seahorses yes or no?

[carpenterwrasse]

I have been wanting to set up a seahorse stable but am lacking the confidence since i have been getting varied responses from books and lfs. Can anyone help dispel my fears and help with suggestions.

[graphixx]

seahorses are tough little guys to keep in my opinion. First of all you have to supply them with LIVE food such as brine shrimp mysis etc. and they say that it is best to have them in a planted tank with lots of microfauna so they have a lot of places to anchor. and you do not want to have too much current. I have never kept them but I have done some research on the. I bieleve Dakar is in the process of settin up a corral. I am sure he will chime in with some good info and advice.

[dakar]

Yup we are... it's been a slow moving process at best... a rather expensive one. Tank is set up for them, but Angel and I are still doing a lot of research before we move any further ahead.

They need to be housed in their own tank, no live coral that can sting them as they are extremely sensitive, very clean tank with low flow. Macroalgae seem to be almost required... and yes you will have to be able to provide live foods on demand. They require daily or more attention.

[graphixx]

dakar, how big of a tank are you doing your corral in? I know you want more height than width correct. I have a 34 gallon hex that I was thinking of doing a seahorse tank in. And also you probably dont want more than one or 2 in a tank that small huh? its either seahorses or an octopus. I have not decided. I am kind of with you on this one dakar, Octo's just dont have a good longevity of life.

[dakar]

The plan is for the walltank to house just a single pair, basically it's 4' long, 2' high' 6" deep 20g (ish). Right now there is just a 3-4" DSB, 20ish pounds of tonga branch, and some calpulera growing in there, and a couple dozen nassarious snails. (temporary housing for a pair of false percs and a basslet to build up the nitrifiing bacteria in the tank), just while we sort everything else out. By no means ready to start a brine shrimp cultivation yet.

Considered an octopus at one point, but they require a log of attention to do well in a captive environment, not to mention need to be in a perfectly sealed tank and monitored constantly! Read a lot of stories of how they escaped found their way to another tank for a midnight snack and went back to their house.... other where they didn't quite make their died. Lots of cool stories too, like teaching them to open a jar to get their supper out stuff like that is really intriging. They are way too smart to be kept in a glass box for long, often dying of boredom, or if they get spooked and ink up their house while unattended and poison themselves. So I went with the Snowflake eel instead for my entertainment.

[carpenterwrasse]

I once had an eel he was cool he ate out of my hand there is a pet store by me that has about 20 horses in a shallow tank that claims that they are easy.. willing to sell me a pair for 80. part of me was saying take it the other part said wait....I too have done reserach but books tell one side people with experience can tell more sometimes.

[carpenterwrasse]

ive also heard they can take frozen but have to coaxed into it slowly

[graphixx]

yeah I have read that acclimating them to frozen is very difficult. My wife really want some horses. But I dont think I am ready for them I have so many other things going on that are salty. maybe one day.

[zoo-a-holic]

#ed_op#DIV#ed_cl#I heard that they can gulp air in transport and that can kill them, is this true?#ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl#

[JustDavidP]

Boy... I don't know if I'm missing postings..or postings have just been 'corraled' under this forum....

Cuddlefish...yes, they can take in too much air and ruin their swim bladder. It is important to ensure that seahorses are not netted and removed from water but trapped in a specimen container or something else that holds water. When shipping, most folks will leave very little water in the container, to avoid this problem. This also reduces the level of O2 in the bag/container, making shipping long distances problematic. Others put macro algae or other 'floating fillers' in the bag to keep the ponies from actually getting up to and above the water surface while shipping.

If you buy captive raised fish or tank raised fish, they will eat the frozen foods that they've been trained on. Only wild caught fish will be dependant on live foods UNLESS you have someone who again began feeding captive or tank raised fish with live food. They will quickly turn down frozen if they have the option.

Dave