Seahorses!!

[ilyreef]

I recently bought a pair of H. erectus seahorses and love them . Who else has seahorses? What kind? and whats your general opinion about them?

 

[jaBX1]

i had a pair of seahorses a year or so ago. by far the most personable inhabitant i have ever had. I DONT miss having to feed them 2x/day but the emotion they show is amazing.

I definitly want to do another seahorse tank in the future but not until i have a more stable job. (really keeps you attached to your tank unless you have someone who can handle feeding them)


i would love some pics of the ponies and the set up

 

[ilyreef]

The tank is a 29 gal half moon. Black is male and yellow is female. We have had the male four about three months and the female only a week. The first night that we added the female the male was already in love. He was following her around and as you can see from the last picture trying to turn yellow LOL.

 

[duromega]

Beautiful I'm doing a seahorse tank very soon !!

 

[ilyreef]

Thanks.=D I think the tank still needs some work especially when I see pictures of other members tanks. I would like to put a better back ground or paint it and add some more corals that will also make good hitching post.

Being glued to the tank hasn't been so bad. I was thinking about trying to keep live mysis in the tank but when i looked up culturing them i realized how much work it really is.

 

[DEL]

What temp do you keep them in

 

[ilyreef]

76 Degrees F

 

[duromega]

if you paint your background will look way better!

 

[ilyreef]

Yea I think so to. The background that's on there came with the tank (and is a freshwater picture). Also, some times the seahorse must see the rocks in the background and tries to hitch onto them. =/

 

[duromega]

Yea I think so to. The background that's on there came with the tank (and is a freshwater picture). Also, some times the seahorse must see the rocks in the background and tries to hitch onto them. =/

haha yeah I had the same issue when I had a background on my freshwater tank fish were frustrated trying to go back there

 

[Geraud]

I have a pico with H. zosterae in there (dwarf sea horses) love them!

Old video but that gives you an idea of the setup:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeYhN-llRpI

 

[ilyreef]

Kool tank. I love the way the rock is set up. Did your seahorses have babys? How many? and how often?

Also do you know if any time you have a male and female together if they will eventually breed? My male seems really interested in the female but she just swims away.

 

[Geraud]

Oh they have babies constantly in general. I started with 5, then ordered 5 more, the population varies but last time I counted them (it is hard because the Caulerpa is everywhere but they love it) I had around 25.

They bred every other week or so. Less now that the tank temperature reaches 85 degrees. But still seeing some babies.

I did not have any problems breeding them. As a matter of fact the males arrived already carrying babies!

For bigger species I do not know, have you tried seahorses.org? They have tons of information. That's where I went to prepare my own tank.

 

[jaBX1]

geraud i have been interested in dwarf seahorses but never was sure as to how many i could put in a small/pico tank.


how big was your tank?
what equipment are you running?

 

[Geraud]

Hi jaBX.

I am using an Ecopico 5.1 Gallon. Light-wise, I use the one they provide, aka LED's, but with 3 strips: each has 2 white and 1 blue.

Filtration wise, I thought the provided pump was a bit too violent, plus I had to put a micro-grid in it to make sure the babies would not be sucked in (world record for the slowest fish according to wikipedia), so I replaced that with a Red-sea hang-on filter and an air-stone skimmer. My heater is a small Petco one.

I cycled with about an inch of sand and some dry rock, for about a month using some food to start the cycle.

I have a forest of Caulerpa (feather) in there.

So to summarize the equipment:

The tank:
http://www.ecoxotic.com/eco-pico-reef.html
The HOB filter:
http://www.tropicalmarinereef.com/red-sea-deco-art-nano-filter-for-aqua-vase.html
The skimmer:
http://www.oceanicsystems.com/products/biocube-protein-skimmer.php

The only mod I made to the skimmer was gluing some 500 micron nylon mesh on the intake so that the babies would not get sucked it.

Pretty happy with the set up, and since the tank is on my desk, it is a nice "stress-free" element. (everything runs very silently I should add)