Thinking about setting up a sea horse tank.

[Lucid Mind]

When I have had my 75g up and running for, at very least, a year, I was thinking about starting up a tank for a solitary sea horse. Now, I lack huge amounts of knowledge on the matter of keeping one, so I was wondering if one of you guys could help me out. here's my list of questions.

1. what is their minimum tank size (and preferred size)
2. what temperatures do they thrive at (I know it's lower than most reef tanks)
3. What do they eat (shrimp of some kind, right? possibly brine.)
4. what is their life expectancy. I'm going to college, so I have three years, or I'll just wait until I'm out of school.

If you have anything else to add, helpful little tidbits and such, they'd be greatly appreciated =]

[JGard]

Go to seahorse.org to get some good answers.

My gf just started a tank for small seahorses. Basically, you never want to buy only one, get a pair at least.

Second, they like tank height more than anything, so for a small species, a 15hex or 20H would be fine.

They should eat mysis, but you have to feed them every day, they process food very quickly.

But yeah, they're cool, but they're a lot of work.

[Torno]

Hello I agree go to seahorse.org it is the BEST! But, I'll try to be a little helpful to you:

1. That depends on the species. I keep two erectus in a 30 gallon X tall with a few other docile fish. Once again if you can narrow down your choice of seahorse I can be a little more exact.

2. That also varies on species. Some like capensis and abdominalis (potbellies) need temps in the 60s. Erectus will do find at 74-76. Just don't let it get up to 80 for too long, its easy for bacterial problems to form.

3. Juvie and adult horses should not be fed brine. Frozen mysis of either Piscine Energetics or Hikari brand is fine. Brine shrimp is the nutritional equivalent of eating celery every day. Captive bred specimens should be on frozen shrimp.

4. That also varies with species. I've read that erectus can live up to 7 years with good care, where as dwarfs max out at 1-2 years.


I hope that gave you a little bit of information. Once again I urge you to visit seahorse.org, its absolutely WONDERFUL!

Wishing you a nice day--
Neil

[Fishfreak218]

3 good sources of CAPTIVE BREAD Seahorses (do NOT get Wild Caught seahorses.. which is most likly what your LFS has)...
www.seahorse.com (oceanrider)
www.seahorsesource.com
and another one called Dracomarine.. but i dont know thge website.. you can ask that on the seahorse and pipefish forum here on rc.com or on www.seahorse.org