sea horses in a nano.

[rng_pw]

I have an empty 24 gallon nano cube that I was thinking about putting seahorses in. Is there anyone here who has done it. What was your experience and what would you recommend? What kind of sea horses should I put in there?

 

[maroonytunes]

I have, it was good for about 6 months until cc build up caused serious problems and my tank went south from there. I had hippocampus reidi, always go tank-bred as they are way hardier and most likely eat frozen. The food must be small as they will not be able to tear apart a cube, I would suggest turning the filter off when feeding. Seahorses require a lot of specialized, different care then fish, research a lot and make sure your tank is stable for at least 3 months first. If you have anymore questions, I'd be more than happy to answer them.

 

[rocko918]

For the most part Horses are no harder to keep than any other tank. Just require more food (should be 2x's a day) and a dedicated tank. I would recommend Tank Bred as well. Much hardier, I had 4 hippocampus Erectus in a 30 gallon tall. They were tank bred and i also raised fry. I broke down that tank based on cutting back. I do miss them as they were cool but were a pain to feed 2xs a day.

 

[rng_pw]

what kind of substrate did you guys go with. Did you do much live rock. My wife wants the more natural look. She has been doing more research than I have. I was thinking of putting in a bunch of Gargonians in there but I was'nt sure how that would affect the fish.

 

[rng_pw]

I was thinking of using black sand and I was going to take some of my coral skeletons and die them. Has any one ever died the skeletons? I know that you can bleach them, but I want them to be red.

 

[rocko918]

I had some rock and some branching tonga. Also had a thin layer of crushed coral. Gargonians are fine, some are hard to keep. I never had success with them.

You don't need high light, I just had a orbit with pc's in it. I had zoos on the bottom the tank too.

 

[kerrysroxy]

I would just get nice live sand. I have some links to get lots of macro algae I will find them and post for you. Seahorse's are found in shallow sea beds with lots of sea grass and algae.

some macro need rocks to grow on but less rocks and more plants would be nice for them.

 

[maroonytunes]

I used crushed coral, but would recommend live sand, Tonga branch rock is what I used and a couple larger pieces to build off, the more branches the better. Seahorses like to grab onto the rock with their tails, so the more branches the better.

 

[racermike27]

I have a biocube 29G running with 3 horses.

I am using regular white sand and live rock, with a ball of chaeto tucked into the rockwork. I use a AquaC remora on the back and nothing else for filtration.

The tank houses 2 tigertails and 1 reidi, all captive bred, they are fed twice a day with mysis it is for this reason I opted to add the remora. It helps with waste removal from all the feeding.

The tank also houses 2 purple firefish, 1 yellow watchman goby and a pistol shrimp.

As for corals, I use this tank to mainly house my zoas, palys, rics and yumas. There is also 1 large brain in the mix as well. The tank has been running for quite a while now and I only change the water every two weeks. I usually do about a 2G water change each time. I do occasionally soak the mysis in selcon as well.

Good luck,

Mike

 

[racermike27]

I also forgot to add that the tank is lit by a 150W current fixture, running a 20K bulb.

The tank temp runs at around 78-80 degrees (80 since summer started).

 

[rng_pw]

thanks alot everyone. Like I said the tank is new so every little bit of info I can get is appreciated.

 

[racermike27]

Good luck with the project! Let us know if you have more questions.