Anyone keeping seahorses?

[skewch]

I will have an available 29g that I am hoping to use for a seahorse tank. I wanted to know if anyone is currently keeping seahorses and if so, how exactly are you doing it? Where did you purchase your horses from? I have a lot of questions about it. I don't plan on getting horses until I'm confident I have the complete setup.

If anyone wants to answer some questions, that would be appreciated!

Thanks.

[stinga]

I'm purtty sure scary gary still hase a cute little couple of seahores' you might want to try ask him!:new_infin

[skewch]

Oh thanks! Maybe he'll respond right to the posting, I hate to bug him on a PM :) I would love to hear of his experience with them. I have been doing as much reading as I can but I like the hands-on type first hand experience stories :)

[scary gary]

Yes I did have seahorses. Fantastic animals. got my first 2 (females) from saltwater connection. They were captive breed so they will eat frozen mysis. They eat as soon as I got them and were doing great till I decided they needed a male. The male must have had something because a few days after adding him the females developed some kind of skin infection and stopped eating. A week later both were dead. The male died a week later. Seahorses are prone to skin diseases and most keepers have a medicine chest of medications.They also recomend a hospital tank for meds.I did not want to go this route and took a chance. Any one that knows me knows I usually don't follow the recommended way of doing things. Most of the time I have success but not this time.I don't know if I'm willing to become a part time doctor so have not decided if I will try to keep them again. They were neat to watch for the 2 months before I got the male. I would recommend a U.V. sterilizer, something I did not have.As you probably know the water flow has to be more gentle than a normal tank. More water changes. Feedings 2-4 times a day. The mysis should be soaked in selcon, zoecon, vitachem, every so often. Tank mates have to be easy going as to not hurt the horses or eat all the food before the horses as they are very slow eaters. Corals have to be chosen very carefully as some will sting they horses as they try to grasp on to the coral. Good luck and happy to answer any questions to the best to my knowledge that you may have. I'm no expert on these fasinating creatures.

[stinga]

I had picked up a pipe fish from cowtown a few monthes ago,had in a 10 gal mini tank, it did very well for a couple of months as well,I was feeding it the frozen mysis shrip and rotifers,the species was a tahiti dragon,One morning i woke up and he was stuck by the head between some liverock and the glass:boohoo: ....he died .Tobad!

[Caelan]

http://www.seahorse.org/

[skewch]

Scary Gary, thanks for replying to my post! If you don't mind, how much did you buy them for? I looked at swc and they don't have any listed. j&l has them listed blk ones for 19.99 each, but didn't say if they are wild caught or captive bred. I know that captives are better to keep as they are easier to feed frozen foods. I don't have a UV sterilizer..yet LOL Our freshwater fish that are in the tank are going buh-bye this week so I will have plenty fo time to fix up the tank how I want it. What did you have in there for hitching? I have no idea how to landscape, so if you have any pictures of your set up, that would be really nice to look at. I almost want to go all fake LOL. I have seen some pictures online of nice horse tanks with sea grasses, but I wouldn't know the first place to buy those. Any advice is greatly appreciated :) Thanks alot!

[Invigor]

I believe all seahorses are captive bred as it's illegal to catch them from the wild.

[scary gary]

All horses are now suppose to be captive bred. s.w.c. charged 50.00 for the females and then 80.00 for the male. That 19.99 is an old listing for wild caught. J&L has not had any for quiet some time. You can expect to pay between 40.00 and 100.00 a piece depending on avalibility and type. Seanic aquariums out of Ontario is selling horses. I could never reach any one, and they didn't return my calls. 519-820-4546. Any long type of fake coral or sea fans make good hitching posts. longer types of caulepra (cactus) is also great if you have enough light to grow it.

[skewch]

Thanks for that info. I had a sneaky feelilng that 20 bux was not right. Was it a lot of work for you to keep these guys? I am not interested in breeding them, I think I would get no sleep worrying about them all the time. Plus, I don't think I really want to hatch brine shrimp daily...that would most likely be a pain. I can handle feeding more frequently during the day if they at the frozen stuff. How often did you do water changes? and how much did you change out? Just curious as this would be probably my responsibility and I need to know what I'm in for. How did you keep your temperature down to a lower place? What kind of lighting is necessary? I know if I'm not keeping much for corals if any that I don't need much, but I think my tank is just flourescents that came with it.

Thanks for answering my questions..it sure helps!

[scary gary]

It was work but not alot. These creatures are worth the work. They just don't seem like fish. Watching the two play and horse around (haha) was neat. My horses eat frozen mysis, frozen plankton, and frozen brine. They prefered the mysis. I had a 15 gal. tank and did 5 gals every 2 weeks. The tank stayed cool at about 75-78 degrees as there was only an emporeor filter creating heat. I did leave the lid open which probably helped. If you place is not air cond, you may have to put a fan blowing on the tank to help keep it cool in the summer. lighting is up to you, but the stronger the light the warmer the tank. I ran an incadecent hood with 2 screw in power compacts. It will help if you have 15-20 lbs. of live rock as the horses will hunt for amphipods and copods. I feed my horses with a turkey baster . I would mix the frozen mysis with some aquarium water in a glass then suck up the mixture and hold the baster by the horses. That way only a few will slowly drop out the end or I can squeeze out faster if they are eating them fast enough. This method makes sure they are eating the food and its not just sinking into the rocks, as they are very slow eaters. It took about 10 min. to feed them. When I was in a hurry I would just dump the mixture in the tank and let them chase the food. Some hobbyists train their horses to eat out of a dish that they put in the bottom of the tank. I did not get that far. Although I have trained my hawkfish and lionfish to go into a net. Wish I'd trained all the fish to do that as it makes it easy to capture them.

[skewch]

Thanks for your input! I wonder if it's ok to take a few pieces of LR out of our main tank to put in the 29g, I just don't want to buy any more LR and have to cycle it. What kind of sand is best? I could buy more sand and seed it with our sand from our tank. We don't have a sump or anything, so I have no macroalgae to put in a seahorse tank, but I'm sure if that's something I should have, I could buy some from somewhere I'm sure. Did you cycle your tank? Should a person wait a few months to put horses in after new water?

I currently feed the main tank with a turkey baster, and all the fish know food is coming when they see the baster when I get water to mix with the frozen food. I do the feeding around here so this wouldn't be much more work to do that as well. I don't mind doing it, it's fun to watch.

How well did the horses ship to you? I assume they come on the plane and that there are certain acclimation procedures. What was their temperment when you got them? What color were they? I have no idea about the species and different colors, I just want some LOL

Thanks again for answering my questions. Some of them may seem strange, but I want to know exactly what to do before I screw up.

[scary gary]

Yes I did cycle the tank. I had mine going for about 3 months before I was able to find some horses. Mine were black. You probably will have to accept whatever color is out there as it's not easy to get these guys. I've seen some neat colored ones but they are all in the states. Yes you can take live rock from another tank, that is what I did also. They seemed to ship pretty good, but they only came from Winnipeg. They were a little shy at first but eat right away. I would set up the tank and get it cycled and aged a bit, that way every thing is ready when you find your horses. I can't remeber if I told you that mine were yellow kuda's, even though tey were black. Horses can change colors to a certain extent to match their enviroment, that's why they say to have bright colors in the tank.

[skewch]

Thanks! I will probably have to wait then on getting them. I contacted SWC and they have Kudas in stock right now. I don't want to rush anything, just like the reef tank. Thanks for your input, I might have more questions for you at a later time LOL

[Cutter]

I noticed Wai's aquarium in Calgary has Sea Horses in stock right now.

They were black also.

[skewch]

Do they have a website or is it just local pick up?