[Andy94SC]

No posts in here huh?

If the Seahorses alone are not enough for a forum, any thoughts on making this a forum for critters with similar requirements (pipefish, shrimpfish, mandarins)?

Anyway, to get something in here I am posting a short description of what I have going. I have a 50 gallon aquarium, that was my main tank when I got started, I have moved, and moved the tank several times, with only one loss - My first seahorse, a rock fell on it while trying to remove it from the tank during a move. I hadit probably a couple months at the time.

Just over a year ago we bought a new house and moved into that. At that time I got a 125 gallon that I moved all the fish (Lionfish, Desjardin Tang, Snowflake Morray, Tomato Clown, Engineer Gobie, one blue damsel, and more recently, a green bird wrasse All of these weren't in the 50, I had another tank also that has become freshwater) to, except for the Mandarin I have had for almost 5 years now. I must be doing something right, eh?

I got two yellow seahorses last Friday to add to the Mandarin tank along with some peppermint shrimp, and a couple emerald crabs.

I have probably 60 lbs of live rock in there, with at least 2" of aragonite sand.

My biggest trouble with the tank is a lot of hair algae growth. I had it almost cleaned up last year, there was almost none of it for months. Then I added some Calerpa (sp?) and suddenly I had hair algae everywhere again. I am going to try building a BIG skimmer for it to see if that helps. Currently I have two Skilter filters on it.

I was told when I got started that Mandarins only live about 6 months. Obviously that isn't true. The Mandarin was one of the first fish I got, in about Feb 1999. I bought about 50 lbs of live rock right away, for him to feed off. Then I found what I consider to be a secret of keeping these fish, seahorses, and probably any type of fish that needs live food.

Keep shrimp with them, as many as possible. I have used Cleaner shrimp, I like those a lot as they are friendly and active, but expensive. Peppermint shrimp, and Camel shrimp also work. THe shrimp form pairs, and have hundreds of babies every week or so. So every pair of shrimp will hactch out many eggs every week. With luck 4 shrimp would produce eggs twice a week, etc.

 

[ofblong]

wow I did the same thing for my green mandarin. I was told the same by deep sea aquarium when I got my mandarin. I was told that it wont live past 6 months. well its been in tank 8 months now and is still fat and healthy. I have seen my peps carrying eggs many times and have yet to see one live to adult hood. I dont feel as I have enough experience and patience to have a seahorse. My wife would love to have one but I am not ready to try my hand at one. especially at $50/peice. at least thats what I have seen them for.

 

[reddhaus]

cool.....i had never thought of the shrimp theory. Makes sense. My line of thinking was to make sure there were plenty of pods in the tank. Having a good amount of rock for the pods to live/breed/grow. Also haveing a refugium is a big part of it. I plan on getting a mandarin in the near future so i will pick up a few cleaner shrimp for good measure.

 

[Andy94SC]

The two yellow Seahorses were about $26 each. Black ones were a couple bucks cheaper. I see them a lot for about $19. Prices seem to be all over them map. I got the yellows because I had the store feed them, and I picked the two that were most actively eating to make sure they were healthy and willing to eat in captivity. You should always do that with Seahorses, they are very timid, and some are so traumatized by being captured they won't eat. The first one I had, about 4 years ago wouldn't eat if there was someone in the room. If you peeked around the doorway you would see hin eating, but if you walked in the room he would freeze and just watch you rather than the brine shrimp.

I have been buying live brine for now because I don't think there is enough food in the tank for the mandarin and two seahroses naturally, even with my shrimp theory.

Anyway, I have mostly been keeping peppermints($9) lately. The cleaners are just too expensive ($25 - $30 each) You have to look hard to see the babies, they hatch shortly after dark. I see the eggs all the time, but have only seen them hatch a couple times, that is only when I happened to turn the lights on after it had been dark in the room and the aquarium lights had been out for almost an hour on the night they hatched. The problem is the mandarin is usually sleeping when they hatch, so he only gets a few the next day, most end up in the filters. Perhaps I should check for hatchings more often and net them out to keep in another tank....

 

[ofblong]

well you may be able to sell them that way =]. I am not that motivated. as long as my mandarine is healthy im not gonna worry bout it. besides that I believe the mandarin also eats the snail babies.

 

[hjmtv]

I would love to keep horses but I have heard they are very difficult. Is that just myth? I've heard water must be perfect with little variation day to day. Sounds like too much work.

 

[Nowas Reef]

I have a 35 gal seahorse task with 4 yellow H. Erectus. It is my kinda "other tank" to go with my 100gal reef.
We love the horses. They are very tolerant to temperature, water and salinity changes, maybe more than other fish. However, it is well worth getting them captive bred.
Mine eat frozen mysis and enriched brine shrimp. I never have to worry about raising brine, which esentially have no nutritional value and cut the wild caught seahorses life span.
I have never had any problems with feeding mine and when someone comes by the tank they swinm right to the front and "dance."
Seahorses do have some requirements though. They prefer tall tanks, especially the bigger horses. They like at least a 12 hr light cyclye and many other typical reef inhabitants are not good tankmates. They really do better in a species only tank with a cleanup crew.
I am by far no expert but in the time Ive had seahorses (year or so) Ive learned a lot about them and have been very successful......my $.02...Be happy to answer any other questions if someones interested....

 

[Andy94SC]

I don't know if I have ever seen captive bred ones. If I have they weren't specifically listed as such. One of mine seems quite tame like you are describing.

Earlier in the week I was having a hard time finding live brine, they weren't eating frozen brine or black worms. So I cleaned all the filters and collected the copepods in a cup. I fed about a dozen to the first seahorse (the tame one) then I went the feed the other one. It seemed very suspicious of me and the cup, it took about 10 minutes before it looked in the cup and started eating the copepods. It had eaten maybe 5, by then the first seahorse had seen the cup was back, and swam from the other end of the tank, grabbed at my finger with it's tail, pretty much stuck its whole body in the cup and ate the rest of the copepods.

I am hoping they will associate the cup with dinner, maybe then I can get them to start to eat frozen food from it.

 

[Nowas Reef]

it is recommended to develop some sort of "feeding station" for your horses.
if your interested check out seahorse.org.....lotta good info just on seahorse keeping

 

[reef120]

What is going on with the prices of Sea-Horses? I stopped in Pet-Station here in Jackson on East Michigan Ave because they usually get in some nice sea horses.I was thinking about getting a couple for my 18 gallon nano tank and their prices were crazy. They were asking $49 to $69 for one sea-horse!!! I asked them why the price increase and they are saying that the prices of Sea horses are going to increase due to the fact that they will be alomst impossible to inport these to the US. Does anyone know anything about this? Anyone know where I can get captive breed Sea-horses or better prices (Healthy of coarse)??

 

[Andy94SC]

Nowas, that is a very good link. I remember hearing about project seahorse a few years ago. I'm glad it is taking off.

Reef120, As I said Moby Dick in Clarkston/Waterford had several of them for $25 last weekend, they all seemed pretty healthy, all were eating. It's quite a drive from Jackson though. I had heard that Seahorses were going to be protected. The natural numbers of them are diminishing fast. Sadly in part due to the Aquarium trade. Also due to (and this enrages me) due to medicinal use in asia, and hobbie stores. Take a look in a Micheals craft store, they have an isle of ocean type stuff, including a lot of dehydrated seahorses. I am very glad to see that captive breeding is taking off. I had heard of an organization in Europe that was setting up a captive breeding center specifically for the aquarium trade. Someday I would like to try it myself. You should check out www.seahorse.org as posted above for more info.

 

[Nowas Reef]

Some seahorses are already protected and after the first of the year many more will be. That is why prices are so high.
If you want Wild Caught (which I do reccommend against) check out floridacollector.com

Im not sure if theyre in season right now but I dealt with him in the past and hes very informative and prices are cheaper then a lot of places.

 

[Specialk]

Hello there, I also have a sea horse tank. I feed them red shrimp that I order. Brine shrimp is not enough for a seahorse it can starve to death on them. You can get some Ghost shrimp to feed them. They each need a min. 5 per day. That will help with them.
Moby's did say they were getting Guaranteed Not to be cyinide caught horse's in soon. Seahorse's seem to have problems with disease's.
You can also try www.seahorse.org there is tons of Info there.

I also have a mandarine and yes it eats brine, he is in my seahorse tank.

I have a scooter Blenny in my other tank that also eats brine.....whew I feel lucky there.

Hope this info helps a little...

Kaye

 

[Andy94SC]

Here is a quick update on the seahorses. Both are still doing fine. I have tried frozen mysis shrimp, one of the seahorses is eating those fine, the other one is interested, but won't eat them. It will only eat live food, for me that means brine shrimp, or the occasional copepod. I am still trying every night, I spray the thawed Mysis in the tank with a turkey baster to make them look like they are swimming. The one seahorse follows them until they fall to the sand then, moves away and the other seahorse moves in and eats them. But still both seem plump and happy.

I have started on a similar path to my shrimp theory above. I have added a few Black Mollies to the tank. They have been in the salt water for two weeks now and seem to be thriving. As I understand it the breed as much as guppies, or platys, so hopefully they will begin providing live dinner for the seahorses soon. I am a bit concerned on the nutrition of freshwater fish for freshwater (While researching my Lionfish I heard it is unhealthy to feed saltwater fish only freshwater feeders) But I am hoping that by keeping them in salt water and feeding the mollies good marine foods the fry will at least be better for the seahorses than brine shrimp.

 

[Andy94SC]

Another update.

I have since removed the black mollies. They haven't had any babies yet, but are growing quite fat stealing most of the brine and mysis shrimp intended for the seahorses. Since they aren't contributing, and are actually detracting, they are gone.

 

[goldenJ]

I read somewhere to set the mollies up in a breeder (plastic thing that goes in the tank to let water in but keep the mollies seperate from the seahorses). When they have babies then they can get out to where the seahorses are but you don't have to worry about competition. I might try it just because I like to experiment.

 

[Andy94SC]

Good idea with the mollies. For now I have them in another feshwater tank. If they have babies there I will try net them for the seahorses.

 

[mattvc]

Andy, freshwater fish have a higher fat content. I would be like eating candy bars for dinner every day. You'll eventually get fat and have a heart attack. Har har. That's just what I heard.

 

[Andy94SC]

Matt, I have heard the same thing. I am trying to offer them as much variety as possible. They won't be eating just mollies. Ideally I would like to have so much natural food (copepods, peppermint shrimp babies etc) in the tank I would have to even feed them. I think those are probably the most healthy foods, but I know there is not enough in the tank to support the two seahorses, Mandarin, and now a pipefish. So the baby mollies, along with the brine shrimp and mysis shrimp I consider "filler" just so the seahorses are not hungry.

I am also feeding the mollies marine fish food. Hopefully that will boost their nutrition a bit.