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My 2.5-Gallon Soon to be Dwarf Seahorse Tank!


Fishgirl2393

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Fishgirl2393

Well, here's my setup for dwarf seahorses (no seahorses currently but soon will be ordered)...
Tank: 2.5 gallon tank (mini bow)
Filtration: DIY sponge filter (works much better than the Whisper that was in there before)
Heater: Tetra 2-10.
Light: ZooMed Reef Sun 10-watt mini CFL (screw in).
Substrate: Arag-Alive sand
Decor: Florida dry rock, fake grass plant, scallop shell, collected and cleaned barnacles, caulerpa.

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Prodigal1011

Fishgirl, My girlfriend and I setup a very similar tank with great success.

 

2.5g

Current USA 18W 12" PC

Red Sea Nano HOB

Exoterra turtle pump with mods for circulation

 

It was awesome but we never did get any of them to accept frozen foods on a regular basis. I bred my own brine at the time so it wasn't an issue.

 

Just so you are aware, water changes are a must with a tank that small. Consistent and often worked the best for us. I did one twice per week. Hope it works out for you!!

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Fishgirl2393

Has anyone heard of keeping these guys in a net breeder in another tank? My LFS owner told me that he thinks I could probably get them onto frozen because he got a (NOT trained to eat frozen) mandarin and now, it eats pellets. It was not from ORA. But anyway, anyone ever heard of keeping them in a net breeder?

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I had my dwarfs in a 2g tank but with school it became really hard to maintain a tank that small with such constant feedings of frozen food. So what I did was slightly modify one of those acrylic breeders to allow slightly more flow and placed it in my main. The only issue with this is you really have to be on the look out for hydroids and other pests in your main tank that may harm your dwarfs. For that reason I believe most people that do keep them don't recommend this, but I've personally had great success with this method.

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Idk if its my blend or I lucked out, but I've only hatched 1 batch of brine for them the day they arrived and since then they've been eating my blend of cyclops + selcon + garlic. I've been thinking of starting a little farm of them trained on frozen and selling them to help pay some college expenses off.

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Fishgirl2393

That is awesome! You've given me more assurance that it CAN be done (training them to frozen). I just think (like you) that it would be easier to maintain the water quality in a larger volume of water (even if in a net or breeding trap) than a tiny tank. My 20-gallon reef is going to have a protein skimmer soon too, so extra nutrient export! I'm making the skimmer with PVC (it is going to be an air driven skimmer). If I do it this way, I'll be able to order the dwarfs soon!

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Fishgirl2393

Has anyone else gotten dwarfs to eat frozen food? I'm thinking I'll get brine eggs and have it ready (and have a batch hatching) but the first time I feed them, I'll use frozen brine or cyclops and see if they eat it. If they do, I'll watch them closely but NOT feed live if they continue to eat frozen. If they don't eat it much, I'll mix frozen and live for a while and gradually reduce the amount of live. I'll also move any babies to a different tank to raise them because they might not accept frozen immediately (although they might). If I get this done, I'll be looking to sell some eventually, but like I said in another post, I'll need some tips on shipping because I've never done it before. So, any tips would be helpful. And until I get used to caring for these guys, I'm going to keep them in a net breeder in my reef tank (which is run lower than 78F)

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I set up a bio cube for dwarfs. It worked ok. But the best thing to do to keep water quality is to plumb one of these tiny tanks to a larger show tank or what have you.

 

It took about a month but ours were eating frozen quite well and from doing brine the first month it gave the tank a natural population for them to graze on as needed. Lots of macro is a plus.

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  • 4 months later...

Well, the tank is now completely setup and ready for dwarfs. I am hopefully going to get them on Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm only getting one pair but hopefully, I'll get babies soon after.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Fishgirl2393

Well, I have the seahorses now. I ordered 6 (4 for me and 2 for a friend who's also been planning a setup) and got sent 7 adults and a bunch of babies (7 initially after having them in the tank the male gave birth to more so now, there are about 20 babies). So far, every one is happy and eating well (live so far but I fed frozen last night and found that a couple of them were interested so we'll see how that goes).

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  • 2 weeks later...

Still have them all. They've eaten frozen several times now but I'm having to feed live because the babies are in the tank with the adults. The adults have tried both frozen adult brine (smaller) and smaller frozen mysis. They're not so keen on frozen baby brine shrimp (I can't get it to move like the live) but I'm still trying other foods to see what they'll eat. :)

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I'll try to load pics soon. I've got an internet cap and so I can't load pics yet but I'll try to get them up soon. I think the deal with dwarfs is that the babies can't eat frozen when born and so the adults don't because most people keep them together. Also, I think they like the way the frozen adult brine moves around in the current where as you can't get frozen baby brine to do that really. The babies have gone for frozen baby brine a little bit too but not enough for me to feel comfortable with feeding only frozen. Their tank is really a simple setup though. Easier (in my opinion) than a reef tank in some ways. Hatching brine isn't too bad either. I've only had to hatch it 2-3 times a week (I refrigerate it).

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That makes a lot of sense. Easier to feed BBS than worry about the babies eating frozen. Hope you figure out something that will work for babies and adults. I tried to raise H. Erectus but I just didn't have enough room living in an apartment. I had brine hatcheries hanging from the ceiling but could never get any consistency.

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There are now captive breed seahorses now available online. Look at Seahorse Source if you feel like keeping Erectus again. They are already trained to eat frozen mysis. I plan to get two males later this year.

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I was actually trying to raise fry. I had a breeding pair but had to sell them due to work travel and life getting in the way. Seahorse source is definitely the way to go.

 

I recently picked up a pair of juvenile Reidi from an LFS. I had them eating out of a dish by the third day. Unfortunately one stopped eating about two weeks after I got them and no matter what I've tried I can't get him fixed up. :tears:

 

Good luck with your males, ponies are awesome!

 

photo-14.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

OK, what I'd like to know is this... I would like to move them to a bigger tank but want to know if I could move the sand, and fake decor (not so sure about the macoalgae though) to the new tank (4 gallons) and add new saltwater to the tank (along with the 2.5 gallons in the current tank) without having a cycle. Could this be done, and if so, how would I do it?

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The only thing I would worry about is moving the sand. I don't think you will have a cycle but it will take some time for the sand to settle. Just make sure your PH, Salinity and Temp matches on the water and you should be fine.

 

On a good note, after 5 days my Reidi miraculously started eating!

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