Starting new seahorse tank!:)

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adamrpostjr

New Member
Hi, im new to the sight!

Right now I am the LFS guy:) so I have a lot of insight on what to do an stuff because for 8 hours a day 5 days a week I take care of fish!

That being said I never set up a tank before!! The store had been up and running for 7 years now and I have been working in fish for about a year and a half.. i'm going to admit that i dont know everything :)

Originally I wanted to set up my reef tank (coral only) no way my girlfriend would let me. when she realized people could keep seahorses she wanted to set up a tank and i told her that if i can have coral i don't care what we put i there as long as its reef safe.

My 30g tank has been up and running for a month and a half.

Right now all i have in there is

35 pounds live sand
7 medium size pieces of life rock

livestock
3 Green Chromis
1 Blue fin watchman goby
1 red banded pistol shrimp (they paired up quickly)

Coral
A couple of zoas that fell off at work that they let me have for free(doing well)
Kenya tree that wasn't blooming at work that they let me have for free(just took in yesterday hasn't opened up much any ideas)

Nice Size cleaner crew.
5 Nassaris snails
2 Turbos
10 blue leg hermits
1 emerald crab
1 sally lightfoot crab


Everything is living and thriving so far! I only had two issues 1 chromis died leaving me with 3 (he was picked on at work so i took him to put him in a more peaceful tank so he was stressed and i think he died from that, and i took in a hurt sand sifting sea star he didnt make i threw his injury sadly he was cool!!

My hardware
Marineland biowheel filter (biowheel is now growing algea:)
Glass lid (to prevent escapes and parrots trying to take a bath)
Powerhead
constant hydrometer
Coralife lighting T5

Was told not to use protein skimmer in reef tank by a couple of regular customers

I added the fish and stuff first to make sure eveything was going to be okay! and it seems to be working out i have a small copepod population (i think) and things are doing just fine

Plan:
Add Rock(not to much because seahorses dont really like it or so i have read)
Boost Copepod population
I want to add a Green Mandarin pair
Last but not least Seahorses

now lay it on me what am i doing right and is there anything i should change?
 
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DaveK

Well-Known Member
Generally your tank is set up fairly well. It is hard to know exactly how much live rock your talking about, since "medium size pieces" means different thing s to different people. Typically you want about 1 pound of LR per gallon of water, so you would want about 30 pounds of live rock.

While using a skimmer is not an absolute requirement, I would say that in a tank your size, and larger, a skimmer is "highly desirable". I would consider the advice you received "by a couple of regular customers" to be incorrect. There are a lot of junk skimmers on the market, especially in the low priced ones. For a 30 gal tank, I'd use an AquaC Remora. There are other good skimmers out there too, but expect to spend about as much as the Remora on them.

Now the bad news.

Green mandarins have very specific feeding requirements in that they require pods to feed on. Sometimes they can be trained to take other foods, but it's no sure thing. The size tank you need to produce enough pods for 1 fish is about 50 gal. For 2 fish you'd need close to a 100 gal tank. I recommend you choose another fish, or if you just got to have them, get a 100 gal or larger tank.

Seahorses also have feeding requirements. They can't swim very fast and they have small mouths. If you want them, they should generally be kept in a tank with no other fish in it, since the other fish will out compete the seahorses for food. You also will need to check the species of seahorses you plan to keep carefully. Many are cooler water species and should be keep at a cooler temp that you would for corals and most other fish. I'd recommend that if you want seahorses, you dedicate the tank to them or set up a second tank.
 
mikecc

mikecc

Member
Step 1: Eliminate girl friend.

And Step 2: Running without a skimmer is a whole nother B.O.W. Can be done. Nothing wrong with it, just takes different practices.
 
nanoreefing4fun

nanoreefing4fun

Well-Known Member
RS STAFF
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to ReefSanctuary, a real Sanctuary of reef forums, with lots of very nice members
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Start a tank thread & share your tank with us so we can follow along, we love pics :dance:
 
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