Need some thoughts

[dakar]

Okay so Angel's seahorses have been relocated to the new 44g pentagon tank... they love their new home... alas it's in our bedroom, guess it makes the room off balance or something so we bought another to match it to put in the opposite corner, this one to replace my 10g nano which primarily houses my stoney corals. Since the stands have a small footprint (20"x20" with a corner chopped off) anything larger than a 10g sump/refuge is impossible. No problem, drill through the floor into the basement for a great big macro fuge and sump looking at somewhere around an extra 100g to the total water volume, providing a place to house a very agressive skimmer without the fear of dumping microbubbles or creating very high flow areas from the skimmer to the pony tank, and many other benefits from a maintenance standpoint.

What about tying both the pony coral and the stoney tank together on the same sump and refugium? Other than the need for a big honkin' pump to beat the 12'+ head pressure to get back up to the tanks and possibly raising the nutrient levels in the stoney tank a bit, think this would cause any issues with either tank?

I'm more concerned for the seahorses point of view than the coral's.

[Reptoreef]

I know from experience that your pony could easiely be an awesome fuge... that would indeed give you what you need for the stoney tank on the other side.

[JustDavidP]

I'd advise against it..

H. Reidi (which, I'm pretty sure you have) do best in temperatures in and around 75-78 degrees F. IF you pushed them at the 78 end of the spectrum, they'd survive, but wouldn't be stoked. My ponies don't even have fry in the Summer, when the tank temperatures reach the high threshold. That in itself is a tell tale sign to me that "things just aren't right". So, with that said, would you keep your stony tank at 78F or lower? For the sake of the ponies?

Another thing to keep in mind... if you look at Seahorse.org, or any site that helps promote the best husbandry for seahorses, you'll notice that the "care sheets" include LONG lists of medications. Why? Because seahorses are suseptable to illness and injury that require antibacterial, antifungal, and sometimes copper based meds. In some cases, with an injured fish, you can QT it. However, in the case of a bacterial breakout, or a parasite, you need to treat the entire system. Are you ready to cycle that through the stony tank?

Finally, seahorses should have been properly named "Sea Pigs". They are messy. They snick food, and blow nutrient loaded juices out of their gills. They often eat the shrimp headfirst and leave tails and such to fall to the substrate. In the end, they OFTEN expell whole shrimp and other foods when they digest. This is because they have no TRUE STOMACH. Yes, you will have a high nutrient environment that could cause a negative impact on the stony farm.

Water flow is not an issue, you can always use a ball valve to throttle down the flow back to the pony tank from that huge honkin pump you'll need. But that to me, is the only easy part about your proposal.

[Reptoreef]

Hmmm... good info. Thanks for your thoughts.

[dakar]

Thanks David, that's what this post was for, to bring out some of the other points I hadn't yet though about, the temp being the key point that I was overlooking, the pony tank has been holding pretty steady right around 75.9F, and the stony tank up around 80.5-81F.

Needless to say, think the seahorses will get sumped with a refugium first, since the stony tank is not yet even wet I'll figure something out for it later.

Thanks!

[JustDavidP]

For what it's worth, I think that sumping the pony tank is a great idea. I too faced ALL of the same issues (microbubbles, water volume/quality). Lets face it, they are not your standard FO project. They are a little more demanding, delicate, and again... PIGS!

Here's an updated shot of my 75G sump for the 26G bow display...same idea...pumped from the basement up to the family room. On the far right, my Euroreef will be installed. Right now, I have just a Maxijet 1200 cycling water through the system. I'm having a little cycle from the live rock. When it is done, I'm going to connect the two systems.



Dave

[peregrinus]

ummm if your in to feng shui its not a good thing to have a fish tank in the bed room.. lol oh and also TV's and computers are bad feng shui in the bed rooms.. thats my thought.. lol

[JustDavidP]

Oh...and children.....definately should not be in the bedroom

[dakar]

David the sump/refuge looks great... but way too tidy... you need to throw some towels, test kit bits and other assorted *stuff* around the area so it looks like some sort of maintenance actually happens there

BTW the pony tank in the bedroom is fine, even the stony coral will be much more entertaining to watch than the silly TV. Now if the dogs would stay out completely THEN I might actually get to sleep a night through.

[Reef_Angel]

I've finally gotten some pictures up of the new tank with my sweet little seahorse's. They really love all the room. I started out with 4 pony's in it, and then while Dave and I were out LFS hopping we ran into 2 more yellow cuties that we just had to have. It turns out that they are getting supplied by one supplier, and they are all tank raised. No wonder why they didn't have any trouble switching over to frozen foods. Enjoy the photos!