Quote:
Originally Posted by kien
is everyone setting up (or already has set up) a seahorse tank, or are you just putting them into your mixed reef?? Just curious :-)
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I have 5 tanks set up for seahorses now, with more to be coming online as I increase my herd.
At the moment I have reidi, erectus, comes (tigertails), angustus, and barbouri.
I raised reidi fry that are now just over a year old from fry I got from Triggz when he lived in London.
To expand on the temperature, most of the seahorses available to us are normally found in waters warmer than 74°F in their natural habitats.
Unfortunately, waters of those temperatures are ALSO ideal for the growth of bacteria, like vibriosis for instance, that multiply exponentially with each degree rise in temperature, especially after the 74 mark.
Seahorses are extremely susceptible to these bacterial infections and treatment success is very limited even when caught in time.
Long term keepers on the "org" have found that temperatures ranging from 68° to 74° provide the greatest degree of success, but no guarantee.
Seahorses can withstand low medium and at times, higher flow but need to have all these areas with hitching so that they can choose what they want when they want.
They have limited means of mobility and, moving is very stressful to them as it consumes a lot of energy compared to a normal fish. They can be sucked into power heads very easily unless protected.
Most seahorses can be stressed merely by fast moving fish, and, other fish for the most part will outcompete for feeding as most seahorses are slow, very picky eaters.
That can also lead to water quality issues that without excellent husbandry, can lead to major algal issues or coral problems.
Seahorse should not be kept with stinging corals or with anemones.
Clams sometimes will close up on their tails, causing damage that leads to fatal bacterial infections many times.
Now, all this being said, it is not all the information one needs to know, but just the most important that I can think of based on my research and seahorse keeping over the last many years.
Does it mean you can't keep seahorses in a reef tank setting? NO!! It doesn't mean that, it means that your odds of success are very low and indeed there are horses out there in such settings.
However, for every success, there are many many failures.
Just check around an area selling seahorses to see how many are still there of what has been sold.
These true captive bred ones offer the best chance of success as the ones bred or raised using ocean water, while much cheaper, have the same parasites that wild caught seahorses have and survivability of ocean water raised are normally very poor.
For the best information available for you to give the best care to your new seahorses, go to seahorse.org and check out the extensive forums and the articles in the library and you should have an excellent chance of success with your seahorses.