Interested in Creating a Seahorse tank!

[JonnyF]

Hello everyone. About a year ago I sadly got rid of my 300g Reef tank. Well, I finally got some space and have a 27g cube. I was looking at setting this up for sea horses.

I have 0 experience with seahorses, and don't remember much about them so here are my questions:

1. I have a canister filter with a built in UV. Will this be good enough, or should I look at getting something else? If so what?

2. What kind of Substrate should I be looking at?

3. Live plants? Fake Plants? If so, what kind of plants?

4. Pipefish/seahorses to keep? Recommendations?

5. Lighting I should have? Right now I only have basic lights.

6. Water temperature?



That's about all I can think of for now, any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

 

[ccalvin]

The tank higher and higher is suitable for seahorse.
1. I suggest ATS for the seahorse tank. It can provide the stable and live shrimp to seahorse.
2. clear substrate.
3. Fake colorful plants.
4. up to you.
5. T5ho.
6. 28-30.

 

[vsiege]

1. Seahorses can be kept with a variety of filtration systems. The current filtration you have should be just fine just make sure it turns over enough water per hour (this is available everywhere I just forget at the moment) and more importantly you can adjust the flow or where the return comes out. I find everyone has ideas about how much flow you should really have .... so here is my observations and opinions

a. Have found seahorses 'playing' and 'surfing' in the return current plenty of times. This became habit for some of them, making sure they hit the waves by a certain time everyday. It's awesome to watch.
b. Have also found that some (esp. certain species) enjoy quite time more.... soft to no current/flow.

I recommend you have plenty of soft to minimal flow areas in your setup.... but it's nice to have one source for them to choose to swim in. Though they are not the best equipped swimmers - they'd like to think so.

2. Argronite or medium to fine sand..... make sure it is not coarse..... i'm finding out the hard way.... organic material gets trapped and can lead to tail rot.... bacterial infections

3. Fake plants/coral are a great way to get started. Since you have experience with corals and might be interested in them in the future, go with anything that cannot sting them. They can get stung really easily due the way they are built. Another option is macroalgae. It's great looking too.

4. Any pipefish make great companions to seahorses (same family). While opinion does come into play here in regards to seahorses, I still say whatever species you want, research their individual requirements. Do not overstock the tank (like usual). Look into the Erectus. I can only recommend two places to buy seahorses seahorse.com (ocean rider) and seahorsesource.com ..... Hands down the best. Do not buy wild caught or animals which are babies (below 3"). ou will only regret the headaches to come.

5. Seahorses do not require special or expensive lights, period. In fact, it's thought that too bright, they will become darker and less colorful. PC's are just fine.... or anything else you have lying around.

6. While temp requirements change between species...... its best to try and keep it to 72 - 76˚ F. I like to try and keep it at 74.

Hope that helps.