sea horse / reef .... sea horse / reef ??????
 

So I want a reef tank full of beautiful corals and clams ... my wife loves sea horses and would like some in there ... now I've been told by the LFS .. do one or the other NOT both ..

my question is .... WHY ?

why cant I have both ? I understand they are timid and shouldnt be around larger more aggresive fish but why not in a reef ?

You can do both but you are very limited on what kind of reef you can/should do with Sea Horses. They need very low flow, so that rules out sps mostly. You could do a planted tank kind of reef with macro and soft corals that don't need much flow like mushrooms, some leathers, ect. Some LPS do fine in low flow too.

I've got a 28 gallon bio cube that I've modified so it has a sort of spray bar coming off the main return pump. That disperses the flow enough so that the seahorses aren't going crazy but has allowed me to keep Ricordea, Mushrooms and some zoas in there with no problem

Plus you have to make sure you don't have anything that will sting or eat the horses... I don't keep them but from what I understand they aren't very "quick" heh

I once read a book that said sea horses live their lives with a "kick me" sign on their backs :lol:

:rofl:

yeah, my guys aren't the brightest. But I do hand feed them Mysis.

LOL .... well since you put it that way ... LOL

my wife is out of luck ... sorry hunny , no horses ...

Ah, is that what the sign says on my seahorses? I couldn't read the fine print ;) LOL

Yep, they are very slow moving critters. But I wouldn't trade them for a reef ;)

I keep my seahorses in a dedicated refugium type tank with only a few small fish, like a jawfish, redstripe goby, leopard wrasse, 6 line wrasse & yellow canary wrasse. They have slow flow, lots of prolifera macroalgae & other algae for swimming through & hanging on to. They also get target fed with mysis & plankton several times a day (I work at home).

For people unable to give them something similar (in terms of passive tank mates, macroalgae forests & slow flow), then keeping seahorses are probably not ideal for their tanks. Remember that with seahorses, overfeeding is almost a given, considering how glacially slow they are at feeding and that will lead to blooms of bristleworms &/or flatworms from the excess food. I have a skimmer rated for 250g on that setup and the macroalgae help suck up a lot of nutrients.

Anthony