'll back all that Greg has written.
For those interested in keeping dwarfs, be sure first of all that you can commit yourself to hatching, grow out and enriching bbs first because it sure gets to be a PITA after a while.
IMO, while there are people keeping seahorses successfully at higher than recommended temperatures, the great majority who have tried it, fail.
I feel that after quality of stock, due to the majority sold come from tank raised rather than true captive bred sources, the bacterial losses come next in line for losses.
After those, pathogen losses due to exposure from other fish/seahorses that seahorses haven't been raised with comes close behind.
For those seriously interested in seahorse keeping, there are informative links at the bottom of "My Thoughts on Seahorse Keeping" that give a good ground source of information to start off.
For those wanting to keep corals, it comes down to choosing non stinging corals and corals that are going to do well in cooler temperatures.
Sexy shrimp wouldn't get placed in any of my seahorse tanks as my reidis tore apart a cleaner shrimp I put in with them about 11 years ago when I first started.
My biggest mistake in the hobby, was to think that all my previous years of reefkeeping would make it "no problem" to keep seahorses.
Although the recommendations have changed somewhat over the years, I still ignored some of them thinking that I knew enough about salt water to get them to survive the way I wanted to do it.
Now, I probably would be considered to "overdo" it.