my two favorites

Very cool.

how are the seahorses? i've been thinking of getting one for some time now but i hear they are hard to keep up and have a lot of compatability issues. any thoughts?

The compatibility issues mainly arise because other tankmates can eat foods more rapidly than they can. Sehorses are very slow swimmers and just can't compete. But as long as they are eating frozen mysis and they have quiet tankmates, they should be fine. Good tank mates like that mandarin are a good choice, because they are not competitive eaters. I kept two seahorses with a mandarin and they did really well together. The main problem with sea horses is making sure there are no temperature fluctuations because they can be lethal. You may need a chiller and a heater to keep the temp from fluctuating. i got caught in a freak heat spike in March without a heater and it did one of them in.