Pre Seahorse Prep

[MaggieH]

Hi all,

Hope everyone is keeping safe.

One of the main reasons I decided to get a saltwater set up is becuase my ultimate goal is to have a tank dedicated to Seahorses.

Can anyone give me any pointers on the best preps I can do to prepare for my new babies?

A bit of info on the tank. It orginally housed my 2 baby clowns, who are now in my 150ltr. Tank size is 90 ltrs and has been running for 6 months, however most of the time there has only been some mushrooms living in there. I have treated the tank like there has been things in it meaning that I have dosed it with Gen-m it has been topped off and 20% water change every other week on this one.

I have been reading a number of articles, but I would like to have some insight form someone that keeps them

 

[rayjay]

First of all, the tank is smaller than recommended for best chances of success. Recommended would be 115L for ONE pair of standard sized seahorses. While it has been done, the odds are against it without the keeper knowing exactly what the extra work required would be and doesn't slack off. Many more failures than successes I'm afraid.
As for insight from someone that keeps them, usually the articles you come across are written by seahorse keepers and you will find a variety of opinions based on their individual experiences or their interpretations of basic needs.
Unfortunately there is still a lot of "old school" information out there that should have been updated but hasn't. (like that seahorses NEED low flow or with smaller recommended tank volume)
There is a LOT of information in the stickies at the top of this forum and you can go through those for the widest variety of opinions.
Best when starting out to adhere to recommendations shared by the majority of long term keepers and then after you have a year or so of experience maybe you may try other things.
To start off with, keeping seahorses is unlike keeping ANY other marine fish.
Their number one problem is their susceptibility to disease from nasty bacteria that other marine fish would handle without problems. As such, we need to keep the temperature down (20-23°C) and because NO test kits are available to the hobbyist to tell you when the water quality has degraded in the way bacteria love, we have to be preventative in our husbandry and water change volumes and frequency. All the standard test kits normal to salt water hobby are NOT sufficient for this purpose and usually all test fine but in fact the water quality is such that nasty bacterial spread is imminent.
Seahorse digestive tracts are very rudimentary and have no stomach. They would normally feed constantly in the wild but in the tanks that isn't practical.
It's MY opinion, that PART of the poor immunity of seahorses in tanks is do to the normal feeding regimen found in the hobby.
It's hard to feed many times a day so it ends up with the seahorses being fed too much at a time and that results in the food being pushed through the rudimentary digestive tract at a pace that nutrients are even harder to be used than normal.
Some time ago I made the move to feed 4 times a day, and to only feed what they can consume in about 10 minutes, 15 at most.
While my results are not scientific and are anecdotal, I'm satisfied that the seahorses are fuller bodied and I know that I don't have problems like I had for over a decade in my earlier years.
IMO it would help even for those that can't spread out 4 feedings a day, to even feed twice before work, about a half hour or more between the feedings but feed less than you normally would. Then after work you could again do two split feedings spread apart as far as you could. In this way, it slows up the food movement through the digestive tract allowing for more nutrients to be taken up by the seahorse.

 

[MaggieH]

First of all, the tank is smaller than recommended for best chances of success. Recommended would be 115L for ONE pair of standard sized seahorses. While it has been done, the odds are against it without the keeper knowing exactly what the extra work required would be and doesn't slack off. Many more failures than successes I'm afraid.
As for insight from someone that keeps them, usually the articles you come across are written by seahorse keepers and you will find a variety of opinions based on their individual experiences or their interpretations of basic needs.
Unfortunately there is still a lot of "old school" information out there that should have been updated but hasn't. (like that seahorses NEED low flow or with smaller recommended tank volume)
There is a LOT of information in the stickies at the top of this forum and you can go through those for the widest variety of opinions.
Best when starting out to adhere to recommendations shared by the majority of long term keepers and then after you have a year or so of experience maybe you may try other things.
To start off with, keeping seahorses is unlike keeping ANY other marine fish.
Their number one problem is their susceptibility to disease from nasty bacteria that other marine fish would handle without problems. As such, we need to keep the temperature down (20-23°C) and because NO test kits are available to the hobbyist to tell you when the water quality has degraded in the way bacteria love, we have to be preventative in our husbandry and water change volumes and frequency. All the standard test kits normal to salt water hobby are NOT sufficient for this purpose and usually all test fine but in fact the water quality is such that nasty bacterial spread is imminent.
Seahorse digestive tracts are very rudimentary and have no stomach. They would normally feed constantly in the wild but in the tanks that isn't practical.
It's MY opinion, that PART of the poor immunity of seahorses in tanks is do to the normal feeding regimen found in the hobby.
It's hard to feed many times a day so it ends up with the seahorses being fed too much at a time and that results in the food being pushed through the rudimentary digestive tract at a pace that nutrients are even harder to be used than normal.
Some time ago I made the move to feed 4 times a day, and to only feed what they can consume in about 10 minutes, 15 at most.
While my results are not scientific and are anecdotal, I'm satisfied that the seahorses are fuller bodied and I know that I don't have problems like I had for over a decade in my earlier years.
IMO it would help even for those that can't spread out 4 feedings a day, to even feed twice before work, about a half hour or more between the feedings but feed less than you normally would. Then after work you could again do two split feedings spread apart as far as you could. In this way, it slows up the food movement through the digestive tract allowing for more nutrients to be taken up by the seahorse.

Hi RayJay, thank you for your response. I did find lots of usefull info in the forum. I think I will be delaying getting them untill August when I get my big marine tank. I will be swapping my current tank to a larger one thus freeeing up my 150ltr tank, which is also considerably taller then the one I originally planned to have them in.

 

[rayjay]

Your future charges will be happy with the decision you have made.
I have my barbs in a 150L tank with 75L sump.
Once you are ready to set up the larger tank, I'd recommend starting out with EVERYTHING sterile. That means rock, sand bed if planned, hitching filters and anything else in contact with the water. Then add the water to the sterile system followed by an ammonia source. (I use ammonium chloride but you can use household ammonia as long as there are NO other things added to it, much faster than adding a food source to decay and then produce the ammonia)
Once your testing has shown the cycle to be complete, then challenge the system by adding ammonia again to reach 3-4ppm of ammonia and then see if it clears overnight. If it doesn't clear that fast, continue the cycle a bit longer and repeat. If it DOES clear, you are pretty well good to go.