Seahorse tank

yes yes you do want a tall tank i went with a 25 tall. they dont swim from side to side.

i would keep my temp way below 74 im thinking of keeping them at about 69 right now. 74 is a little hight for me.

and thanks corailline

 

Okay, ill look at prices and keep doing some research.

 

cool also a good tip it to buy from local breeders if their are any. you save on thising and they are CB.

 

Please don't subject normal seahorses to a 10g tank. For best chances of success, use a 29/30g.
A ten would only be suitable for about 5 or 6 pairs of H. zosterae (dwarfs).

 

I'm doing and 18g tall, with Gregorians. Dwarf tank raised so I hope not to have live brine issue.

 

Seahorses are a big responsibility. The live rock is a great idea. Make sure that there's not any aiptasia on it though. Also, some Caulerpa or other type of seaweed would be a great addition.

Seahorses don't like a lot of flow. Even the suction of a hang-on filter could kill a small seahorse. What I did was wrap filter floss around the filter intake, and change it every 3 weeks or so.

I would ask your LFS to order specimens that eat frozen foods. My first seahorse was a Brazilian (Idk the scientific name) who I fed frozen mysis shrimp every day. She ended up living 2 and 1/2 years until she got infected with something by another seahorse.

About a year after her death, I set up a new tank and purchased 2 small black seahorses (Unsure of scientific name) who ate only live brine. I left town for two days with my parents, leaving my 18 year old sister home. She threw a wild party and I wouldnt be surprised if someone had poured beer in the tank, because when I got home, one was dead in the tank, and the other died 2 days later.

One more thing. Seahorses arent fast swimmers, and can't really eat all of the food you put in the tank. It wouldn't be a bad idea to have some Nassarius snails or such to eat the left overs from the sand bed and rocks. Hope this helps.

 

sadly thats all they can eat they will not eat frozen. even tank raised, im sorry

 

www.Seahorse.org click on the link and read, read, read, Please! Seahorses are allot of fun to keep but also a lot of responsibility. To keep the successfully you must follow certain guidelines and seahorse.org can help you out immensely. There are also many members on 3 reef that either have them or have had them that will help.

 

As mentioned, dwarfs need a supply of live foods.
Because of this, and the fact that dwarfs don't do as much hunting of food that normal sized seahorses usually do, the food density has to be very concentrated as they will sit hitched waiting for food to come to them.
This means a LOT of enriched bbs for a tank that size unless you have a lot of dwarfs occupying the tank, like about 6 pair or more.
Unfortunately the odds of keeping normal sized seahorses in that tank are poor as so much husbandry is needed to succeed that failure is many times caused by slacking off as time goes by.

Now, there is a lot of misinformation about seahorses passed along on forums so the best information for you to go by is available at seahorse.org as already mentioned.
You can see the starter links at the bottom of the link in my signature, some of which are either from the org site or written by org members, including Dan Underwood of seahorsesource.com.
Some of this misinformation is that seahorses can't handle more than low flows, when in fact, as long as the flow isn't "blasting" them so they get thrown against something, and they have hitching in low medium and high flow areas where they can choose which they want, you will be OK.
Dwarfs obviously due to size can be blasted by a lesser flow than normal sized seahorses.

The odds of getting true captive bred seahorses from an LFS are slim to none, and, even if they manage it, they often place the seahorses into a system that is connected to other tanks with other fish. Another problem is placing them in a separate system that has previously held other fish, or even seahorses from another source.
Seahorses succumb most frequently to bacterial problems but the next most common failure is due to pathogens introduced to them from other seahorses or other fish that have not been raised with them using the same water.
If you buy from a seahorse only breeder, your odds of success are greater, especially if you have a species only tank.
Possibly bacterial losses are greater because many systems have insufficient or incorrect clean up crew to get ALL the food waste that accumulates between and underneath rocks and decor, providing breeding grounds for bacteria like vibrio.
It's extremely helpful to vacuum out the excess, especially blowing around any rock and decor to make removal of trapped particles much easier.

 

Are there any reliable places online to buy?

Or any in fl anyone knows about?