Tank #3. Of course it’s eels and seahorses

[shanzfish]

I’ve been a member for 3+ years and somehow this is my first build thread. I’m showing off my latest tank that I’ve had set up for about 11 months now. There are no corals because I am more focused on keeping up with the thick plants and deep sand bed for the seahorses and garden eels. The seahorses love exploring the dense plants and looking for any snacks. The sand bed is about 5 inches deep in the front and slopes up to 9 inches in the back for the eels. I currently have 5 garden eels who have established their own little territories and two female seahorses. On Thursday I have two lined seahorses arriving (so excited!)….. Strawberry conch snails are my favourite, so I have one in this tank as well as my other reef tank. I have recently found some MASSIVE bristle worms hiding in the sand and not sure about keeping the XL ones or not…. This is my first species focused tank in a long time, so I’m glad it’s all going smoothly now that it’s settled in. A couple pics show the ugly phase and my trial and error with macros. But I got there eventually

 

[shanzfish]

Additional recent pics. I have already pulled out 2 buckets full of plants because that stuff grows like wild fire!

 

[Red_Beard]

Love it. The owl wall art is really neat too!

 

[shanzfish]

Love it. The owl wall art is really neat too!

Thanks! It is in my little girls room, it's woodland themed

 

[Monika]

I’ve been a member for 3+ years and somehow this is my first build thread. I’m showing off my latest tank that I’ve had set up for about 11 months now. There are no corals because I am more focused on keeping up with the thick plants and deep sand bed for the seahorses and garden eels. The seahorses love exploring the dense plants and looking for any snacks. The sand bed is about 5 inches deep in the front and slopes up to 9 inches in the back for the eels. I currently have 5 garden eels who have established their own little territories and two female seahorses. On Thursday I have two lined seahorses arriving (so excited!)….. Strawberry conch snails are my favourite, so I have one in this tank as well as my other reef tank. I have recently found some MASSIVE bristle worms hiding in the sand and not sure about keeping the XL ones or not…. This is my first species focused tank in a long time, so I’m glad it’s all going smoothly now that it’s settled in. A couple pics show the ugly phase and my trial and error with macros. But I got there eventually

It’s pretty magical could watch it for hours

 

[shanzfish]

It’s pretty magical could watch it for hours

Sometimes an hour might fly by without me realizing while I watch them lol

 

[shanzfish]

Feeding time

 

[TX_REEF]

super cool, thanks for sharing. How about some footage of the beastly bristle worms?

 

[shanzfish]

super cool, thanks for sharing. How about some footage of the beastly bristle worms?

lol I’ll see if I can video them a bit later today

 

[shakacuz]

can you go over your setup or what you do to keep the garden eels? they seem to be immensely difficult to keep and you've clearly done a great job maintaining the tank!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Nice looking seahorses!

 

[shanzfish]

can you go over your setup or what you do to keep the garden eels? they seem to be immensely difficult to keep and you've clearly done a great job maintaining the tank!

It’s a 45 gallon tank with a huge clean up crew of marginellla snails. They eat any left over food. I had to use a whole lot of sand to achieve the depth for them to really be comfortable. The macro algae in the picture grows and spreads really fast. I trim it and push it to the back of the tank weekly so that the eels have more room. I think having so much tall greenery gives them a sense of security. It took them a couple of months to be comfortable with popping their heads out of the sand in front of me. I stay consistent with feeding them 3 cubes of thoroughly rinsed mysis shrimp a day and sometimes feed them an extra 2 cubes in the evening. The conch snail helps to keep the sand bed clean. I vacuum the very top of the sand bed when I do weekly water changes (I’m very careful to not go too deep so I don’t disturb the eels too much). Underneath the tank I have a really good canister filter: Fluval 307 performance canister filter designed for aquariums up to 70 gallons. I service and clean out the filter whenever it’s time to replace the carbon and I use chemipure elite in all of my tanks to keep the water polished. The canister filter is the only piece of equipment I use to keep decent water flow. It is pointed from one end to the other and it does a great job keeping the food floating around for them to eat easily. The macro algae is full of copepods. I see the eels quickly eating them as they swim by all day long. I keep salinity at 1.022 and temperature at 72°F. I use instant ocean reef crystals.

 

[shanzfish]

Nice looking seahorses!

Thanks

 

[shanzfish]

super cool, thanks for sharing. How about some footage of the beastly bristle worms?

I guess I missed a spot when I was cleaning my tank yesterday lol

 

[TX_REEF]

wow! those are some big boys

 

[shanzfish]

wow! those are some big boys

Yep, you see why I poke around with the pipette instead of my fingers lol

 

[twentyleagues]

Nice I've always wanted garden eels. Years ago I set up a 90g with about 8" of sand specifically for them but I could never find a source. Eventually it became my nps coral tank and I think the deep sand bed helped with my nitrate levels n the entire set up. I had a lot of fish in the system that it was tied to.

 

[shanzfish]

Nice I've always wanted garden eels. Years ago I set up a 90g with about 8" of sand specifically for them but I could never find a source. Eventually it became my nps coral tank and I think the deep sand bed helped with my nitrate levels n the entire set up. I had a lot of fish in the system that it was tied to.

90 gallons is a dream size tank for me, the biggest one I have at the moment is 75 gallon. Maybe one day you’ll get some I was on a wait list for several places waiting for them to be back in stock. Took many months but finally got 5 from Violet Aquarium and they all survived

 

[Gunnyreefer]

Amazing set up. Ive been cycling my tank for about 8 weeks while i was waiting to get my eels. Well, today they arrived. I ordered 4 but received 7. Tank is a red sea reefer xl 200 with 200 lbs of sand. Nothing in the tank currently. I have a large colony of gorganian I might put in there until I find some macro/grass for the tank. Did they hide most of the time after introduction?

 

[danieyella]

Amazing set up. Ive been cycling my tank for about 8 weeks while i was waiting to get my eels. Well, today they arrived. I ordered 4 but received 7. Tank is a red sea reefer xl 200 with 200 lbs of sand. Nothing in the tank currently. I have a large colony of gorganian I might put in there until I find some macro/grass for the tank. Did they hide most of the time after introduction?

I've been on the hunt, where'd you order from?