Seahorse in a Nano - Only fish...
 

okay - I know this is going to get my keister flamed, but I've gotta ask....

WOULD this be possible? It's a 7g bow with a AC500 fuge - I can arrange the rockwork to allow ample space for the lil' guy to move around, and the only occupants would be my sexy shrimp and emerald crab, with some random snails. No aggressive corals (I'll remove the lil' galaxia) and lowish flow, again - adjustable.

I know a dwarf would be more suited, but they're so darn hard to get - and I know seahorses aren't particularly exciting or thrilling, but I love them and would love to dedicate this tank to that.

Thoughts? I'll respect all opinions, so please feel free to share, positive or negative.

danke!

Need to start with what kind of seahorse.

7 gal minibow is not a great tank for any IMO.
Seahorses prefer tall tank, recommend at least three times the height of your full grown seahorse.

Can maybe add more once the kind of seahorse is establishes,

Thanks Paul.

I'm mostly interested in whatever would be appropriate for the tank, I'm afraid it's going to be of the dwarf variety, however those end up being the most expensive and most difficult to get, and also require the most feeding from waht I've understood.

I'm okay if it's only 1 or 2 in total, fine with even 1 as long as they're okay being alone.

Why would you keep seahorses in such a small tank? It's impractical because they need alot more vertical space than a 7 gallon can provide.

Excellent and stable water conditions are also needed, which is something that is very difficult to achieve with such a small tank anyway.

It's not the type of seahorse; it's the type of tank you want to keep them in.

Dwarf seahorses are well know to be successfully kept in very, very small nano tanks, and are not as hard on the system as larger sized.

I was wanting to know of an in-between option if there was one. I know standard sehorses wouldn't, if there are no dwarf-like alternatives, or something that would work in a smaller tank, then that answers my question. But as there are dwarfs that would thrive, it's why I was interested in more info on what could potentially be available.

You do need the height for seahorses. I kept my 2 kuda's in a 15 tall for about 18 months before the male stopped eating and died. Finally got my hands on 2 new kuda's each about 2 1/2 inches long. My old female is about 6 in. long. Moved them all into a oceaniac 29 nano plug and play. Lots of room for them now. Dwarf horses need to be feed live food. Captive breed Kuda, Reidi, Erectus, and Kelloggi will eat frozen mysis. After seeing a couple of horses playing around with each other you would not want to keep only one.

How small can it be while still being sufficient?

It goes without saying that smaller pygmy seahorses would contribute less waste to a tank but I just don't think that your described setup of only 7 gallons would be optimum. However, a nano tank of 10-20 gallons seems more plausible to me, even if it's just a bit more room.

I'm confused about what you're saying because it doesn't seem like you're quite sure if the setup is going to work or not.

For dwarf seahorses I know it would - I've seen many people successfully raise dwarfs in smaller than 7g tanks, due to their tiny size.

As for anything else, I was posting because I wasn't sure it would work, and to find out if there was something equivalent in size to the dwarfs that might be less difficult to get.

http://www.seahorse.org/library/arti...fKeeping.shtml

They're actually recommended to be in a smaller system due to food concentration and ability to care for them.

So in the end:

*Are there other breeds of SH that would work in a nano system
*Are these breeds less difficult to acquire (and by less difficult, this also means cost wise)
*Are there any small standard breeds that would be comfortable in a nano.
*Is it possible to get a small group of dwarf seahorses in without a cost of $400?

If the answer to all of those is no, that answers my question.

Does that clarify things a bit more?

As far as I know, around here, the only ones that we get with any sort of regularity are kudas, erectus & reidis. When wild-caughts were still legal, you might get something more exotic once in a while, but these are the mainstays of the captive breeding & rearing programs. I've never seen any dwarfs offered for sale in the Lower Mainland.

Anthony

Ok - Now to the point, answer the questions asked.

For a nano style tank, you need dwarf seahorses - specifically the H. zosterea, mature size ~1.5" - Yes they need live food but really how hard is it to hatch brine shrimp daily. I have 15 of these in a 7gal minibow and they did fine. Problem was they also come with a short life span of ~2 years in captivity. The down side of these guys is they are readily available in the states and are native to the gulf waters but because of the CITES it is not very practical to import them - hence the high cost expect $35-$45 canadian is they show up.
There are a couple of pygmy breeds of seahorses - they are simply not available and not practical as it's still are not 100% sure what they eat.

Another option for small seahorses are the H. capensis - they reach and mature size of 3-4 inches - downside they are rarely available in Canada and are also a sub-tropic species so a chiller is a must.

Hope that helps.

In my opinion height is more important than width of length in a seahorse tank but mainly for breeding purposes.

The most common and cheapest available seahorse are the H. kudas and they should be kept in a tank of at least 20" in heigth. While I love my biocube29 and its great for my pipefish, I could not recommend it for a long term seahorse tank. But in truth your fish will be the first to let you know if they are unhappy, who are we to judge.

Here is a pic of my minibow with seahorses.

And before anyone asks, no I don't have them anymore - that tank was over a year ago.