Dawn's pony garden.

[gena]

On 11/24/2016 at 7:10 PM, vlangel said:

Thanks gena, here is a shot that shows the tank with stand in the room. Unfortunately the sun was shining in the window behind me brightly so it left the tank in a bit of a shadow.

I do still need to put my black seahorse handle on to complete it.

 

I love it!

[vlangel]

I have decided that seahorses must be morning creatures. They seem to wake up as soon as I turn on the moonlight LEDs and they are so cute the way they interact. Eve always spends the night away from the kids but she heads over to where they are when the LEDs come on. Of course Boaz nestles in close to her hoping to encourage you know a little horse play! Ruth on the other hand always just looks at Eve with wonder and admiration. Sometimes Eve looks back at Ruth and they almost touch noses which is so adorable.

[RIP Sebastian]

I have decided that seahorses must be morning creatures. They seem to wake up as soon as I turn on the moonlight LEDs and they are so cute the way they interact. Eve always spends the night away from the kids but she heads over to where they are when the LEDs come on. Of course Boaz nestles in close to her hoping to encourage you know a little horse play! Ruth on the other hand always just looks at Eve with wonder and admiration. Sometimes Eve looks back at Ruth and they almost touch noses which is so adorable.

 

[teenyreef]

I have decided that seahorses must be morning creatures. They seem to wake up as soon as I turn on the moonlight LEDs and they are so cute the way they interact. Eve always spends the night away from the kids but she heads over to where they are when the LEDs come on. Of course Boaz nestles in close to her hoping to encourage you know a little horse play! Ruth on the other hand always just looks at Eve with wonder and admiration. Sometimes Eve looks back at Ruth and they almost touch noses which is so adorable.

Awwwwwwww

 

I love the way the white stand looks with the light background in the tank!

[vlangel]

Awwwwwwww

I love the way the white stand looks with the light background in the tank!

I like that too teeny. All my aquarist life I have done everything possible to disguise equipment. Doing a black backround always helped the overflow and powerheads to be less noticable but I did not realise how much brightness in the tank I was giving up. Since my tanks always have a lot of rock the light backround helps offset all that dark rockscape.

[vlangel]

Ruth and Boaz are absolutely the cutest! Boaz is not the sharpest tool in the shed or the smartest pony in the corral! Ruth learned right away when the acrylic tube goes in the tank, mysis is sure to follow. Not Boaz, he still needs to be fed from the turkey baster and even then he gets distracted. Its always meesy buisness feeding him. I guess I can't expect him to be handsome and smart!

[vlangel]

This was a busy week but this morning I finally did some maintenance on the seahorse garden. I still am amazed at how maintenance friendly this tank is for seahorses. I turn off my return pump but allow the powerheads in the tank to still run. I blasted the rockwork and macros with a turkey baster but not a lot of debris comes off of it because the flow from the powerheads is pretty effective at keeping stuff from settling. About every 3 or 4 days a small pile of stuff collects on the floor of the tank in front of the food bowl where the flow is slower by design and I syphon that out when I am doing my WCs. I change the carbon once a week and I use the mag cleaner to clean the glass once a week. Now I only need to scrub the back wall and silicon seams as needed.

 

I do still need to syphon the bottom of my sump regularly. Its either do that once a month or change filter pads twice a week with WCs. I am still undecided what is better for me and my habits.

 

The ponies are all doing well. Little Ruth is growing faster than Boaz but then she totally out eats him so its no wonder. They all seem to enjoy each others company and at any given time they can be in any combination with each other. Nobody is ever excluded, snubbed or bullied and I just love that about seahorses. I like that all 3 ponies look totally different from one another too. 1 yellowish-brown, 1 white and 1 striped dark gray. Its pretty cool.

[RIP Sebastian]

This was a busy week but this morning I finally did some maintenance on the seahorse garden. I still am amazed at how maintenance friendly this tank is for seahorses. I turn off my return pump but allow the powerheads in the tank to still run. I blasted the rockwork and macros with a turkey baster but not a lot of debris comes off of it because the flow from the powerheads is pretty effective at keeping stuff from settling. About every 3 or 4 days a small pile of stuff collects on the floor of the tank in front of the food bowl where the flow is slower by design and I syphon that out when I am doing my WCs. I change the carbon once a week and I use the mag cleaner to clean the glass once a week. Now I only need to scrub the back wall and silicon seams as needed.

 

I do still need to syphon the bottom of my sump regularly. Its either do that once a month or change filter pads twice a week with WCs. I am still undecided what is better for me and my habits.

 

The ponies are all doing well. Little Ruth is growing faster than Boaz but then she totally out eats him so its no wonder. They all seem to enjoy each others company and at any given time they can be in any combination with each other. Nobody is ever excluded, snubbed or bullied and I just love that about seahorses. I like that all 3 ponies look totally different from one another too. 1 yellowish-brown, 1 white and 1 striped dark gray. Its pretty cool.

 

Glad to hear things are going well.

[teenyreef]

Sounds like Boaz is going to have an interesting time with two larger, smarter females running his life for him

[vlangel]

Sounds like Boaz is going to have an interesting time with two larger, smarter females running his life for him

I think your right. It might be every male seahorse's dream but being pregnant ALL the time sounds a little more nightmare-ish if you ask me, LOL.

[vlangel]

Glad to hear things are going well.

Thanks Nick. My biggest problem is determining how often I should perform WCs. I can't do it too often for the ponies but the coral can suffer if I do it too much. I am thinking 3Xs a week, (which adds up to 21 gallons) but feeding the coral once a week at that. I guess it will be trial and error but I don't want the ponies to suffer from any errors!

[vlangel]

I just saw the coolest thing. My 5 gallon feeder shrimp tank is under the seahorse tank in the cabinet. If I have left over mysis after I have fed the ponies, instead of throwing it away I dump it in the feeder shrimp tank. I just saw one of the brackish pipefish eat several pieces of mysis! I have been troubled thinking about the pipefish starving after all the shrimp get fed off but now I know that they can live with Hikari frozen mysis.

[RIP Sebastian]

I just saw the coolest thing. My 5 gallon feeder shrimp tank is under the seahorse tank in the cabinet. If I have left over mysis after I have fed the ponies, instead of throwing it away I dump it in the feeder shrimp tank. I just saw one of the brackish pipefish eat several pieces of mysis! I have been troubled thinking about the pipefish starving after all the shrimp get fed off but now I know that they can live with Hikari frozen mysis.

 

That's great! Have they grown at all or are they still tiny?

[vlangel]

That's great! Have they grown at all or are they still tiny?

They are still the same size as they were. I doubt that they get much bigger than the largest one.

[vlangel]

Well Boaz gave me another scare with the powerhead. I saw him hitch to the output grating! I once again turned the powerheads off until he swam away. As far as I could tell his tail did not appear to be injured. Crazy pony! Today I am going to figure a way to cover the whole powerhead.

[Lawnman]

On 11/23/2016 at 12:34 PM, vlangel said:

So here is a nice corner Thanksgiving FTS.

On 11/24/2016 at 7:10 PM, vlangel said:

Thanks gena, here is a shot that shows the tank with stand in the room. Unfortunately the sun was shining in the window behind me brightly so it left the tank in a bit of a shadow.

I do still need to put my black seahorse handle on to complete it.

Beautiful!!!

[ReefWeeds]

First video of the 56 gallon tank. My tablet has gone deaf so I picked the music by how long it was but I did not get to hear it. Ooooh, its a bit repetitive so you might want to mute it. Actually this video is almost 4 minutes so don't feel like you have to watch it all. Eve hams it up so I would watch til then.

I'm way behind and this is old news but I had to bring it forward. Dawn, this is gorgeous!

[vlangel]

Beautiful!!!

Thank you Lawn, I appreciate the compliment. :-)

[vlangel]

I'm way behind and this is old news but I had to bring it forward. Dawn, this is gorgeous!

Thank you Rachel, that is nice of you. I got an inkling that you were behind when I opened N-R and saw I had 54 notifications and the first page were all from you, LOL! I can't believe that you read that many posts, bless your heart.

[vlangel]

I have been watching all the ponies playing in the flow, especially the little ones. They will swim along the rockwork toward the tunze 6045 and then just drift into the fast flow and let it carry them across the front of the tank. They look like they are having such a good time and it is so cute!

[ReefWeeds]

Thank you Rachel, that is nice of you. I got an inkling that you were behind when I opened N-R and saw I had 54 notifications and the first page were all from you, LOL! I can't believe that you read that many posts, bless your heart.

Haha!! I love reading your thread!!

I have been watching all the ponies playing in the flow, especially the little ones. They will swim along the rockwork toward the tunze 6045 and then just drift into the fast flow and let it carry them across the front of the tank. They look like they are having such a good time and it is so cute!

We need a video! That's awesome.

[RIP Sebastian]

I have been watching all the ponies playing in the flow, especially the little ones. They will swim along the rockwork toward the tunze 6045 and then just drift into the fast flow and let it carry them across the front of the tank. They look like they are having such a good time and it is so cute!

Sounds fun!

[vlangel]

Haha!! I love reading your thread!!

 

We need a video! That's awesome.

I will try to capture it the next time I see them do it.

Sounds fun!

I know, it almost makes me wish I were a seahorse!

[teenyreef]

It reminds me of the sea turtles surfing the current in Finding Nemo

[vlangel]

It reminds me of the sea turtles surfing the current in Finding Nemo

Yes, it is very much like that!