Time to pony up: What is your experience with seahorses?

[clownman99]

I used to collect them all the time here in New York where they are rare but you can find them. I kept them for many years, spawned them and raised a few generations.

Here is my female transferring the eggs to the male in my reef.

 

[clownman99]

I used to collect them all the time here in New York where they are rare but you can find them. I kept them for many years, spawned them and raised a few generations.

Here is my female transferring the eggs to the male in my reef.

 

[locito277]

Seahorses are as hard as you make em. Over plan, overfilter and overfeed. Oh and temperature below 72 in my case

 

[clownman99]

back in the 60s TFH booklet on seahorses had a photo of the female transferring eggs was a total fake yours is great oneonly ever witnessed it once 60 years of keeping them great work

 

[CMO]

I've kept them with ease as long as they can be fed multiple times a day. Unfortunately this creates a pretty limiting travel schedule so I no longer keep them. Super cool and fun to have but I would take the feeding requirements seriously as they will fade away IME without multiple feedings a day. Gosh, that was 15 years ago though so not sure if there's been any advancements in auto feed for them.

 

[Paul B]

yours is great oneonly ever witnessed it once 60 years of keeping them great work

Thanks. And that was before digital cameras so I used a film camera that I must have had near my tank.

 

[Baka Mop]

I had a small aquacultured one about 7 years ago and was lucky enough to get it to eat frozen, pellet, and flake foods. The good fortune stopped there though, cause it kept wanting to go towards the hob filter's return flow and get blown away. It kept doing it until it died from what I'm assuming was stress.

Don't think I'll get another one again. They're actually quite boring IMO and high maintenance once the excitement of having one runs it's course. They require constant babysitting to make sure they don't somehow hurt themselves. They will look at food for five years before trying to eat it, and half the time they miss!
I'm actually amazed these things are able to survive in the wild with how clumsy and accident-prone they are.

 

[FeliciaM]

I started keeping syngnathids in the 2000s and became obsessed. I'm still obsessed almost 20 years later.

Bulk Reef Supply hosts my article about successful seahorse keeping here: https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/cont...ollow-to-keep-your-seahorse-aquarium-thriving

I tried to sum up all the important bullet points into one article for beginners, which wasn't easy! There is a lot to learn, and it's very different from reefkeeping.

 

[TheOldSalt]

I got my first seahorses via mail order back when I was a teenager some 40 years ago. They were the zosterae dwarf horses.
They lasted about six months or so, but they weren't as much fun as I had hoped they'd be.
It would be several years before I tried them again, but things were easier the next time.
Horses and Pipefish are easy to find and collect in Florida, even a long the panhandle where I lived, so I tried again. This time, though, I dragged muslin nets through the turtle grass beds to catch suitable foods for them. Brine shrimp only work minimally well, and this was before things like PEMysis were available, so once a week or so I'd catch a gallon of whatever I could dredge up from the grass.
That worked much better.
Eventually I just got bored with them, though. I hate to say it, but they really don't DO much, do they?
Eventually I wound up as an aquarist, then Senior Aquarist, at the Gulfarium, a Marine park in Florida. I kept horses on display in a turtle grass bed display tank because people liked them and I could make a nice exhibit with them, but even then I wasn't really all that crazy about them. There was an endless supply of ponies, though, so I kept a few in my refugia at home because why not.
All in all, I guess I'm glad I kept them, but I don't think I want to do it again.

 

[pledosophy]

I kept them for about 13 years, got out of them around 2014. I bred 4 species.

They are fun animals, but after awhile, I wanted to try something else.

I might try them again if I ever set up an NPS tank. Right now though, most of my energy is going into SPS.

My best advice would be to keep your tank 73F or lower with most species. Buy CB seahorses. Feed 2x daily. Have a good amount of water movement in the tank, but broken up so it is "soft" everywhere. I had my seahorse tanks turnover around 100x an hour, but since most of that was coming out through the rocks, the seahorses could swim anywhere.

Keeping shrimp from rotting in the rocks is a challenge, so designing the flow to accommodate for that really helps a lot and is often overlooked IMO.

 

[locito277]

 

[FeliciaM]

Are you breeding them?

 

[FeliciaM]

I can't stop touching them they're so cute.

 

[locito277]

Are you breeding them?

just happens but not as often as you’d think. They’re not all grown yet. I wouldn’t have time to raise them. Not enough time in a day.

 

[Big Smelly fish]

I love seahorses. First started keeping them in mid 80’s . Have bred and raised H. Reidi and Erectus. Currently have a back of erectus a year old. About 40 or so left. Probably my last batch because at 71 years old they are lots of work and take up time.

 

[Azael]

I love them so much, but I never had one.