Sea horses in Red Sea reefer

Burtonboy182 · 04/25/2016, 09:22 PM

Went to my LFS today and they had a bunch of small 2.5 inch sea horses in a Red Sea reefer. The small 34 gallon I think. Awesome tank and idea but seemed like too much flow? Anyone try this and any way to decrease the flow for them?

vlangel · 04/26/2016, 05:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burtonboy182

Went to my LFS today and they had a bunch of small 2.5 inch sea horses in a Red Sea reefer. The small 34 gallon I think. Awesome tank and idea but seemed like too much flow? Anyone try this and any way to decrease the flow for them?

Actually unless the seahorses are getting blown around they like some areas of high, medium and low flow. Sometimes just putting a piece of live rock in an area of flow can deflect it enough to slow it down.

rayjay · 04/26/2016, 09:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burtonboy182

Went to my LFS today and they had a bunch of small 2.5 inch sea horses in a Red Sea reefer. The small 34 gallon I think. Awesome tank and idea but seemed like too much flow? Anyone try this and any way to decrease the flow for them?

If you are seriously interested in seahorse keeping I'd recommend doing a lot of research before committing to the hobby.
Note: a bunch of 2.5 inch seahorses in a 34 g may be alright for short term selling, but really, mature seahorses need at least 30g for a pair of them so the one pair is all that tank will support longterm.
Most of my seahorse tanks have flows in the 20X range with the suggested minimum being at least 10X. The primary condition is that hitching is provided in the various flow areas and that no blast can push the seahorses against anything to damage them.
There is a lot to learn (best done before getting into the hobby) and there are varying opinions on just how to proceed, but there is general consensus on a lot of the needs of the seahorses however you wish to meet those needs.
My personal choice is to use just basic tanks with sumps and live rock for biological filtration. Mechanical filtration should be kept effective yet simple to maintain on very frequent internals as seahorse water needs to be kept cleaner than reef tanks IMO, because of their affinity of nasty bacteria that most marine fish can handle but they can't. Any trapped matter in the mechanical filters, (or even in decor and rocks) provides food and bedding grounds for that nasty bacteria.
At the bottom of "My Thoughts on Seahorse Keeping" there are links to a lot of informative reading on seahorses.

Burtonboy182 · 04/27/2016, 07:31 PM

I personally wanted interested. Im really close with the store and was asking more for the seahorses since it seemed like a little too much flow IMO. If there was something to decrease the flow I was going to suggest it to them.

I kept Dwarf seahorses for about a year. It was a lot of fun and rewarding but a lot of work.

I know LFS do things short term which should be done because they need to put a lot of stuff into a little space.

04/25/2016, 09:22 PM	#1
Burtonboy182 Registered Member Join Date: Sep 2015 Posts: 54	Sea horses in Red Sea reefer Went to my LFS today and they had a bunch of small 2.5 inch sea horses in a Red Sea reefer. The small 34 gallon I think. Awesome tank and idea but seemed like too much flow? Anyone try this and any way to decrease the flow for them?

04/27/2016, 07:31 PM	#4
Burtonboy182 Registered Member Join Date: Sep 2015 Posts: 54	I personally wanted interested. Im really close with the store and was asking more for the seahorses since it seemed like a little too much flow IMO. If there was something to decrease the flow I was going to suggest it to them. I kept Dwarf seahorses for about a year. It was a lot of fun and rewarding but a lot of work. I know LFS do things short term which should be done because they need to put a lot of stuff into a little space.