zeddy

i just moved and took down all my fresh water tanks, and am concintrating on my 150gal reef. i'm also thinking about a seahorse tank for my kitchen. Darn MTS. what i have is a 33gal or a 55gal a fluval404 filter a couple of smaller powerheads a florecent light and a heater, sand and rock i will have to get. what i am wondering is if the will be sufficant or do they need a sump and skimmer. the residents would be a basic cleaner crew and some LPS like zoos ect... and eventually use it as a frag tank aswell, once i upgrade the light. so to start with just seahorses is it enough. also is the a sight where i could get the info for all the equipment needed.

aquarist48

http://www.fishlore.com/fishforum/saltwater-beginners/
Hello. The above link will be a great help to you I'm sure. I don't have salt water tank experience myself. Best of luck.

lew2000

This link has good info on keeping seahorses and a forum:

www.seahorse.org

Be aware that seahorses require alot of care - in the setup of the tank, and feeding. It is best not to get wild caught seahorses - they will not usually accept any foods other than live and will usually starve rather than eat other foods. Seahorses also require many feedings throughout the day. There are now seahorse feeding stations available that make this easier.

Matt

Seahorses need a protein skimmer and a sufficient filter system both mechanical and biological.

They are very fragile animals and here in australia can do some damage to your bank account.

Seahorses enjoy Mysis Shrimp frozen and thawed out before it is fed to them.

I hope this info helps you

-Matt

As far as the tank goes it all sounds good but i would not recommend zoas until you get proper lighting.

zeddy

thanks matt i am upgrading the light on my 150gal reef next month and will be using two of the pendants from that tank the biggest concern i have is the 55gal is not drilled and i was hoping to get away without a skimmer by usin live rock and a way oversize filter

Shawnie

I have no clue about any of the salty side but wow, that would be an amazing tank I would think! goodluck !

Matt

Another huge factor is water flow. Seahorses hate alot of water flow because they like to just clutch on to a bit of weed or coral and feed or rest.

You can buy protein skimmers that do not require your tank to be drilled look on the internet and in your LFS and you will surely find one.

Any pics of your 150 gal reef?

-Matt

Matt

Also seahorses dont like to have to compete for food they like to just cruize in and eat and then cruize out again so dont get any fast moving tank mates or prefferably stick to a Seahorse Only Tank they do best in species only tanks.

-Matt

zeddy

thats the plan it would be strickly seahorses and low flow coral

Matt

Great

Any pics of your 150 gal reef?

-Matt

zeddy

i have some but i cant find my usb cord to transfer them to my computer

zeddy

got my cord and here is some pics

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Matt

Awesome Tank

-Matt

cerianthus

I done 2-1/2 Gallon seahorses tank for almost a year now (boy and a girl) and the smaller boy grew as big as girl.
Dont have a skimmer and havnt done water changes in 6 month. No skimmer since cant find small enough for 2-1/2G.
Has sponge filter and internal power filter filter when needed.
Fed mostly on mysis since this pair would not touch zooplankton.
Hopefuly soon when water temp warms up a bit, will collect seawater from where they were collected and will perform pwc. One thing I did though was to let algae grow alot to compensate for lack of Protein SKimmer.
I am not saying not to have Protein Skimmer. By all means please hook one up for 33 G. After all, PS has different fuction from LR and Filters.

There are many sites who offers captive bred and variety of species of seahorses.
I rarely had difficult time feeding wild specimen including smaller erectus and large Brazilian Gold, Red, Orange Seahorses (cant remeber the scientific name). Such large wild seahorses had no problem cracking shell of tiny blue-legged Hermit crabs and frozen zooplankton.
Only problem I see now is that Seahorses are controlled thus price of common erctus has gone up from $15 to as high as $50. Colorful Brazilian was around $60 before but seen for $300 and up recently.

Should try captive specimen if and when possible.

It is not that difficult to keep them in species tank. Spawning is not that hard but rearing youngs can be tricky. Having well matured reef tank will definitely improve babys survival rates by using reef water to perform water changes (well mature reef tank water can and will provided natural microspoic foods for baby seahorses).

Surf on the net and do some reading. If you have already done some, do some more. More you know, higher chance of success and keep in mind that all the info you may come across may not be all correct. Use info as reference and use common senses when making decisions.

Hope this helped a bit and good luck with both plans.

zeddy

thanks that helps

FishMagnet

I'd like to disagree with most of the posts here. I kept horses for many years and even bred them successfully. While they do require you to keep on top the water parameters, I never felt they were any harder to keep than any other fish. Easier than some.

I don't recommend keeping them in reef tanks. They tend to dislike the high lighting required in reefs.
Keep them in their own tanks (especially when breeding them), with a few exceptions, notably a clean up crew. The reason I say this is you don't want them to have to compete for food. And you don't want to expose them to any diseases. They can be tricky to treat.

Waterflow is good...but direct it in one place. They do like to play in it, but they also like calm places to rest.

Tall tanks vs long are best. I kept my show horses in 49gal tall tanks. Squarish and tall tanks.

Filtration...better is always better but again I found them pretty much as tolerant as any other fish. Tangs for isntance I find much harder. A simple bio filter like the emperor 400 will do fine.
Skimmers and UV I found unnecessary although it all helps. As in any SW tank.

Same with the sump.

I do advise against wild caught. I dislike taking them from their homes...and they can be tricky to teach to eat frozen mysis. But I've done it and once again I didn't find it all that hard.

Avoid bubble wands. They like to play in them, but they can get bubbles in their pouches which can be deadly.

Think thats about all I can offer right now. I have a few pics in my rant blog if your interested.

k4k2009

Hi, I'm starting up a small 11G/45L nano tank to keep seahorses in (until i move out and uprade to a tank double in size) but I wanted to know if u ever started ur seahorse tank and how it went/or is going.

Are u able to post some pics and have you found out any info

lorabell

hey there...Im doing some research myself...pretty sure I'm going with the dwarfs...I found some great info on a couple of places...http://www.seahorse.org/http://seahorsesource.com/
still looking for more myself.....good luck

sirdarksol

This thread is several months old, and zeddy hasn't posted since the end of June. I doubt he's going to respond to or even see these replies.

charzar-g

Fishmagnet, I didn't know you kept seahorses! I'm jealous *drools*