sdbeazley Posted July 16, 2005 Share Posted July 16, 2005 Hi, I have been looking around online for a while now on what makes the perfect tank for a wide variety of sea horses. We have not picked out a specific speices we want (we meaning my girlfriend and I.) Height is what we have found to be key. Would a appropriately sized Hexagon or rectangle tank be better and, what gallonage? feel free to post what works for you Link to comment
sdbeazley Posted July 16, 2005 Author Share Posted July 16, 2005 Oh forgot to add must be more then 20 gallons, and for about 2 pairs along with some calm fish. Link to comment
tinyreef Posted July 17, 2005 Share Posted July 17, 2005 beaz, species pref plays into recommendations as does the layout and tank location. pers pref, i think for seahorses a cube tank (not nanocube) might be a good 'one-size-(sorta)-fits-all'. it gives decent height, lateral room and good viewing. i think a rock wall or peak would be good versus a horizontal landscape or spur-groove layout. i agree with sprite though, shorgy is the best horse source. Link to comment
sdbeazley Posted July 17, 2005 Author Share Posted July 17, 2005 OK, today we went and got a topfin 15 high with the black silicone. ATM we are cleaning the aragonite and mixing salt. edit to add pictures, light is on top to see if we like it Link to comment
Undertheradar Posted July 18, 2005 Share Posted July 18, 2005 Seahorse tanks need flow to keep things clean & everyhing else happy, but not turbulence cuz the little guys cant handle it. An uncle of mine has the ultimate seahorse setup. Its a 40breeder with a built in sump (like my tank in sig). He has a large pump in it, think its a mag7...but with 4 outlets...two of which are spraybars along the top. We put a 150wattDE pendant over it, and I gave him multiple zoo and softie frags...horsey safe. They like nice calm, constant flow. We even planted a few caulerpas in the main area...the horseys like to grab onto it. Link to comment
sdbeazley Posted July 18, 2005 Author Share Posted July 18, 2005 The tank will be lit by a 70 watt ushio 10k with some sort of actinic supplementation. Tomorrow we should be getting some tonga branch liverock and I am sure she wants a few things on the order of blue sea whip and gorgonians to provide hitches as well. This tank will not be drilled and I'm thinking our little Prism POS should provide enough flow without the turbulence and maybe one of those new fangled high output seios or hydors to move alot of water in a broad range. Link to comment
tinyreef Posted July 18, 2005 Share Posted July 18, 2005 make sure you have algae under control before you introduce the horses. nuisance algae on the horses themselves can create a couple of issues, e.g. bouyancy, irritation, herbivore irritation, and fuzzy horses. Link to comment
sdbeazley Posted July 20, 2005 Author Share Posted July 20, 2005 Hey Tinyreef what do you think of this rock work? I plan to leave the right side for a derasa clam and some kind of cool Macro. Remember this is her room and not mine.... Link to comment
phergus_25 Posted July 20, 2005 Share Posted July 20, 2005 A desera is gonna get larger than your tank maby just go for a maxima Link to comment
tinyreef Posted July 20, 2005 Share Posted July 20, 2005 Originally posted by sdbeazley Hey Tinyreef what do you think of this rock work? beaz, i really can't tell from that pic sorry. it looks kinda modern art though. i'm not sure if those are good hitches for the horses (tiny = idiot horse rancher). they might be too large. you might want to think about artifical/plastic *gasp* hitches. smallish branches for their tiny tails. i'd skip the clam altogether imo. what happens when the clam clamps down on one of the horses? (hopefully, only their tails X) ). i'd expect rapid growth from the clam (from the horse feedings) too so phergus also has a point. (assuming ca/alk levels are optimal) Link to comment
phergus_25 Posted July 20, 2005 Share Posted July 20, 2005 yea and clams mantes can be torn by the spines on the sea horses Link to comment
sdbeazley Posted July 20, 2005 Author Share Posted July 20, 2005 Oh didn't know that, I thought I saw some yesterday online with clams,but oh well. They are kinda big and I was planning on getting some seafans and such for them to hang out on. the tonga branch seemed kind of better then normal round liverock pieces especially since the Hippocampus Reidis we will probably end up getting from ORA grow to about 8 inches. Link to comment
phergus_25 Posted July 21, 2005 Share Posted July 21, 2005 check out some Pipe fish too Link to comment
Caesar777 Posted July 23, 2005 Share Posted July 23, 2005 I really like the rockwork, looks perfect for seahorses. Are you planning on putting any macro in there? It'd look nice. BUt, then again, the gorgs will provide plenty of little branches as holdfasts. I wouldn't put fish in with them, except MAYBE a clown goby. Seahorses are dreadfully slow feeders, watching a piece of food for a minute or more before eating, and fish love to come and steal the food. Their presence alone can intimidate the horses into hiding. Which species of seahorse are you getting, and are you getting a pair? Nice choice with the gorgs, but watch out--clams like to shut on things when touched, and could shut on the horses' tails. Haven't seen it myself, but it's not unheard of. And, please, NO LPS corals with them! (STRONG sting.) Link to comment
FragMaster Posted July 31, 2005 Share Posted July 31, 2005 Hipocampus seahorses require 30g and up. Dwarf seahorses can be kept in as small as 2.5 galloons in small number safely if good husbandry is kept. Infact you can house 5 dwarf seahorses in a 2.5g, 10 dwarf seahorses in a 5.5g, 20-30 dwarf seahorses in a 10g and as many as 40-50 in a 20 long. USE A SPONGE FILTER ONLY IN A DWARF SEAHORSE TANK THOUGH!!! do not put plants such as shaving brush and other marine plants in the same tank though. Save for seagrasses, red gracia and macros like that. The reason for this is if they dont get enough light ( which you do not want in a seahorse tank) they will die off and release nitrates and nitrites and amonia back into the water, reducing the quality of water rapidly.Which is detrimental in keeping seahorse of any spiecies. ALSO with dwarf seahorse you will have to either locate an LFS that carries a constant supply of live baby brine or hatch them your self. They require feeding 4 times or more per week. Hippocampus R. species is not as finecky and wil eat frozen/thawed. NEVER run a skimmer without a bubble trap either. Air can get trapped in the male seahorse pouch which it cannot expell forcing the poor thing to float to the surface and die. Hope this all helps you in some way. FragMaster Link to comment
sdbeazley Posted August 24, 2005 Author Share Posted August 24, 2005 Oh sorry forgot about this thread, The tank is doing well and we will be picking up a pair of ORA Reidis (hopefully small yellow and black ones) in about a month. So far we have a standard yellow and orange gorgonian that I feed psycopure 3 times a week. The LFS gave us type of feather caulerpa that we planted in the sand and hopefully it will start to grow as we want as many holdfasts as possible. Before the seahorses are ordered we might get the blue sea whip from florida pets to go along with the 4 mushrooms and 3 zoo frags we have in there. Feeding will be mainly live brine shrimp from the LFS (they hatch daily, and feed big free swimming ones) with some PE mysis if some stores around here will order it for us. A maxijet 400 was added for minimal flow and when they arrive we will place a sponge over the intake and try to make a broader deflector. sadly about a week after this thread was posted we saw some shrimp babies swimming along the top of the water but with the addition of the powerhead they had too much flow and never reached adult forms. Link to comment
Caesar777 Posted August 26, 2005 Share Posted August 26, 2005 Avoid the white-polyped gorgs--non-photosynthetic filter-feeders, they're short-lived in aquaria. No way to feed them enough while keeping water quality healthy. Gut-load those brine shrimp, as they're devoid of nutrition after about a day or two from hatching--once they go from orange to clear. (That's their orange yolk sac, full of nutrients.) You may also want to take out that powerhead.... Link to comment
sdbeazley Posted August 26, 2005 Author Share Posted August 26, 2005 This gorgonian has lived for about a year at the LFS on the same food I use. I suggest you look at http://phycopure.com/ its probably the best stuff out there for them. The powerhead is used as a backup since at the moment the skimmer puts out about 10gph back into the tank. It only seems to work when i feed the tank if I forget to turn it off. Their brine are gut loaded I'm pretty sure as they are not clear anymore though some are. oh yeah my pycopure is actually made abotu a half hour away from my house and about 5 minutes from the LFS so it never goes through a huge temp swing like most feeds usually do. Link to comment
Caesar777 Posted August 26, 2005 Share Posted August 26, 2005 Does it have white polyps? Any other color is fine. Link to comment
sdbeazley Posted September 6, 2005 Author Share Posted September 6, 2005 Got an order from www.floridapets.com this last weekend, 2 thumbs up. As you can se we ordered their last 2 blue seawhips which look great btw. A green Ricordia was also ordered at the steal of a price at $6.99. Hopefully on the 26th I will get the pair of ORA CB Reidi, if only I can get my supplier to tell me what colors they can get. Link to comment
Caesar777 Posted September 6, 2005 Share Posted September 6, 2005 In a 15? Sounds a teensy bit small for a pair of Reidi.. Link to comment
sdbeazley Posted September 6, 2005 Author Share Posted September 6, 2005 Tigahboy is doing it too (but in a hex). lol so is Melev It seems that they don't have the colors we want so for now it will just be one small black untill we can get a yellow or red to complete the pair. The Reidi's I have seen look like they will do fine and can find food easier in a small tank. Also we don't want a shell in their for food since something will knock it over too much. Link to comment
Reef_Mad_Man Posted September 7, 2005 Share Posted September 7, 2005 THey will be fine but ONLY because reidi's grow incredibly slow as compared to ther species. If they are babies when you get them watch them close if they hang near the ric. BTW thats not sea whip. Its purple seablade and brown purple seablade. From what I can see from here that is LOL! Which isnt much but is def. is not seawhip. it is sea blade. Link to comment
sdbeazley Posted September 7, 2005 Author Share Posted September 7, 2005 I wasn't aware of the difference, thought they were just common names. But floridapets was selling them as sea whips, the purple on in the back is different then the blue one in the front. the small one looks like this: http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_Di....cfm?pCatId=606 and the large one looks like: http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_Di....cfm?pCatId=608 but without the stripes so only one color of purple. Link to comment
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