In over my head and thinking about selling my dwarf ponies

[Kidagirl8]

So I’m debating selling my dwarf seahorses to someone with more knowledge and a better tank.
Would anyone on here want them? I probably would only sell them for like 50 including shipping. I would include some macroalgae for them to attach to on the journey. I have all the supplies to ship them comfortably from when I sold some Axolotl eggs. I would only consider doing this if I feel reasonably certain they will provide a good home better than I can.

I might do the same with the scooter blenny I have if he doesn’t take to the pellets.

My mother is right that I just don’t have enough room or experience. As much as I don’t want to admit it I will have to choose between my clowns and them. I feel more equipped to handle the clowns than them so I made this post.

 

[Doctorgori]

Sorry to hear this as I’ve just become a horse lover myself. Raising BBS is a pain and why I haven.t tried dwarfs yet.
I have the sorta similar Red dragonette and mine learned to go to the feeding dish with my ponies. I can be done, not easy tho.
I’d go FedEx to FedEx this time of year. You might get a unrealistic buyer in Vegas or Phoenix expecting live arrival guarantees in Mid August.

 

[ichthyogeek]

So three things:

Good job on evaluating if you have the proper care requirements for fish! It's hard to realize that sometimes you're over your head. Don't feel bad about not being able to take care of seahorses at this point of time, it's definitely a learning curve.

I'm probably shooting myself in the foot, but I'm slightly interested. Been keeping fish for ~15+ years (~10 of them with saltwater), and I've got a 10 gallon macro tank. But before we get into that....

Mind telling us what issues you've been running into with the dwarves? It seems from your original post that you're either inexperienced (easily rectified hehe), or there's a lack of room (less easily, but still rectifiable!). But are you running into brine shrimp hatching problems, or something that's causing you to feel doubt?

 

[Kidagirl8]

The main reason is probably space. I have been told I need to upgrade my 10 gallon tank my clowns and scooter blenny are in to a 20 long or 30 gallon Tank. I just don’t think I have space to keep both that, a 5 or 10 gallon, and brine shrimp hatching supplies.

I do also feel inexperienced and think that I probably shouldn’t be having two tanks at the same time while Im still learning. I am doing fine hatching the brine shrimp. It is a pain but I’m used to it from when I once raised baby Axolotls.

Honestly I think I just took on too much and need to downsize and learn the ropes before I kill everything I have. Also my dad refuses to install the RODI we have and I thought the horses are fragile and thus more likely to be affected by that.

 

[ichthyogeek]

Hmmmm....while I agree about the fish probably needing more space, I wouldn't go so far as to say that they'll need that large of a tank later on. A 20 High tank would be just as adequate. And that's more for the increase in water volume than the increase in floor space. Clownfish are very site-oriented fish, so they'd still be comfortable in a 10 gallon tank.

30+ gallon aquariums are often recommended for dragonets, but that's because a lot of outdated literature still exists, which people go off of. Dragonets are very very good at hunting copepods, and the live rock for a 30+ gallon aquarium would be enough to satiate a scooter blenny. The solution here is to a) look into a DIY mandarin dragonet feeder (which uses brine shrimp, amazing!) which user PaulB has had great success with, and b) train your dragonet into eating frozen foods like spirulina enriched brine shrimp and (most importantly) mysis shrimp, in addition to supplementing with live foods like white worms. I have kept a mandarin dragonet in a 10 gallon with no issue using the dragonet feeder.

Regarding RODI + seahorses, I think it's more important that you keep up with your water changes, rather than the RODI unit. If they've been doing fine without the RODI so far, it's unlikely in my opinion that something will happen because of the tap water unless you forget to dose a dechlorinator. From what I understand Seahorses are fragile, but more in terms of diet and bacterial infections, as opposed to water issues such as trace elements that would negatively affect corals.

A tip for if you never think you have enough space, is to go vertical. With the footprint of a 30*18 tank (the 20L or 29 gallon LxW measurements), you could also have space for a 20x12 (10 gallon dimensions) under or above it, and have space for a brine shrimp hatchery next to the tank. I wouldn't recommend looping two tanks together though...

Which ropes do you think you need to learn? Dwarves have their own learning curve aside from reef-esque tanks once you get past the "I have water in my room what do I do?!?!" stage. And once you're past that first stage, it's a lot more similar than you think.

 

[Kidagirl8]

Well the main thing I probably need to learn about is water chemistry and keeping water parameters stable. After that I probably need to learn more about the individual species I have and their care requirements/quirks. I should have done much more research before buying anything.

 

[Alenya]

If it’s any help, I have run a low maintenance nano tank for years. I have a fill line marked on the glass with texta and top up with distilled or RO water I buy from my LFS. I do a 30% water change with natural sea water weekly also from my LFS. I give the skimmer cup a clean and change a small quantity of carbon and phoszorb every few weeks. That’s it. I have not checked the parameters for years, as I can see everything is happy.

Buying RO and seawater can be an option

 

[ichthyogeek]

Well the main thing I probably need to learn about is water chemistry and keeping water parameters stable. After that I probably need to learn more about the individual species I have and their care requirements/quirks. I should have done much more research before buying anything.

Ah ok. Well, in that case...all you have to worry about is the nitrogen cycle and keeping up on water changes and water topoffs!! If it was corals, that would be an added level of complexity in regards to Calcium/Magnesium/Alkalinity in the case of stony corals, or other stuff, but as long as you keep up the topoffs to keep the salinity stable-ish (no sudden swings of .005 or more in either direction), and keep the nitrate relatively low (assisted by the fact that you have macros). Learning about the species is different, but an hour or two should yield you what you need per species.

 

[Kidagirl8]

I didn’t know you could use distilled water! That would be the perfect way to get my dad to install it. He would definitely install it over me continuously buying water. I don’t know if my lfs sells water of any type but I could ask tomorrow.

The problem is I do have some corals (shrooms, gonioporas, zoa, duncan, and Gorgonians) so I do need to learn about the alkalinity stuff.

 

[xxkenny90xx]

Go with distilled. I bought rodi water from my lfs once and it tested worse than my tap water. I dumped it out. But maybe you'll have better luck...

 

[xxkenny90xx]

I should also mention that future me (10yrs from now) has been keeping dwarf seahorses for 10 yrs so clearly I would give them the best home!

 

[ichthyogeek]

Well you certainly high dived into the deep end!

+1 to the distilled water. I’d buy it on my weekly grocery trips in college if I knew I wouldn’t be able to make a trip to the fish store to replenish on RODI. Do be careful with it, as some older distilleries use copper pipes instead of whatever the norm is nowadays.

I’d honestly return the corals sans zoas and mushrooms (those /barely/ count as corals in terms of care requirements in my book), and stick with the dwarves, especially since it’s so hard to get ahold of the dwarves nowadays. Regardless, looks like you have a learning curve ahead of you, so good luck!

 

[Dabcrusher]

I didn’t know you could use distilled water! That would be the perfect way to get my dad to install it. He would definitely install it over me continuously buying water. I don’t know if my lfs sells water of any type but I could ask tomorrow.

The problem is I do have some corals (shrooms, gonioporas, zoa, duncan, and Gorgonians) so I do need to learn about the alkalinity stuff.

you can get a decent ro filter for pretty cheap from bulk supply or an ro buddy i think petco even sells them and they just screw on to the kinchen sink when you want to use it you can get a auto top off for small tanks for 10$ on amazon that actually works real good a water bottle screww on top of it i have one on a 1.2 liter lifegard tank and it does just fine as far as the corals you have alkalinity isnt a big deal other than helping you ph stay high enough in the future id stick with the photosynthetic gorgonians. i have a for people i work with at algaebarn that keep horses.one even. breeds them they deffiniatly like macro algae not ulva or cheato more like pompom the fushia types stuff like that i think you shoul keep them it wohld be a good learning experience just read alot about them and youll be fine. as far as feeding i know pods are expensive but brine shimp is easy to hath look up decapsulatin brine shrimp eggs its super easy .good luck. i live in denver all the local fish stores here have rodi water and there quite a few fish stores. usually about 50 cent a gallon

 

[ThePurple12]

I can help you with alkalinity:

Most people keep it at around 7-8 dKH, measured with any test kit. It doesn't really matter what level it's at (some keep it at 12 dKH) as long as it's STABLE, which you shouldn't have any problems with as long as you aren't doing large water changes every day.

The corals you have, except possibly the gorgonian, are hardy corals and should be fine in your tank. Just make sure they have enough light.

Do your corals look healthy? If so, you probably don't need to change anything.