32g Macroalgae Seahorse Tank

[saltyponies]

Here is my 32 gallon seahorse tank! There are lots of kinds of macroalgaes in it, snails, hermit crabs, 2 lettuce nudibranchs, a blood fire shrimp, and 2 captive bred male seahorses (hippocampus erectus). There are also galaxy pods and live mysis shrimp in there. I add frozen mysis shrimp and frozen baby brine shrimp every day as well. I also dose with chaeto grow and seachem stability. The tank is still pretty new, just a month old. What do you all think?

 

[LouisianaReef]

I would be very careful with that tank only being a month old.

 

[Propane]

Looks pretty cool.

 

[Northern Flicker]

I'd say it's pretty neat. Best of luck.

 

[shcrimps]

personally i would’ve waited longer to add the horses/shrimp
i let my macro tank go for a month so pod population could stabilize and macros could take hold of the rock/sand
looks good so far but i’d add more microfauna if possible

 

[saltyponies]

Thanks for your replies, everyone! I understand that most would have waited a bit longer before adding the seahorses. I added a jar of pods a couple of weeks ago and have another jar of pods coming in. I do a 30% water change twice a week and I use the tropic marin syn-biotic salt. I also have been dosing with a bit of fritz turbo start at every water change. The biggest struggle I've had is that there was a recent heat wave that spiked the temps and so I am debating on getting a chiller to keep the tank below 74. Specifically, the temp in the tank went up to 80 (which caused a dino bloom?) and I was able to bring it down with fans and evaporation (visible dinos went away when temp went back down). However, the weather shouldn't go above 75 for the rest of the year.

 

[saltyponies]

By the way, the tank was empty for three weeks except for the live sand, rock, dosing of bacteria, and macroalgae. I added the seahorses at the three week mark...

 

[saltyponies]

Here are more pics from today (I figured out how to clean the glass lol). Tested everything on Sunday (nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, calcium, magnesium, ph, alkalinity). All the water params seem to be fine. I dosed a tinyyy bit of iodine yesterday for the shrimp. The seahorses names are Magic and Lucky.

 

[shcrimps]

Thanks for your replies, everyone! I understand that most would have waited a bit longer before adding the seahorses. I added a jar of pods a couple of weeks ago and have another jar of pods coming in. I do a 30% water change twice a week and I use the tropic marin syn-biotic salt. I also have been dosing with a bit of fritz turbo start at every water change. The biggest struggle I've had is that there was a recent heat wave that spiked the temps and so I am debating on getting a chiller to keep the tank below 74. Specifically, the temp in the tank went up to 80 (which caused a dino bloom?) and I was able to bring it down with fans and evaporation (visible dinos went away when temp went back down). However, the weather shouldn't go above 75 for the rest of the year.

opt for a fan before chiller, much cheaper and could solve your problem

and if possible
culturing pods/ mysis would be a great way to ensure they don’t get toooooo hungry

good luck !
tank looks good so far

 

[saltyponies]

opt for a fan before chiller, much cheaper and could solve your problem

and if possible
culturing pods/ mysis would be a great way to ensure they don’t get toooooo hungry

good luck !
tank looks good so far

Ohh good point. I also realized that a chiller wouldn't work because it would trigger the ATO to start filling up the tank once the chiller starts pumping water during hotter periods of the day. I seem to be able to keep them cool by just lifting the lid to the cube with some fans

 

[McCarrick]

Awesome build so far! Where did you get the algae and what kind are they? I've got a biocube and am aiming to do the exact same thing!

 

[saltyponies]

Awesome build so far! Where did you get the algae and what kind are they? I've got a biocube and am aiming to do the exact same thing!

Hey that's rad! Macroalgae/seahorse/biocube are def the way to go! Feel free to message me whenever about your tank.

Here is how my tank looks now. The sponge died when I added seachem phosphate remover chemical media... I took the media out right away when I noticed the sponge was sad, but it never got better. Sadly, the blood fire shrimp also passed away when I started treating the tank for ich and cyano outbreaks. Thankfully, the seahorses seem to be doing well and are very endearing.

You might be able to see that I added a zoanthid coral, and I have a lot of different kinds of snails. I also decided to get a chiller, which has helped immensely to keep the temperature stable at 73-74. I have some mortar coming in soon in order to make a better structure out of those rocks, so they aren't just a pile. I got the algae from https://www.live-plants.com/ and I highly recommend them! I have caulerpa sertulariodes, caulerpa mexicana, caulerpa paspaloids, botryclaudia, (red grape), galaxaura, red gracilaria, and some rooted shaving brush. I feed Hikari/PE frozen mysis 3 times a day. I struggle with the pH getting too low so I add a teaspoon of reef buffer almost every day.

If I could do it all over again, I would definitely have waited longer to add the seahorses as others have said. I would have focused more on making the tank garden as nice it can be while addressing problems as they arise when the stakes aren't so high.

 

[McCarrick]

Awesome! Thanks for the reply! I have had my biocube up and running as a coral qt tank for about 6 months so it's already up and ready and no more coral in it so now it's a blank slate ready for something new!