[omarizgreat]

hi guys and gals just a couple of questions.

my wife wants me to try to keep seahorses, and maybe pipefish.
i was thinking of trying to switch my 55g reef into a fuge connected to my 90, what would be the most optimal gph waterflow. it would also give my poor mandarins a bigger tank than the 10 they share now. also how many watts of light are we talking about i have 36w on the ten now i was thinking i would need at least one hundred. and are seahorses as difficult to keep as they all say ( they say the same with mandarins)? thanks for any input

 

[cronic84]

Sorry can't give you all the right anwswers but this might help you out. Try this site. I'm in the same spot your in. Just doing all reading up on it befor I jump into it!

http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/dwarfKeeping.shtml

 

[omarizgreat]

thanks for the site i have spent a fair amount of time educating myself on seahorse care. ever since i was in florida and my kids were catching them by the dozen in handfuls of sea grass.
i did't want to take them cause i had not done any reading on them at the time. but since then the biggest prob i've read about is feeding and water quality. I've never had any water probs, and i'm pretty sure they eat the same thing as mandarins(brine shrimp, and pods).

 

[Specialk]

They will also eat ghost shrimp just feed the ghost shrimp something like cyclopeeze first, this will give the seahorses something to hunt.

 

[omarizgreat]

thats funny the only ghost shrimp i have are in the 90 and hunting an almost invisible shrimp don't sound like too much fun i'll have to buy some more.

 

[Specialk]

Its just that they are more filling than brine and when you add the cyclopeeze they will be healthier for them, it may also save your pod population, Seahorses love to hunt. There is a guy at seahorse.org that sells red shrimp those would be the best for them.

Kaye

 

[ofblong]

I would never put a sehorse in a tank that is plumbed into a system with a reef. there are many problems that can occur and the avg reef requires different parameters than a sh tank.

 

[omarizgreat]

i guess i haven't read enough i thought the parameters were roughly the same. but thanks for the heads up. what are some other good fuge fish(besides a couple of mandarins) it will prolly only have 10-20lbs of live rock and the 12 different macros i currently have in the reef.

 

[Kluivertfan2]

I looked into doing this as well since it seemed like a good fit. But most of the responses seemd to say that any flow low enough for the seahorses to live in would make the tank essentially useless as a fuge. And that it would be better just to have two sepearte systems.

 

[omarizgreat]

what kind of water flow is typical in a fuge

 

[ofblong]

what kind of water flow is typical in a fuge

low just how sh's like it. its the other params that are different. like 74 degree water for example compared to the avg reef needing closer to 78 degree water. thats just one example.

 

[omarizgreat]

i was't aware that the temp was that different. i thought the water was alot warmer where we were finding them but oh well.
mandarin tank it is. 55 got to be better than a 10 lol
i was thinking of 100 gph going into the fuge then gravity fed into the tank. would just like to show my fuge in the same cabinet.

 

[ofblong]

i was't aware that the temp was that different. i thought the water was alot warmer where we were finding them but oh well.
mandarin tank it is. 55 got to be better than a 10 lol
i was thinking of 100 gph going into the fuge then gravity fed into the tank. would just like to show my fuge in the same cabinet.

sounds cool =]

 

[Planecrazy]

Answer to flow question:
http://www.seahorse.org/cgi-bin/faq/smartfaq.cgi?answer=1057336594

Answer to temperature question:
http://www.seahorse.org/cgi-bin/faq/smartfaq.cgi?answer=1057341847

Please note that sub-tropical species will do well at 78 deg.

As far as putting them in the fuge....well, 'fuge is short for refugium. The refuge part of that meaning refuge for small pods and shrimp and other critters from predators. Sea horses, albeit slow and methodical, as most definately predators. Kinda defeats the purpose.

I actually have a pair of CB sea horses (h. kuda) in the store that I got from ORA (before the hurricane ). I've learned alot about their care, and they are definately some of the neatest creatures I have. IMHO, I would set up a species tank that is seperate and BUY CAPTIVE BRED. Actually, I don't believe that you can even get wild-caught sea horses any more. I know that none of my dist. have any.

 

[omarizgreat]

yeah i pretty much decided it wouldn't work. just a thought