My seahorse and pipefish reef - Aquareef 300

[Federico]

Hi everyone! Just thought I'd introduce myself in here! I'm Federico, live in Swansea (Wales , UK) and I've been keeping marines for 5-6 years. I have always been fascinated by seahorses and pipefish, so I have turned my tank into a safe reef for them and been quite successful so far! I am hoping to breed both seahorses and pipefish and I'll be turning to you for advice and support! But for now, here's my tank, currently stocking seahorses (Hippocampus Erectus), red-banded pipefish, dragon pipefish, flagtail pipefish, spotted filefish, mandarin, blue-cheek goby, clown fish and cromies. I'll keep you posted!

 

[hatfielj]

Very cool! What do you do for flow? Do you feed them or just let them find their own food? Thanks for sharing

 

[goldy26]

That's awesome. I've been toying with the idea of a seahorse/pipefish tank. How to you like that filefish in there with them? Any problems? I love the way they look.

 

[Federico]

Thanks guys, glad you like! I have a normal reef flow, but the top pumps are set on 1-minute intermittent... Although a lot of people say that seahorses need low flow rate, I read other articles saying the opposite, and when I tried this I found that the seahorses actually are doing very well and the flow helps the reef and keeps of the excess food moving in the tank. I tend to feed all other fish first then target-feed the seahorses one-by-one... It works for me because at least I know that they are getting the right amount of food, but I am thinking about training them to use a feeding station. They eat frozen krill, mysis, and yesterday even chased and ate some frozen squid, so I'm well impressed! The filefish is awesome, when I first saw this fish I was a beginner at marines and everyone told me how difficult they are to keep because they won't eat much. However, a couple of weeks back I saw them in a really good shop and was told (and shown) them eating marine flakes. So I convinced myself to get one and what actually happened is that he won't eat flake, but has started shooling with the cromies and he eats pretty much anything! I read that they aren't reef-safe as they'll eat corals, but he hasn't even been close to them. I'll update this if anything changes!

 

[iretthepirate]

Are they tank raised or tank bred?

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

Awesome! Another seahorse keeper! How long have you had seahorses?