Setting up a seahorse tank?

[Zack]

Has anyone set one up before? I have read they like Hex aquariums because of thier height. Any other input on setting one up?

[Condiman]

I recieved a 30 gallon tall from Specgirl and it seems to be working out great. All I have in there is Sand and LR at the moment but in time I will try to get more live plants in there to make things seem natural looking.

[Brock Fluharty]

They do like taller tanks (well, most species) because they swim vertically, and they require around 2-3x their height in tank height in order to breed. Other than that, you just set it up like any other tank (no copper, mature it for 3 months or so), and make sure you have some sort of hitches.

[Doctor_Reef]

They like taller...deeper tanks with mild flow.....

[Ryguy]

I've always wanted to do a horse tank, let us know how you make out!!

[Imaexpat2]

I set one up using a Clearvue 24 gallon tank. Its higth worked out very well. I used an AC 50 for filtration and had a small power filter behind the rock work to keep crude from stacking up in the rock work on this tank since the filtration was somewhat minimal current wise. This kept the water flow in the tank down to an acceptable level so the Sea Horses could deal with it. I also kep these on a seperate power strip that could easily be shut off when feeding which helped me minimize the food that went into the tank at feeding time and made it easier for the sea horses to scrounge all of it up. I used a lot of Gorgonians in this tank so that they would have lots of anchor points in the tank and this worked out well. Most of the Gorgonians I used were Purple Frilly Gorgonians, Purple Ribbon Gorgonians and Corkely Sea Finger Gorgonians. This set up worked out well until the power went out for a couple of hours and I lost all of the horses pretty quick afterwards unfortunately. I had about 6 horses in this tank all together that were yellow in color and abbout 5 inches in length. I had about 20 lbs of rock in the tank and about 40 lbs of Tahitian Moon sand in the tank as well.

HTH's a little....

[tdevil]

check out reefvideos.com the 10th video is of a pony tank.

i am also thinking of setting up a pony tank, not sure yet ;)

Jay

[Brock Fluharty]

Imaexpat2,

How big were the horses? Even if the power didn't go out, they were probably doomed anyway. That many horses in a tank that small is a disaster. 2 horses would have been too many for a 24 gallon, unless they were a small species. For a pair, 35-40 gallons is recommended.

[Brock Fluharty]

Sorry, just saw that it said they were 5 inches. My above post still applies.

[gman0526]

Imaexpat2,

How big were the horses? Even if the power didn't go out, they were probably doomed anyway. That many horses in a tank that small is a disaster. 2 horses would have been too many for a 24 gallon, unless they were a small species. For a pair, 35-40 gallons is recommended.

Just curious, but how so? I'm thinking if water parameters are kept up and there's plenty of food for all, there's shouldn't be a problem. Is there dominance issues involved?

Keep in mind I have no experience whatsoever on SH so I'm just trying to understand this since it seems like a very blunt statement without knowing the particular conditions the SH were kept at other than the tank size . ;)

[Imaexpat2]

Since none of the 4 were bigger than my bic lighter on a good day unless you straightened out their tail, I didnt think 4 was cramped or a overly large bio-load. They were all eating rather well some Mysis that I got from Ocean Rider. They were the only thing in the tank besides snails, hermits and a few Gorgonians and about 30 lbs of live rock.

What size tank should I have had them in then?

[coral_diver]

Hey guys be careful of the gorgonians I have them in my SH tank myself buy they as well as our snails, caulerpa and LR can carry hydroids. Try to look for a source that says these things come from a hydroid free area. Hydroids are not fun I promise they are something you want to avoid and even though I keep a natural tank I fight droids all the time it is enivitable but alot of people decide to keep it as steril as possible so that they can try to avoid these issues. I just posted a thred that might help you all out as far as everything I can think of right off the top of my head. Let me know if you all have more questions and I'll try to help.

[coral_diver]

Just trying to play catch up in this thred :) Seahorses dont have dominance issues but they do need a good supply of O2. I lost one of my horses a long time ago to a pump failure and I didnt know it until she was gone. O2 leaves a tank is a very short period of time without some sort of surface agitation or airline in the tank. Especially with that many horses in such a small tank. Sorry for the loss. It happens to the best of us and we hopefully learn from it. That being said I always suggest that SH keepers have one of those battery operated spare air pumps on hand just in case such a thing like a power outage happens or even just a pump failure. They are cheap like 6-10$ and are well worth it. Saved my reef a few years back on a 3day outage.

[Brock Fluharty]

No, it's not dominance, but most people recommend a 40 or so for a pair. They do like a little elbow room. Did they ever mate? IMO, if they are courting, then they are happy.

Desiree,

Hydroids only pose a serious threat to dwarfs. They may not be good for a tank, because they eat lots of pods and such, but I doubt that they would do much harm to larger horses.

[Condiman]

I have my pair in a 30 tall and they love it.

[coral_diver]

Desiree,

Hydroids only pose a serious threat to dwarfs. They may not be good for a tank, because they eat lots of pods and such, but I doubt that they would do much harm to larger horses.

Brock, I know this is a late post but I just wanted to say that there are many types of hydroids and that they do/can affect the larger horses as well, I say this from experience. When I first got into the hobby I had a redi and an erectus and the tank first developed a free swimming hydroid that looked like swimming/jerking shrimp larva then turned into what looked like small jellyfish and they affected both seahorses I had to set up a steril new tank and stop feeding one of their sources of food, brine. Then I didn't know enough still apparently I had another variety hitch hike in with my gorgonians that was like hair algea when it built up, it climbed up the glass and you could only see it by magnification until it was really concentrated. I only knew to look for it with a magnifying glass because someone who knew more told me to and sure enough it was there. Well I lost my redi to all that, she would scratch like crazy and I treated her multiple times and managed to keep her alive and set up another tank again but eventually lost her she was apparently heavily infested with the droids, she just never stopped fully scratching, she was even treated with Pancur!? I ended up saving the erectus but she also scratched for a while but took better to treatment and had been newer to the tank than the redi anyway but then she is the one I lost to a pump failure so I lost her after all that anyway. I currently have Southern Knights ie Potbellied Seahorses and also dwarfs (zoestera) but I can say that even with a chiller running and that I dont feed the Knights brine they still get hydroids in the tank, the aiptasia(sp?lol) type and that yes they do sting them and cause other issues to arise due to stress, and they do sometimes show itching/scratching too. Just thought I'd give my experience but I know others that this has happened to also so, I thouroughly believe they affect all seahorses no matter the size it is just the most serious for the dwarfs because some hydroids can make lunch of a dwarf like nothing (a day maybe 2) it just takes a little longer with the medium and large horses even though they are affected.

[Brock Fluharty]

Hydroids and aiptasia are not the same things. Aiptasias are anemones, and yes, they WILL hurt the bigger horses, and eat dwarfs. NO seahorse should be fed brine, except babies, and dwarfs, and pods are better, but much harder to get/culture.

How big of a tank are the H. abdominalis in? They require tanks of around 75 gallons for a pair, and they need to be very tall.

What do you mean by scratching? Like twitching? Twitching and jerking are common signs of ammonia spikes. The ammonia burns the horses.

Also, it is highly discouraged for ANYONE to mix seahorse species. This can lead to cross contaminations of diseases that one species may have not been introduced to, and a plethora of problems.

Desiree,

Are you a member of seahorse.org? if not, I would register asap. I do not want to start another argument, but it is possible that it wasn't the hydroids that killed your horses. There seem to be many factors that could've done your horses in.

[coral_diver]

I am aware that aiptasia is different than hydroids what I think I said or at least meant to say is that there is a form of hydroids that looks like aiptasia. There is also a form that looks or appears to look somewhat like hair algea. And no hydroids are what killed my horses...I was able to see them, I two types both free swimming that also attached to the glass and the hair algea looking type that came in on a gorgonian before I knew better. Also just to note Pancur will normally kill your snails and gorgonians and such...so yes it can be used but it is not totally safe and can sometimes be hard to get ahold of since it requires either knowing someone or having a nice vet to write a script. Again my abdominalis are in a custom 80 gallon cylinder. The tank is suitable for my 5 horses because of height, filtration, etc. As far as the twitching and scratching no it had nothing to do with ammonia. Yes I am a member of SH.org and yes it was more than confirmed.

[Brock Fluharty]

Oooh. I see. Sorry for the miscommunication.

Wow, an 80 cylinder? Any pics?

Yes, hydroids have many life stages, which makes them difficult to combat...

[coral_diver]

Brock, No problem and I have to take some new pics, it's really hard to get decent pics thru a cylinder...definatly much harder than a bowfront even but I'll try to get some up soon. I am in the middle of finals. And yes droids have many life stages but just remember there are more than one type of droid :) There is really one that most are familiar with but there are more I may even have a few pics of what some other varieties look like from my tanks in the past I'll have to look n see if I can dig them up. And yes they can be difficult to combat mainly if you have things that can not take Pancur or if you can't really go thru a boil and bleach phase...it's just really complicated sometimes I definatly feel you there...did you get the dwarfs yet? I have a few pics of my dwarf babies somewhere too I'll get them posted too soon :)