Reef Discussion

[Susan Bates]

Hi I need some advise for my mother,She has now found herself alone at the age of 80, and decided to start a hobby, always has liked my tanks, so i am trying to help her, she got her first horse and it got it tail caught in the wave maker,and she rang me at 6 this morning crying her horse was dead, anyway the question is do you need wave makers in their tanks, if so, what should we do to stop this happening again, he was a beautiful little fellow, and also any other advise on them would be appreciated please, as i have only keeper fish and corals

 

[Bdear22]

What size is the return/filter pump? That should be efficient enough just to add oxygen into the tank. Seahorse do not need high flow or lighting and you won't be keeping lps/sps corals in the tank. Just stock the tank with plenty of different types of macro algae and you could add some soft corals. Just make sure the salinity and temperature are correct for the species of seahorse

 

[ReeferRob]

Seahorses need a tall tank Susan and not a lot of flow. They like to go up and down in the water column more than side to side. I wouldn't trust any type of wave maker in a tank with them. They also needs lots of food.

 

[Susan Bates]

Seahorses need a tall tank Susan and not a lot of flow. They like to go up and down in the water column more than side to side. I wouldn't trust any type of wave maker in a tank with them. They also needs lots of food.

Thanks Rob, It is a 120lt tank with only 2 pipe fish in there so far, so i hope should be good, which type of seahorse would you say is the best to start with??

 

[ReeferRob]

The larger ones are much easier to feed Susan. We have an endemic species here in The Chesapeake bay that I'm going to go collect next weekend for M. See if someone there is captive breeding them, they do so much better than wild caught specimens. Once I get a few pairs, then I'll be able to captive breed them myself.

 

[ReeferRob]

seahorse.org is probably the best resource on the net. There are lots of how tos and even videos of surgery being performed on sick seahorses. You'll have to register to access the site.

http://forum.seahorse.org/index.php?&act=idx