Feedback on my set-up? Seahorses arriving Tuesday!

[flsvedlund]

Originally Posted by modder man

WOW! That tank looks incredible I have been planning a very similar build and I think you just made up my mind for sure. Do you have 3 or 4 seahorses in there now?

Thank you so much! Definitely start a thread for your build and let me know if you have any questions at all about mine. I have 4 female H. Erectus now. The last seahorse arrive early last week and has settled in well. She was the final addition to this tank, since I think it would be overcrowded with any additional seahorses. So the final stocking list is 4 female H. Erect and a mated pair of yellowhead jawfish.

[flsvedlund]

[flsvedlund]

I love having seahorses! They are an endless source of adorable amusement. I just finished the bedtime feeding a bit ago and Val was up to shenanigans



Notice her tail is wrapped around Trixie's neck. This is where Val hung out during the entire feeding. It was funny because Trixie just didn't care are all and just kept snicking up her shrimp like she didn't have a seahorse wrapped around her neck.




After I finished feeding, Val was the first brave seahorse to try out the new neon hitching post.

[Rob in Puyallup]

Beautiful!

I love seahorses. Fascinating critters, hard to believe they're fish! I had dwarf seahorses 30+ years ago when you could buy them cheap from an advertisement in the back of Mom's magazine.

[tjdouglas]

You seahorses look great! I see on your Youtube video that you were feeding them one mysis at a time with forceps. Do you always feed them that way? Looks like a lot of work!

[dg3147]

Let's get a new FTS! Are your grogorians all photosynthetic?

[flsvedlund]

Originally Posted by Rob in Puyallup

Beautiful!

I love seahorses. Fascinating critters, hard to believe they're fish! I had dwarf seahorses 30+ years ago when you could buy them cheap from an advertisement in the back of Mom's magazine.

Thank you! They are so intriguing! It is so funny that you could order them from a print advertisement back in the day!

Originally Posted by tjdouglas

You seahorses look great! I see on your Youtube video that you were feeding them one mysis at a time with forceps. Do you always feed them that way? Looks like a lot of work!

Yes, that is how I feed them twice a day, everyday. It only takes about 10 minutes, so its not too much work. I decided to do it that way because it means I don't have to feed extra food that will fall to the bottom and pollute the water. A bit more work up front means less frequent water changes, and less of a struggle to keep pristine water quality. Plus, its fun to interact with the seahorses at feeding time.

Originally Posted by dg3147

Let's get a new FTS! Are your grogorians all photosynthetic?

I'll try to get a new FTS either today or tomorrow. Yes, all the gorgonians are photosynthetic. I do however have two spiral wire corals, which are not gorgonians but people often confuse for gorgonians. One of them is the neon yellow one in last photo I posted. Those are NPS and I feed those a couple times a week. I also have several sponges which I feed phyto a couple times a week.

[Rob in Puyallup]

(What's fts?)

[flsvedlund]

Originally Posted by Rob in Puyallup

(What's fts?)

An abbreviation for "Full Tank Shot"

[Rob in Puyallup]

Oh. Lol. Thanks!

[A_Z]

I love your tank, the seahorses are really amazing, and so are all the corals!

[flsvedlund]

Originally Posted by Rob in Puyallup

Oh. Lol. Thanks!

No problem!

Originally Posted by A_Z

I love your tank, the seahorses are really amazing, and so are all the corals!

Thank you so much! I'm glad you like it!

[flsvedlund]

Just a bunch of new photos of the tank!

[flsvedlund]

[flsvedlund]

The other inhabitants of the seahorse tank - a mated pair of yellowhead jawfish.


Here's a new video of feeding time!
http://youtu.be/2dfYod2L2Xw

[Devaji108]

as always very nice!

[flsvedlund]

Originally Posted by Devaji108

as always very nice!

As always, thank you very much!

[flsvedlund]

Just some quick photos!




ORA Grube's Gorgonian


Toadstool Leather


Yellow Frilly Sponge


Ricordea Garden


Mushrooms


My cat checking out the seahorse


And a new video of the mated pair of jawfish in my seahorse tank.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoOds6Y-BN0

[flsvedlund]

Time for new photos!

New FTS.




New red and yellow finger gorgonians and spiny orange sea rod. The yellow and red fingers finally started having nice polyp extension this evening. Many more polyps were out after this photo when I fed the tank.




Mushroom land!


The zoa rock.


Definitely the prettiest shade of purple of any of my purple gorgonians! You can see the new large yellow ball sponge behind the gorgonian.


The tiny white zoas on my new zoa-encrusted ball sponge started opening tonight!


The mated pair of yellowhead jawfish.

[Hudds]

Great animals, beautiful set up, fantastic photos, bravo!
I aspire having a SH tank and seeing yours is the best motive and inspiration.
What lights are you using? Any special requirements for SH and corals?
What are the tank's parameters and how do you maintain them?

[flsvedlund]

Originally Posted by Hudds

Great animals, beautiful set up, fantastic photos, bravo!
I aspire having a SH tank and seeing yours is the best motive and inspiration.
What lights are you using? Any special requirements for SH and corals?
What are the tank's parameters and how do you maintain them?

Thank you so much! I am so glad that other people appreciate this tank! I'm honored that my tank is an inspiration for you!

Right not I am using an old 20" Coralife 96W quad powercompact fixture. Its not ideal, but it came with the tank which I bought used from a member of my local reef club. I've been saving up and in the next month or so, I will be buying an LED fixture to replace it. My plan is to get the Maxspect Razor Nano 10000K fixture for this tank. The Coralife fixture works great and is plenty of light, but it runs very hot so I have to have two cooling fans on the tank to keep the temperature at 72F. Its also expensive to replace the bulbs on this fixture. Finally, it can only just all turn on and off and once and the drastic lighting change seems to bother the seahorses a bit. The new fixture I am getting will be able to do a gradual sunrise and sunset so that its not just a sudden change in lighting.

There are definitely several considerations with keeping seahorses and coral in one tank. First off is compatibility. You can't keep seahorses with any corals that are sticky, have powerful stings, or are capable of eating slow moving fish. Pretty much all LPS corals and definitely all anemones are not compatible with seahorses. SPS corals can't harm seahorses (except the fire corals), but the seahorses will hitch to them frequently and most SPS corals are too sensitive for that and will lose flesh and end up dying. With seahorses, it is best to stick with softies, macro algaes, gorgonians, zoanthids/palythoas, sponges, etc. Of course there are a few exception. For example, I have some porites (SPS) in my seahorse tank. They don't branch like many other SPS, so the seahorses can't hitch to them and irritate them.

Here's a great compatibility guide for seahorses:
http://www.seahorsecorral.com/Seahorse_Tankmates.html

The other thing to consider with putting corals in a seahorse tank is their flow requirement. It is outdated thinking that seahorses need to live in super calm, almost stagnant water. Your seahorses and your tank will be much healthier with a brisk, moderate water flow. You don't want blasting flow to the point that your seahorses won't let go of their hitches though. Basically, its best to have good moderate flow and set it up so that there are some calmer areas in the tank with low flow where the seahorses can rest. This effects the corals you can have because you can't keep any corals that need super high flow, like some SPS corals. However, most moderate flow corals will do great. Then you can find some corals that only need low flow to put in the calmer areas.

In terms of tank parameters, here's about what they usually are:
Temp: 72 F
Specific Gravity: 1.025
pH: 8.0
Amm: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrates: ~5

The seahorses are messy eaters and have to be fed frequently, so this tank needed good filtration to maintain good water quality. I have a skimmer rated for up to 55 gallons on this tank, a media rack with Chemipure Elite, Purigen, and Phosguard, and I run dual media reactors - one with carbon and one with GFO. I also have a bunch of macroalgaes in the display portion and also in the refugium chamber to help with fixing nutrients. I do a 15% water change every week, or twice a week if needed. Since I do frequent water changes, I don't test for or dose Ca, Alk, Mg, or any of the other trace elements.

This tank is a balance of keeping the nutrients in the system low enough to provide good water quality for the seahorses, but having some nutrients is good because the sponges, macro algaes, and NPS corals in my system filter feed off the nutrients in the water. I also made sure this tank had a very good cleanup crew to eat any leftover food from the seahorses, so it can't decay and mess up the water quality. I've got a lot of snails of different types, hermit crabs, and 3 nano serpent stars which do a great job scavenging for uneaten food.

I hope that helps!

[Devaji108]

^ ah man every time I see your tank I change my new build back to a SH tank...lol but I really want fish movement in the tank. after seeing the fish list you posted a few fish I had planed could go together...
royal grama
fire fish
blennie

grr got me thinking again...but I know most ppl who have keeped SH say they should be in a SH only tank...

how long did you QT your fish and what did you use?

[flsvedlund]

Originally Posted by Devaji108

^ ah man every time I see your tank I change my new build back to a SH tank...lol but I really want fish movement in the tank. after seeing the fish list you posted a few fish I had planed could go together...
royal grama
fire fish
blennie

grr got me thinking again...but I know most ppl who have keeped SH say they should be in a SH only tank...

how long did you QT your fish and what did you use?

Hehe, sorry to mess with your plans! This is why I have two tanks, so I can put the non-seahorse safe things in my other tank!

The firefish would be absolutely fine with seahorses since they're so calm. A smaller less aggressive blenny should also be no issues. I'd recommend a tailspot or a bicolor. The bigger ones like a starry blenny could be a bit too aggressive at feeding time. A royal gramma however, I think is a bad idea. They can get very aggressive and you definitely don't want it attacking your seahorses or hogging all the food. I'd worry the royal gramma might even pick on the firefish. I'd try to stick to calmer fish.

I quarantined my two jawfish in a 10 gallon tank for 4-5 weeks. I treated the tank with PraziPro towards the end of the quarantine period to make sure they didn't have any internal parasites they could introduce to the seahorses. Then when I transferred them to the seahorse tank, I did a 5 minute dip in freshwater with methylene blue to kill off any external parasites. I also kept some Furan-2 antibiotics on hand in case they showed signs of any kind of bacterial infection during quarantine. Its always a risk introducing fish from a different source to a seahorse tank, but I haven't had any issues. I definitely recommend a very thorough quarantine.

[Devaji108]

^ I know I totally need more the one tank...someday i'll have a nice reef a SH and a big butterfly/tang and lg. angle tank. but my place is so small right now the a 40br seams big..haha

the tail spot is one of my fav. bleeny...
I love all the sea whips, gorgonians and sponges had a few in my last take really enjoyed them. going to put a lot in the new tank.
what is your feeding schedule for them again?

[flsvedlund]

Originally Posted by Devaji108

^ I know I totally need more the one tank...someday i'll have a nice reef a SH and a big butterfly/tang and lg. angle tank. but my place is so small right now the a 40br seams big..haha

the tail spot is one of my fav. bleeny...
I love all the sea whips, gorgonians and sponges had a few in my last take really enjoyed them. going to put a lot in the new tank.
what is your feeding schedule for them again?

I've got a small place, which is why I only have two tanks. My 30 gallon mixed reef and my 30 gallon seahorse tank. I can think of so many species specific tanks I would love to have! Haha!

For the photosynthetic gorgonians, I wasn't specifically feeding them, although they nap bits of mysis when I feed the seahorses. I'm still trying to sort out how to feed these new NPS gorgonians I just got. I think I'm going to have to up my feeding to once a day. That probably means more water changes, but that's ok. I alternate between Coral Frenzy food and a mix of cyclopeeze and ova for the NPS gorgonians and the spiral wires. For the sponges, I feed PhytoFeast 3-4 times a week. I have some Marine Snow on order to supplement the PhytoFeast for the sponges.