Seahorses

[Anonymous]

Okay. I work in retail, and I always have to fend off the inevitable questions about keeping seahorses. Everyone from complete novices to avid reefkeepers will eventually get around to asking me about seahorses. I have never kept them myself, (the ones I've kept alive in the store don't count, the are always sold within DAYS and thus have given me no actual seahorse-keeping experience that I can brag of...) and aside from some small interest that has led me to read the occasional thread and the odd website on them, I do not know much about them.

Here is my knowledge to date:
-I believe you need to feed them an average of four times a day. Live foods are better, obviously. Which types of food are best in your opinion? How would the average fishkeeper go about culturing live food for their pet seahorse? What have people had success with? Or is mysis shrimp soaked in Selcon good enough option?
-They need to be kept in a species tank, as other fish will outcompete them for food. No brainer, but someone always comes along that has to add something else to their tank...is there a problem with adding snails, starfish, corals? Recommendations?
-Which leads me to my next question...live rock. How do you prevent hydroids? Can you? Or is it better left out?
-Excellent water quality goes without saying. That means do not set up a new tank and expect to own seahorses a week later... :roll:
-They are CITES protected now, so buy captive bred.

What are people's success rates keeping seahorses, has anyone here tried?

Smallest tank size? Well, bigger is better, I always say, but if I had to do it myself, I'd say something between 30-45 gallons or so. But with my reefkeeping mentality, that just seems so SMALL to me.

What do you figure someone's experience level should be before attempting them?

What filtration options exist? I would assume a wet/dry would be about the best option.

What I want is a concise, viable list of options to give people who are interested in keeping these fish. Up until now, I have done my best to talk newbies out of it, but I have had some interest from experienced people and I want to be able to give them advice from a reputable source...you guys. :twisted:

 

[Anonymous]

My wife is crazy about seahorses but I refuse to keep them until I have lot more experience in saltwater but one site i looked at was helpful.
http://www.seahorse.org/cgi-bin/faq/smartfaq.cgi Hope that helps some.

 

[danmhippo]

Whew..... that is definetly not just a few questions!

I will try to answer to the best of my knowledge. For even better help, you could go up to www.seahorse.org

I believe you need to feed them an average of four times a day. Live foods are better, obviously. Which types of food are best in your opinion? How would the average fishkeeper go about culturing live food for their pet seahorse? What have people had success with? Or is mysis shrimp soaked in Selcon good enough option?

It's not how many times a day, it's how much. Seahorse has very short digestive tract, which means poor digestion. Food often go through their body without complete digested. That's why they really need large quantity of food every day. In their natural environment, they are foraging for food constantly. For a typical 4" length Brazilian seahorse, they could consume as much as 20-40 ghost shrimps per day.

They have poor eye sight, neither are their sense of smell. Food literally need to be quite close to them for seahorses to notice it. Obviously, live food will be able to attract their eyes better than frozen food. Most seahorses are wild caught, which means they have already trained to only take live food. To be able to keep seahorses alive in the long run, you will either have to train it to take frozen food, or you will have to be able to provide them with nutritious live food.

The most common live food among the aquarist is brine shrimp, but unfortunately, it is the poorest in terms of nutritional value. Unless the brine shrimp has been gut stuffed with something nutritious (Note, it's gut fed, not simply coated), otherwise feeding on brineshrimp alone seahorses will die pretty soon.

What I have used successfully is ghost shrimp. FW ghostshrimps can stay alive in SW from a couple of minutes to about 4 hours, making them a good candidate for seahorse. There are also SW ghost shrimps available in the trade, but the price is significantly much higher and only a few people I know of that carries them. These people do not farm these SW variety of ghost shrimp, but instead they sein them along the coastal marsh. I typically order 1000 to 2000 shrimps per shipment, and that will last my seahorses for about 2 weeks, roughly.

Another good food is brine shrimp cultured in phyto plankton. But there is alot of hassles involved with this method, I doubt newbie has the capacity to do this.

Some have tried with new born molly or guppy, which will stay alive in full strength SW as well, but I find them stay too close to the surface, which seahorse usually do not go near, and these fish fry are simply too fast for the seahorses.

Frozen food, I would only recommend PE MYSIS.

They need to be kept in a species tank, as other fish will outcompete them for food. No brainer, but someone always comes along that has to add something else to their tank...is there a problem with adding snails, starfish, corals? Recommendations?

Corals should be avoided as some corals can severly sting seahorses. Seahorse is not a fast swimmer, and if attacked by corals, some gets injured either with direct contact with some corals, or gets scratched on LR in its attempt of fleeing away.

Which leads me to my next question...live rock. How do you prevent hydroids? Can you? Or is it better left out?

Hydroid is not that much of a problem. LR is very good, but one should try to provide as much LR in the slender shape as possible for the SH to grab onto. Tankmates should not be any fast moving critters. So snails, sea cucumber, sand star, clams, urchin, small goby, pipe fish (same requirement as seahorse), angler fish...etc should be fine. Things seemingly docile, but should be avoided are shrimps, crab, corals, anemone, wrasse...etc.

What are people's success rates keeping seahorses, has anyone here tried?

Typical success rate is very poor. Most died due to ignorance, starvation, and illness.

Smallest tank size? Well, bigger is better, I always say, but if I had to do it myself, I'd say something between 30-45 gallons or so. But with my reefkeeping mentality, that just seems so SMALL to me.

LOL! That depends on how many to keep. Seahorse tanks, unlike most reef tanks, should better be taller than wider. Seahorse swims erect, and also if you have mated pair, their mating ritual include swims up and down. It is recommended tanks' height should be at least 3x their body length. People typically keeps 2 pairs as pets, and a 20G tall should be a good size. Tanks any larger will look very empty, too small, well, the height requirement will be hard to meet.

What do you figure someone's experience level should be before attempting them?

I would only recommend to someone with at least a year or two experience with reef tanks. Someone that has successfully kept a thriving reef tank should be good enough, and knowledgeable enough to know how SW system work, and how to keep water quality high. Come to think of it, let's make it 7-9 years of reefing experience............

What filtration options exist? I would assume a wet/dry would be about the best option.

Any filtration as long as you can keep water clean and clear. Seahorses are like typical fish, are not too sensitive to nitrate.

 

[Anonymous]

Wow, thanks! For some reason, the stinging corals didn't even occur to me. Yet, I won't even own a galaxy coral...too stingy. Go figure. Thanks, you have given me some excellent points to ponder and replies to give out

Njord, I will read the link you posted, thank you!

 

[Mihai]

So snails, sea cucumber, sand star, clams, urchin, small goby, pipe fish (same requirement as seahorse), angler fish...etc should be fine.

You're pulling my leg.. angler fish? Wouldn't it snack on the ponies?

Also, the hex tanks are fairly tall and I think that would make nice hippo displays...

Good luck,
M.

 

[danmhippo]

Hehehe...... that depend on how big of an angler you get........

The main point, however, is docile, slow moving non-stinging, no dashing back and forth tank mates only.

 

[Anonymous]

No dashing! No dancing! No, absolutely NO prancing! Seahorses are zen-like.

 

[abozoki]

As someone with 2 reef and 2 seahorse tanks I can say that the horses are just not that much harder, except that you need to feed 2X /day. I wouldn't try wild caught, which can be much harder to feed. Aptasia is a big problem in the tanks.

We keep H kuda, H reidi, and H erectus