Seahorses

[blue oasis]

I have a question, my 13 year old wanted to start a seahorse tank, so we went out and bought a 40gal tank with a Empiror 400 filter. We will be buying a protein skimmer that hooks on to the back of the tank as well as a good lighting system for corals.
We have a 100gal saltwater fish/coral tank and the water paramerteries are the same so we read and should not be much more work then we do now.
The question we have does anyone else have seahorses and what would you recommend for having a healthy tank.
T & G

 

[alyssia]

I have two seahorses. First off I would tell you be sure you by captive bred horses that are eating frozen! CB horses are healthier and hardier. If they are on frozen you will not have to go thru the expense and time consuming task of getting/hatching live foods.
Also use a feeding dish, it can be anything that is glass and shallow. Put your food in there with a turkey baster. This makes cleanups much easier because if the food scatters all over the tank and doesn't get eaten it will dirty up your water.Make sure you keep on top of water changes, horses produce alot of bioload and don't do well in water that is less than pristine.

 

[blue oasis]

Alyssia, I want to thank you for responding back to me. What we dis so far was set up the tank with 45 lbs LR & 40lbs LS. I then did a 25 gal wanter change on my tank and put it into his tank to start the cycle faster.
There is a web site www.seahorse.com which the company name is Ocean Rider out of Hawaii and was thinking about starting off with a matted pair of Sunburst.
Of course this will not occur until the tank is cycled for at least a month but that was our thought ... They say on the website that all their horses eat frozen food.
T & G

 

[alyssia]

I don't know about ocean rider but I got my horses from seahorsesource which has an excellent reputation. Have you checked out seahorse dot org?

 

[darth tang]

I suggest letting your tank sit with a clean up crew only for two months after the cycle. Snails, hermit crabs (small), and various shrimp (I would stay away from cleaner shrimps however) make great clean up crews for horses. Your tank is a good size, I however would add one powerhead to increase your flow rate just a tad bit. The emperor and protein skimmer aren't going to produce that much of a current. While you don't want a lot of current, you do want some.
Horses do NOT get the same infections or diseases as fish usually, so you will need to read up on what health risks they deal with.

 

[tonester]

I have seen some on dwarf ones on ----, decent price too