Biocube 24 and Seahorses

[ReeferReefer]

I have a spare biocube 24 sitting around and was thinking of doing a softie seahorse tank. I've never kept seahorses before so I'm wondering what variety would work.

 

[James M]

https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/seahorse-pipefish.377/
Look at all the sticky threads

 

[Peace River]

I have a spare biocube 24 sitting around and was thinking of doing a softie seahorse tank. I've never kept seahorses before so I'm wondering what variety would work.

I have kept seahorses and currently keep pipefish and they are amazing and fascinating creatures. The link provided in the post above should give you plenty of ideas to answer your question as well as an understanding of the different flow requirements (amount and direction). Remember that seahorses need live food as part of their diet so you will likely need to establish a second hobby of raising live foods. It is certainly possible to raise the food (I do it), but it does require additional time and commitment. Good luck!

 

[Lucie]

No, seahorses don t need live food. Captive bred eat frozen food.
24g is too small for seahorses, and you will also face temperature issue because of the top

 

[James M]

No, seahorses don t need live food. Captive bred eat frozen food.
24g is too small for seahorses, and you will also face temperature issue because of the top

There’s a difference from captive bred and wild caught

 

[Peace River]

No, seahorses don t need live food. Captive bred eat frozen food.
24g is too small for seahorses, and you will also face temperature issue because of the top

@Lucie, I will gladly defer to your expertise. I should have said that I kept/keep seahorses and pipefish successfully with a mix of live and frozen foods. Admittedly, most of my experience is with wild caught species. Would you agree that it is helpful to have some light upwelling current to keep the frozen food suspended in the water column?

 

[Lucie]

I m a seahorse and pipefish breeder, also in Florida, with an aquaculture permit myself. My breeders are all WC, and converted to frozen by myself (which takes about 3 days).
I used to collect live food every single day, as i live right on the water but i don t do it anymore. My breeding stock still have sometimes a load of live food.
Most of the commercial breeders never use any live food, exept for gutloading with medication. They have old seahorses (10+ years) that still thrive only on frozen food.
No or low flow is the worst to recommend in a seahorse tank, it s recommended to have a minimum of 10X per hour, most seahorse keepers beeing at 20X.
Depending on the tank rock scape, it could be usefull to have a upwelling current, but anyway that should be the case, feeding or not, to help in gaz exchange imo.
Unless in bare bottom tank, i don t broadcast frozen, to help in nutrients control. I also have a very few CUC, as my adults eat hermits, saome snails and about everything that is small and move.

 

[Lucie]

There’s a difference from captive bred and wild caught

Yes,

-Wild caught would need months of QT, deworming in 3 phases, they will need to be converted to frozen food, need to adjust to captive environment and during that period they can be very prone to diseases, especially bacterial infection, and parasites like ciliates

-Captive bred eat already frozen, and are healthy and free from parasites, they don t hide until they adapt and stress way less than the wild ones.

Also, due to habitat loss, it should be time to stop encourage harvesting of wild caught seahorses and promote aquaculture and a sustainable source.

 

[Lucie]

I have kept seahorses and currently keep pipefish and they are amazing and fascinating creatures. The link provided in the post above should give you plenty of ideas to answer your question as well as an understanding of the different flow requirements (amount and direction). Remember that seahorses need live food as part of their diet so you will likely need to establish a second hobby of raising live foods. It is certainly possible to raise the food (I do it), but it does require additional time and commitment. Good luck!

What food are you raising?

 

[ReeferReefer]

I was planning on captive breed. I was planning on doing 3 feedings of frozen per day.

I thought that there was a variety of dwarf seahorses that could work in the tank?

If not I could convert my current 90 gallon reef tank into a Sea Horse tank or get something like a 60 gallon?

Im trying to downsize so what's the smallest tank you'd recommend for a pair of captive breed sea horses? Any favorite breeds?

 

[ReeferReefer]

No, seahorses don t need live food. Captive bred eat frozen food.
24g is too small for seahorses, and you will also face temperature issue because of the top

I was going to de rim the tank and run a fan over it with ATO. I don't want to give them a poor home though so Ill either get a bigger tank or rethink my stocking options.


Any suggestions on good stocking options for this tank. I wanted sea horses because I can get them captive breed. I had a massive tank Wipeout a few months back and I don't want to use wild collected animals any more. I am downsizing my 90g softie tank into this JBJ Nano Cube 24.

 

[Peace River]

I m a seahorse and pipefish breeder, also in Florida, with an aquaculture permit myself. My breeders are all WC, and converted to frozen by myself (which takes about 3 days).
I used to collect live food every single day, as i live right on the water but i don t do it anymore. My breeding stock still have sometimes a load of live food.
Most of the commercial breeders never use any live food, exept for gutloading with medication. They have old seahorses (10+ years) that still thrive only on frozen food.
No or low flow is the worst to recommend in a seahorse tank, it s recommended to have a minimum of 10X per hour, most seahorse keepers beeing at 20X.
Depending on the tank rock scape, it could be usefull to have a upwelling current, but anyway that should be the case, feeding or not, to help in gaz exchange imo.
Unless in bare bottom tank, i don t broadcast frozen, to help in nutrients control. I also have a very few CUC, as my adults eat hermits, saome snails and about everything that is small and move.

This is good information - thank you for sharing! You clearly are passionate about what you do and I look forward to learning from you.

 

[Lucie]

I was planning on captive breed. I was planning on doing 3 feedings of frozen per day.

I thought that there was a variety of dwarf seahorses that could work in the tank?

If not I could convert my current 90 gallon reef tank into a Sea Horse tank or get something like a 60 gallon?

Im trying to downsize so what's the smallest tank you'd recommend for a pair of captive breed sea horses? Any favorite breeds?

Dwarfs are, in fact, are hard to take care. They need constant amount of live food but don t tolerate bad water quality. They need daily bbs hatching (decapsulated cysts are better, also artemias franciscana are better than the classic artemias salinas), bi-daily BBS enriching...They are really small, muuuch more than people think, and a 24g would be way to big, unless you have like 500 of them. Also the type of filtration of a biocube is not recommended for a dwarf tank.

Mature male in my hand

My daily schuledule for dwarfs is to do a 50% waterchange daily just after a compete scrubbing of the tank, and a tank switch every 5 days (meaning complete desinfection of the tank)
It s not easy to get the right dosage of live food, and to manage live food stay in the tank uniformaly but not swallowed by filtration.

90g would be very good for seahorses, the bigger is always the better : more stable parameters, more choice of tankmates and rockscape/decor, more possibilities regarding the number of seahorses...
60g is actually what i have as seahorse DT. Nothing fancy, cheap equipment, but it works.
The smallest would be 30g but honestly 40 is imo the minimum. 55 is pretty much the perfect size to start seahorse : you can have more than a pair, add tank mates, have enough room to make something confortable and neat, and more easy to handle than smaller volumes, as seahorses are huge poop factories, and they digest their food quite supercially, resulting in adding a big load of nutrients in the water.
About the breed, so far i only keep erectus (lined seahorse) and zosterae (dwarf seahorse). Everybody agree to say that the specie which is the most hardy and easy is erectus. They are also very familiar and not picky eaters.
You can find some pictures of mine here :
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/lucies-seahorses.323626/

 

[Lucie]

This is good information - thank you for sharing! You clearly are passionate about what you do and I look forward to learning from you.

Well it depends what you like... I would personally just put an anglerfish inside

 

[Lucie]

A small inside of what erectus look like :

 

[ReeferReefer]

A small inside of what erectus look like :

So I should be looking for a minimum of 30-40 gallon tank for a pair of erectus then?

 

[ReeferReefer]

Dwarfs are, in fact, are hard to take care. They need constant amount of live food but don t tolerate bad water quality. They need daily bbs hatching (decapsulated cysts are better, also artemias franciscana are better than the classic artemias salinas), bi-daily BBS enriching...They are really small, muuuch more than people think, and a 24g would be way to big, unless you have like 500 of them. Also the type of filtration of a biocube is not recommended for a dwarf tank.

Mature male in my hand

My daily schuledule for dwarfs is to do a 50% waterchange daily just after a compete scrubbing of the tank, and a tank switch every 5 days (meaning complete desinfection of the tank)
It s not easy to get the right dosage of live food, and to manage live food stay in the tank uniformaly but not swallowed by filtration.

90g would be very good for seahorses, the bigger is always the better : more stable parameters, more choice of tankmates and rockscape/decor, more possibilities regarding the number of seahorses...
60g is actually what i have as seahorse DT. Nothing fancy, cheap equipment, but it works.
The smallest would be 30g but honestly 40 is imo the minimum. 55 is pretty much the perfect size to start seahorse : you can have more than a pair, add tank mates, have enough room to make something confortable and neat, and more easy to handle than smaller volumes, as seahorses are huge poop factories, and they digest their food quite supercially, resulting in adding a big load of nutrients in the water.
About the breed, so far i only keep erectus (lined seahorse) and zosterae (dwarf seahorse). Everybody agree to say that the specie which is the most hardy and easy is erectus. They are also very familiar and not picky eaters.
You can find some pictures of mine here :
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/lucies-seahorses.323626/

I found a 19 1/2 w, 24 L, 16 1/2 T 30 gallon in my area. Still a bit small for a pair of erectus?