Patbacks equestrian center

[patback]

So some of you may know that I am going to attempt keeping H. Zosterae, or dwarf sea horses. Since I never made a tank build thread on my ten gallon mixed reef, I figured this would be as good of time as any to start another. With money being tight right now, it just may take a while, but hopefully not too long. Alto actually gave me the incentive to really get the ball rolling with her thread she has goin on.

 

This is a spare tank I've got laying around that I am goin to clean out.

 

I want to have as many hitching posts as possible without my tiny tank looking cluttered and unorganized, which will be hard givin the very small diameter, but could be fun. I am thinking of using Florida base rock, and offering to take any dead Acro frags off of my lfs hands for them. ( haha). I think It would be awesome to glue these on just like live coral in random spots around the rock. With the lack of flow in a dwarf tank and the cool temperature, it would be next to impossible to keep a birdsnest alive, let alone thriving.

 

Plants will be playing a huge part in this tank, obviously. I plan to treat the plants only ( not the rock) for hydroids. Plants will be a means of nutrient export along as hitching posts. It is pretty difficult to find suitable plants though. I want plants that are sturdy, use up trates and phosphates from these messy eaters, and most importantly, not likely to go sexual. I saw on reefcleaners a cactus caulerpa, and thought it would be perfect, but sadly it is very prolific. My choices so far are...

 

Red mangroves( ?)

Pencil cap algae

Red gracilaria

Shaving brush

 

Does anyone see problems with these( other than the mangroves, I am leaning towards no for multiple reasons). Anyone have other ideas?

 

I plan to mod the hood of my tank to fit the Eco pico light, as is. This should be more than suitable for this tiny tank and to grow the plants. Does anyone know if a dimmer can be wired in line?

 

I am planning anywhere from 3-5 dwarfs in this tank, along with...

 

1 Cerith

10 dwarf Cerith

And 2 nassarius vibex.

 

I plan to email John when the time comes for his input on suitable plants and cuc for my tank

 

 

If anyone has any insight, tips, ideas, good or bad, please post. I really want to try to make this work.

[patback]

Nobody has any input or ideas? I thought people would have been all over this since not too many people on here have had sea horses.

[JoshColdWater]

Ive kept and bred pipes and seahorses, with any animal its always good to go with as close to there natural habitat as possible. With that said anything close to sea grass or wide kelp would be best, but from the sound of it you already have some great choices lined up! Anything red would be my go to kelp, bubble red kelp is easy to keep.

JOSH