Dwarf seahorse help

[shandee]

Our little ponies are currently set up in a 14 gallon bio cube, we have roughly 7 left (original shipment was 11, 2 perished during shipping process). They have been in the tank roughly a week, and appeared to be doing really well. Bery avtive and alert. Yesterday upom returning home from work we noticed 3 stuck in one of the intakes on the tank, we were able to save 2 (1 had already passed by the time we got home) and this morning i woke to find another stuck inside the intake.

We have tried modfying this by placing sponge filters on the backs which has ggreatly slowed down the flow that unfortunately it isnt working, and with the way bio cubes intakes are designed im not sure there is anything we can place inside the tank to block the holes but still allow flow.

My main question is, what would be a better tank for them? Or are there other modifications we can make? We started out with a small amount to be sure we could handle the delicacy of this seahorse and we are losing them to the tank itself.

 

[flower]

Hi,

How long was your tank cycled before you added the horses?

I have never kept dwarf seahorses...too much work for my taste since all they eat are newly hatched baby brine shrimp. If you like seahorses, maybe invest in a larger tank and purchase some captive bred seahorses, they feed on frozen mysis shrimp, and are just as hardy as regular saltwater fish to keep.

A healthy seahorse should be able to handle the filter without a problem and not get sucked up, and putting a filter on the intake would have solved the problem, if the flow was too strong. It's possible that the horses are weak, sick and already dying. Where did you purchase them from, and didn't they at least have an arrive alive guarantee?

 

[shandee]

Hi,

How long was your tank cycled before you added the horses?

We had the tank running for over a month before adding the seahorses, we orihinally started with just an empty tank and let that go for about 2 weeks, after that we got a watchman and 2 blue legged hermit crabs, roughly 2.5 weeks after that we added our seahorses.

We ordered them from kpaquatics after being thrown through many, many hoops from the first company. They were shipped overnight and all seemed very alert and healthy looking and still do. We just have the problem with the filter. I feel the suction of it is still too strong for them as they are so small (maybe 3/4 inch big is all) but we arent able to adjust it. Our local fish supply store keeps them in the exact same tank when they have them in stock (very rarely) and theyve never appeared to have issues at all.

 

[flower]

Hi,

Hermit crabs do not go with any seahorse tank, not even the big potbelly horses I keep. The watchman goby is seahorse safe, but isn't appropriate for a 14g tank...minimum tank size is 30g for them.
The water flow is not your problem, the horses are dying because of something else. They are so weak and sick that they are being sucked up by the intake.

You didn't cycle your tank, nothing happens until you add ammonia (AKA fish waste), if you added the watchman goby and crabs, and didn't test for ammonia... you have no idea where you are at in the cycle....by now it should be complete, but without water tests you really don't know what's going on. So get yourself some test kits, so you can find out what the water parameters are. master kits are cheaper then individual kits.

What type of food, and tell us exactly how are you feeding the horses.