Seahorses

I was looking at those yesterday at the local store and they are so cool to watch! My Mother really wanted one, but we were told you really need like a 25-30 gallon tank by themselves.

 

my first seahorse tank was a 29 gallon which is was the recommended tank size for 2 horses. But now people are saying that a 20 tall is enough for 2 horses.

As far as them being alone that is completely false, as evidenced by my tank there are many fish, invertebrates and corals that are compatible with seahorses. For more information I recommend that you check out seahorse.org this is the most complete source of information that I have found on the web. There is a library that anyone can look at and it has a tank mate guide on it

 

I am going the old baby brine shrimp route. I have been practicing hatching them out and supplementing them with Ultra Selco...my fish tank is soo happy right now;D I have a 29g biocube set up for them. Plus I am considering setting up my 6g nano for grow out tank..got to see how it goes. I also have a couple 10 gallons if need be. Most of the articles that I have read said that they will do the artemia, and then adding cyclopeeze.

I will take the recommendation of the rotifers though if you dont mind..thanks

It is recommended that you do DAILY water changes . Again, luckily I am working from home and basically have no life so I can do that! It will pay off to be a fish geek right now! I have way, way too many tanks set up. I dont do anything half way!

There are several websites that I have been reading if anybody is interested in looking at...seahorses.org and syngnathid.org are two of the main ones. Reefsanctuary also has a section dedicated to seahorses. I have also ordered a book from amazon.com on dwarf seahorses.

Unfortunately I am sure there will be some losses at first. I am going to do everything in my powers to prevent that..but it is bound to happen. It happens in nature. But hopefully I can keep them down to a minimum and will post pictures..and heck hopefully I will have a few bizzilion I can sell to interested fish friends on this site;D

 

Have you ever actually seen these seahorses? I mean in person not in a photograph, LOL. I have a friend who is a MOD on seahorse.org she had a tank full, about a 100 of them in a 20 gallon tank for their booth at the IMAC show here in Chicago a few months ago. I just could not get over how small these things were and they were full grown. So that being said I really think a 29 is a bit large for them, I would concentrate on the 6 gallon for the few horses you are getting, but thats just me.

As far as the rotifers for the babies to start on I will get her email address for you and you can work the particulars out with her. She gets abut 10 or 12 16 oz bottles of rotifers every other day out of her cultures. Ask her and she will gladly tell you how to culture them so you can do your own. when I have a culture running I use them excess in my reef, and a happy reef it is!

With my babies I changed 1 gallon of 5 every other day, I siphoned out the crap from the bottom of the tank and wiped the Bacterial slime that forms on the glass with a sponge before I changed the water also. Make for a much healthier environment for the little buggers.

Please keep me informed on how it goes, and as far as the babies go don't get to upset if it does not go well the first few times, its not and easy thing and its really harder to lose them trust me!

 

I was thinking of setting up a small macro tank and doing seahorses in it, like a 6g JBJ nano and keep chaeto in the rear center chamber to grow pods in, waiting on the LFS to run a special on them again and I may pick one up to see how it works, worst case it's a small frag tank lol

 

Beautiful horses gazog! 8)
Are those Mustangs? Where did you get them?
What kind of filtration are you running in your aquarium?

 

Ha! thats funny because I am not real sure I could sell mine either.

As far as the babies go best to keep them separated from adults right after birth. Most everyone use a really small tank to start with, in fact I used a gold fish bowel and a air stone with a small amount of air going through it.

This is very easy to maintain and it is small enough that they have no problem catching their food. Once they started growing and they needed more space I bought a 2.5 gallon tank from pet smart, it cost me 6 bucks.

As far as filters go, at first there is no need for any filtration but when the need arises you need to get one of these foam filters, they work really good and the babies and for the most part the bring shrimp will not get sucked into them.

As far as feeding goes, you don't want to "oversaturate the water column with food" in fact what you want to do is feed small amounts several times a day. I feed my babies 3 and 4 times a day. If you feed to much they will not be able to eat the shrimp before the selcon is absorbed by the shrimp and they become empty shells and are of absolutely no nutritional value at all. If they are eating to much of these they will basically starve to death even though they are eating bunches.

Now I have two questions, one where did you get this kit from and two what do they recommend feeding the pipefish?

Hopefully I haven't confused you or bored you to death.

 

I got them from Liveseahorses.net

no, I truly appreciate your assistance! Hah, it is funny, I actually have that filter set up for my QT tanks! Might switch that filter out when they get bigger!
As far as food for pipefish, I had kept one when I first started and he ate frozen brine shrimp. These are going to be more then likely small, so I just assumed that they were going to eat the live artermia.

At this rate, I am going to have tanks upon tanks set up for these guys! I am running out of room! Plus making baby brine and rotifers...oh my!!!;D Plus my dogs and cat gets very jealous already of my big tank, they bite me in the butt everytime I work in the tanks. All I can say is good thing I am working at home...and by the way if my employer is online....I never, ever do anything but work during my work time (HA, HA, HA!), never do anything with my fish (shhhh!)

 

What kind of lights do you have on there? I'm wanting to have seahorses but at the moment i can't. doesn't stop my from planing though. also what filteration do you have on there? lol sorry if i'm loading you down with too many questions. btw your horses are BEAUTIFUL