New Seahorse Tank

Waters · Oct 4, 2016

My wife has always wanted seahorses, so I finally set up an AIO for her. Tank has been running for roughly 2 months and is stocked with three small Erectus, one Dragon Face Pipefish, and a small Bangaii Cardinal (to help take care of some of the extra food from the twice a day feedings). Plan on adding a bunch more macro algae and possibly some seahorse safe coral (in addition to the two Gorgonians). Hopefully all of my research pays off :)

vlangel · Oct 4, 2016

Hi Waters, thanks for posting a pic of your tank. Its very appealing but I do think your seahorses would probably like more hitches. Maybe some of the soft coral you choose could also serve as hitches. I never thought of mixing black and white sand, that is unique. How many gallons is it? A 60g cube?

Waters · Oct 4, 2016

vlangel said:
Hi Waters, thanks for posting a pic of your tank. Its very appealing but I do think your seahorses would probably like more hitches. Maybe some of the soft coral you choose could also serve as hitches. I never thought of mixing black and white sand, that is unique. How many gallons is it? A 60g cube?

It is actually an AIO 45g cube. The sand is a packaged black and white live sand from CaribSea. I agree with the hitches.......fortunately all three do use the gorgonians and dragons breath algae but I would like to get some more options. As we are new to seahorses, I am open to any suggestions for improvement :)

reef lover · Oct 4, 2016

Been getting this one set up for ponies...would like to get some more macros and I've got a couple gorgs to frag in the main tank to put in there. Maybe by Christmas....lol.

Waters · Oct 5, 2016

Looking good :) What type of algae is the red?

revhtree · Oct 5, 2016

Cool tank!

themcnertney · Oct 5, 2016

I have a question: Did you use live rock?

Reason I ask is a few years back I used live rock from my DT to set up a small tank to house dwarf seahorses. One by one the started to disappear. One day while doing some tank maintenance, I saw a brittle sea star snatch a seahorse and take it deep in the rocks. I believe that was the reason they all died. Anyway, just a little FYI...

Awesome setup though. I miss my ponies.

reef lover · Oct 5, 2016

I have red grape and dragons breath in there. There's turtle grass back there but its slow growing. And some is lr I've been watching for two months the only pests I've found so far were two parasitic isopods that starved from no host. Got a couple of micro brittles in there but that's all.

Waters · Oct 6, 2016

Dan McNertney said:
I have a question: Did you use live rock?

Reason I ask is a few years back I used live rock from my DT to set up a small tank to house dwarf seahorses. One by one the started to disappear. One day while doing some tank maintenance, I saw a brittle sea star snatch a seahorse and take it deep in the rocks. I believe that was the reason they all died. Anyway, just a little FYI...

Awesome setup though. I miss my ponies.

Not sure if you are talking to me or reef lover, but yes, I used live rock. Funny you say that....I have seen at least one smaller brittle star since the tank has been set up. It is much too small to take the seahorses but the pipefish might be another question.

Waters · Oct 6, 2016

reef lover said:
I have red grape and dragons breath in there. There's turtle grass back there but its slow growing. And some is lr I've been watching for two months the only pests I've found so far were two parasitic isopods that starved from no host. Got a couple of micro brittles in there but that's all.

I like the red grape....I might have to pick some of that up.

themcnertney · Oct 6, 2016

Waters said:
Not sure if you are talking to me or reef lover, but yes, I used live rock. Funny you say that....I have seen at least one smaller brittle star since the tank has been set up. It is much too small to take the seahorses but the pipefish might be another question.

Sorry was at you. Might want to keep an eye out for them and remove any if possible

Waters · Oct 12, 2016

Dan McNertney said:
Sorry was at you. Might want to keep an eye out for them and remove any if possible

Thanks for the heads up.....I will pull him out. What about bristle worms...any danger to ponies? We have what seems to be a harem of them that come out every time I feed lol.

themcnertney · Oct 12, 2016

Waters said:
Thanks for the heads up.....I will pull him out. What about bristle worms...any danger to ponies? We have what seems to be a harem of them that come out every time I feed lol.

I would remove them as well if possible.

RobBaglieri · Oct 12, 2016

What size return pump are you using? I am interested in setting up a tank like this. I believe that sea horses like minimal flow?

SeahorseKeeper · Oct 12, 2016

Oh, I love seahorse tank builds!! Please keep us posted with your progress. :)

mhaun · Oct 12, 2016

Very nice build!

My wife ran a 54 corner for seahorses for a little over 2 years. It was incredibly fun. (Other than the need for a twice a day feeding of frozen mysis while we were on vacation.)
She also started with a tank full of soft corals and gorgonians. The horses liked them but discolored quickly. As much as we fought putting anything unnatural in the tank, we ended up adding 2 lengths of the yellow plastic chain from Home Depot and they colored back up to yellow within weeks and appeared much happier in general.

Enjoy them. I believe they are one of the most fulfilling "fish" that you can have. Ours would dance and play before feeding time. They became very tame and eventually ate from our fingers.

Waters · Oct 13, 2016

RobBaglieri said:
What size return pump are you using? I am interested in setting up a tank like this. I believe that sea horses like minimal flow?

To be honest, I have no idea......my LFS was running the same tank full of seahorses (which came with the return pump). I have read though that it is actually a myth that they require little to no flow...although the flow in my tank is definitely no where near the amount of water movement in my reef tank. Maybe the seahorse experts here can provide some insight? :)

Waters · Oct 13, 2016

SeahorseKeeper said:
Oh, I love seahorse tank builds!! Please keep us posted with your progress. :)

The three horses are doing well. All three are eating Mysis and actually move around the tank a lot more than I had expected. The cardinal has a constant full belly due to all the extra food lol. I will try and get some good pictures of them.....they don't seem to like me sticking a camera in their face :).

apercele79 · Nov 28, 2016

what kind of hitches do you need to buy? Im about to start a new tank and I don't think I have the right "ornaments" in there :(

Waters · Nov 29, 2016

I actually went the route of using all natural hitches. I have a lot of Dragon's Breath (as well as a couple other species of algae) along with a couple of large Gorgonians. You can pretty much use anything that is reef safe though. A lot of people use the plastic yellow chain that can be purchased at Home Depot.