Tank Journal Archive

[Agent M]

After getting bored with my 28 litre I decided to turn a 4 foot tank we had stored in the shed into a seahorse tank. Fill date was August 2007. I got base rock and added a few pieces of live rock to help cycle the tank. In hindsight - I would have started with a small amount of live rock and added it slowly over time as I could afford it. It has taken years for all the rock to look the same.

Equipment wise I purchased a second hand HOB refugium. I also experienced the pleasure of being deceived and ripped off by a dodgy, short lived business called Truly Fish who approached me via PM on another forum. They were sponsors too - something I am very glad The Reefuge is selective about ;) They offered me a package deal - after a lengthy discussion re: my needs, the quality and product details, I spent $800 only to have it arrive on my door step literally thrown into an oversized box. The 'light unit' turned out to be a dodgy reflector and 2x T5 tubes, which were unpackaged & broken. I also received a cannister filter that made such a loud obnoxious noise it was on for all of 5 minutes & never used again. I contacted the sales guy who had been so helpful and he told me I was not eligible for a refund. Being younger I then dropped the issue and moved on - now I would separate their heads from their necks!

A painful lesson learnt... Grrr

On to the good stuff though - I got a pair of Kuda seahorses from Aquatic Pets in Belgrave (now closed down). At $75 each, I received a $75 discount by trading in my 2 stinging corals which went in to the shop owners personal tank :p

By September, this was where the tank was at:

For anyone wanting to keep seahorses - check out this link. http://www.thereefuge.com.au/threads/seahorses-the-basics.1044/#post-12964

 

[Henry G]

Wow cant say I am impressed. Being a hobby based industry you think there would be a level of respect and decency in sales persons. But alas, seems never to be the case.

Despite your blowout with the sales people, a fantastic job with the seahorses. They look very calm and healthy! Something I have yet to personally try, but soon hope to.

Does this system, or a seahorse system still exist?

 

[JimmyDang]

I'd track them down for a refund and then bash there heads in if they refuse. But that's just what I'd honestly. More of a physical approach to things.

 

[Agent M]

Wow cant say I am impressed. Being a hobby based industry you think there would be a level of respect and decency in sales persons. But alas, seems never to be the case.

I wanted to include that story in here as a warning for people to be careful - deception happens a little too often in this hobby! It's great to be on a forum that allows both the positive and negative feedback about businesses to remain without editing out the bad bits.

Does this system, or a seahorse system still exist?

I would be interested to see what you could do with a seahorse system Henry! I think seahorse tanks are their own unique challenge - the most difficult part is getting the flow right, which I never fully succeeded with.

The seahorse system no longer exists as I decided to stop at the original pair. It was never dismantled - it morphed into something else. Stay tuned while I dazzle you with my amazing photography skills and steady handed videos! :eek

I'd track them down for a refund and then bash there heads in if they refuse. But that's just what I'd honestly. More of a physical approach to things.

Gun for hire Jimmy? ;)

 

[Agent M]

In October 2007 I added 2x Banded Pipefish :) I also got 3 Pajama cardinals (the most gormless fish I've ever kept). I was getting some pretty decent algae growing on my glass by this point - having a newly established skimmerless system with heavy feedings was starting to show. I was worried the snails would run out of food, so left it on the back and side glass. I had a couple of large trochus and some turbos. The trochus didn't survive long term and I've never bought another one as they seem to need more algae than what I can provide them with.

I'm still learning how to post vids on youtube, but here are some videos of my two banded pipefish. I could never work out if they were sparring or having a flirt as one of the pipes would always peck the other one's tail fin, which seemed like aggression to me.

The hen pecked pipefish used to need some alone time, so would mimick the power cord on the powerhead. To see this video clearly you'll need to make it full screen:

If you see anything you have any questions about, feel free to ask!

 

[Agent M]

November 2007 So I said I'd show the good and the bad. I had a diatom bloom. It was SO ugly!! I let it take its course, just kept up the same maintenance routine. If I had to go through this again, I would clean the glass and do an extra water change. I don't remember how long it lasted - possibly about a month.

Good little worker - a turbo snail. The snails were amazing at cleaning off the glass.

 

[Agent M]

January 2008. A third pipefish was added, as well as reaquascaping to go for the 'wall of rock' look and the substrate was replaced in preparation for some new additions that would need finer sand. I got the sand from Age of Aquariums who I can't recommend highly enough - I've had multiple orders from them over the years and it has gone smoothly every time. I've never had to contact them for any reason, just use the automated online shop.

Spot the seahorses!

"Mr Ed" - the male seahorse

Mr Ed's mate

Young Pajama Cardinal

 

[firebird]

I'm really enjoying reading this TJ.
Carry on.........

 

[Agent M]

Good to know @firebird ! I'm trying to make it interestng - the kind of animals I was keeping were very shy and slow moving so this is the 'action packed' version :p

 

[Henry G]

Wow this is some great stuff, that video of the pipe fish sure looks like a courtship dance to me! That is so amazing, ive never seen pipe fish interact so much. Though I have only kept the tiny blue lined pipe fish.

you are quickly inspiring me to get a seahorse/pipe fish system running. In my collection run yesterday I did happen to catch a young pipe fish. But I couldn't care for it at this time so had to release it.

 

[Agent M]

My seahorse and pipefish were captive bred which made feeding them prepared foods a breeze - highly recommend going down that path. I fed them first thing in the morning, afternoon around 6pm and then again before I went to bed and I found that pretty easy to keep up. The male was fed out of a small net with mysis in it and was a real performer at meal time, he mostly sucked the mysis through the net, but a few times he came out of the water to stick his head into the top of the net. The female on the other hand was very shy and would only eat off a surface. I used a glass jar on its side to feed her or floated the food past her while she stayed stationery. If the slightest thing bothered her, like the food moving too fast, she would not eat. She was a much slower feeder and spent a lot of time looking downwards like this:

They were fed exclusively on frozen mysis shrimp, however they loved hunting amphipods as well. The pipefish also ate copepods off the glass and are much more adaptable to a reef environment & chasing down food as it blows across the tank. I will have to get cracking with the next installment as things took a turn for the worse with my male seahorse and I lost him :( That may change your mind a little @Henry G

 

[Agent M]

This is the final post for the seahorse stage of my tank and I am going to leave it on a sad note, as this is often the reality of keeping seahorses. Here's the biggest problem with seahorse systems - they are low flow. Low flow can result in low dissolved oxygen levels. In hindsight, I should have run a large airstone in the tank. I had decided against this as occasionally male seahorses will play in the bubbles with their pouch open and get bubbles trapped in the pouch. When this happens you need to release the bubbles for them - I will go into how you do this towards the end of this post.

In a low oxygen environment, both male and female seahorses are prone to a condition called Gas Bubble Disease. The symptoms are bubbles under the 'skin' and particularly in males, gas within their pouch. On the 5th of Feb 2008 I woke to find my male seahorse floating upside down around the tank. He had increased respiration but otherwise was attempting to behave normally, including trying to complete his morning courtship dance with his girl. To complicate things even further, he had babies on board at the time.
Here are the pics:

So began the single most stressful event in reef keeping for me. To address the GBD I was going to need to put him in a separate tank and treat him with a drug called Diamox. This is a human drug that you can only get with a prescription from a vet. Problem is there aren't exactly marine vets at our disposal so I had to find a vet that would agree to treat an animal they don't typically treat. I did a ring around and found a local vet that said she was willing to give me a subscription provided she saw the animal and was shown some basis for prescribing the meds. I didn't want to spend the money on a house call, so Mr Ed got packed into a water jug with a portable air stone and off we went with my printed paperwork that detailed the treatment. The receptionist commented that having a seahorse in the waiting room was a first :D The vet was excellent and rang Melbourne Aquarium for some advice and to confirm that the treatment I wanted to give him was a good course of action.

After some discussion, we both agreed that the young in the pouch were a major complication, and so I made the decision to abort them, which was pretty unpleasant. I took him to Mick at Seca Marine to do this, as he had more experience handling seahorses than the vet. The males instinct is to keep his pouch tightly closed while he is holding young - this is a voluntary muscle movement. I was going to have to flush his pouch with meds every day as part of the treatment and my chance of success without doing this was pretty slim. The young were actually fully formed but premature, and surprisingly, they made it to a week being fed frozen BBS.

Taking my prescription to the Chemist is hands down one of the most embarassing experiences of my life - the vet had written "Patient: Mr Ed - seahorse" on the prescription. I live in a busy suburb and the chemist was full of people waiting. The girl at the counter took one look at my prescription and called the Pharmacist over - they questioned me about it with what seemed to be suspicion and were not even vaguely amused! Seriously the man needed a sense of humour!! He then rang the vet personally to confirm with her that it was a real prescription. So once the questioning was over - he filled the prescription, I felt under his watchful eye the entire time I was in there, lol. And then of course they loudly called out 'Mr Ed!' once it was ready and I had to come forward and claim it in front of everyone. It was the only time I wondered why I had felt the need to name my seahorse, lol.

So, end result is that after 3 days of treatment, Mr Ed got a secondary infection in his pouch and died. Now that I have had this experience, I would strongly recommend treating with Diamox along with a course of antibiotics just in case. Without young in his pouch he would have stood a good chance of recovery. Mr Ed was a really personable fish and I was quite attached to him, so there were tears and I still feel sad when I think about it. Its because of this problem that I would recommend only keeping females. If you do keep males, the chance is quite high that this is going to be a routine part of keeping them.

Its good to learn how to 'evacuate air', as they call it, from the males pouch. To do this, I used a plastic tipped bobby pin as it was the perfect size and didn't have a sharp tip on it. You need to capture the seahorse in your hands and hold him still between your fingers. I found that the seahorse lay still and cooperated if I let his tail wrap around my little finger and then restrained him by having my thumb and forefinger on either side of his body. Leave the seahorse fully submerged in the water while you do this. With the bobby pin, one end is slightly longer than the other, so you just put the longest tip into the pouch opening and draw it down and out. This will open up the pouch. If your seahorse is not semi-relaxed it will be extremely difficult, which is why the way you capture and handle the seahorse is important. You should see bubbles escape. You need to make sure you have gotten it all out. You can lightly massage the pouch with your thumb to see if you can feel anymore bubbles and try again, or start at the bottom of the pouch with your thumb and work to the top like squeezing a tube of toothpaste, and the bubble may come out if the seahorse relaxes his muscles. Don't get male seahorses if you are not willing to do this. The first time is nerve wracking but once you get the hang of it its not that difficult.

I decided to let his mate live out her days in my tank and she lived until she was about 4 years old at a guess, as I got them as adults. I never had any problems with her. From observing her, I don't think she was lonely on her own, she just didn't have that daily courtship interaction that I think adds another dimension to their lives - something interesting to do.

Bear in mind when reading this too that these are my experiences based on keeping TWO seahorses.

The week that I went through this with my male seahorse was the same week a shipment of fish were due to arrive to add to the tank... so it was all happening that week!

 

[Agent M]

FANTASTIC SEAHORSE RESOURCES
There is a lot of confusing and conflicting information out there about keeping seahorses. These are the resources I relied on when making decisions about how to keep them.

Seahorses, Seahorse of Beatrice - this is a one stop shop for seahorse keeping, my favourite site
Seahorse.org - a dedicated seahorse forum. Just make sure you share your info with us too! Expect to be met with alarmist attitudes here.
Tankmates Guide (Seahorse.org library)
Disease Guide (Seahorse.org library)
Gas Bubble Disease (Seahorse.org library)
Pouch Evacuation for Male Seahorses (Seahorse.org library)
Seahorse Australia - a source of captive bred seahorse species

HELPFUL THREADS RIGHT HERE ON THE REEFUGE
Seahorse tank
Seahorses - The Basics

 

[Twake2]

great scape