My own 35 gal tall SH tank

77.christy · Aug 22, 2016

Hi. I'd like to open my own discussion about seahorses so as not to bogart anyone else's feeds. I set up a 35 gal octagon tall about a year ago. I piped in the return up the center, drilled holes in it, and rocked around it so they could swim the whole perimeter. I added 3 SH in June. Only one of those is left. I've since added another and two pipefish. All seem to be very good. I also have 3 cardinals, a file fish, a dottyback (wish that lil turd wasn't in there, but he's impossible to catch), a sea hair, peppermint shrimp, and some turbo snails.

I've only been able to feed live brine up until a few days ago. They're beginning to "accidentally" eat frozen bc I mix the two together while the frozen is defrosting. I just learned today about SH eating ghost shrimp. I tried it and it worked!! Super excited they have something more nutritional than tiny brine. I'm going to look into growing my own shrimp bc they're $.25-.35 EACH at all my LFS! [emoji33] anyone have any experience w/ that?

Photo bombed by mean ole chromis. [emoji23]

77.christy · Aug 22, 2016

Why do SH change color? The last addition was yellow when I got him 3 weeks ago. Now he's grey/smokey looking Jst like the female I've had for a cpl months

vlangel · Aug 22, 2016

Hi 77 .christy, I am glad that your seahorses enjoyed the ghost shrimp. You can gut load the ghosties with Dan's Feed and then they will be even more nutritious. I order Dan's Feed from Dan at Seahorse Source. He is a seahorse breeder and is the nicest guy to deal with.
Since your seahorses are eating some frozen brine shrimp I would try mixing a little frozen Hikari mysis in with it too. Maybe you could get them to take some of that and it is a better diet from a nutritional perspective.
I have tried culturing shrimp but it is tricky because the adults will cannibalize their babies. You need to make a screen so the larvae shrimp can fall thru the screen but the adults can not. I never really tried that hard so maybe if I had built a tank with a screen I would have had more success.
All seahorses will change colors. You can sometimes encourage brighter coloration with brightly colored hitches but its not a guarentee, ha ha! A lot of it has to due with their pigmentation.