Will this work?

[Stacyod]

my lfs has a seahorse for sale. I’m not sure what type. The owner said he didn’t remember but it came from Tampa Bay. I have a 30 gallon long tank with 20 pounds mixed live and dead rock established 8 months ago. It’s home to 1 percola clown, 1 misbar clown, 1 ruby red dragonet, 1 neon dotty back, 1 bubble tip anemone, 1 skunk shrimp, 1 blood shrimp , 1 fromia star, 1 hammer coral, 1 green star polyp, 1 cluster zoa and the usual clean up crew. Water parameters are stable. I feed mysis, spirinula, baby brine that I grow, phytofeast once a week and frozen wild caught Shrimp pieces for the anemone. I add a bottle of copepods ever other month. Do you think the seahorse will work well in this tank?

 

[James M]

No. Seahorses don’t do well with tank mates and need a dedicated tank. Your clown would probably kill it

 

[Stacyod]

Thank you

 

[MUSBFRANK]

my lfs has a seahorse for sale. I’m not sure what type. The owner said he didn’t remember but it came from Tampa Bay. I have a 30 gallon long tank with 20 pounds mixed live and dead rock established 8 months ago. It’s home to 1 percola clown, 1 misbar clown, 1 ruby red dragonet, 1 neon dotty back, 1 bubble tip anemone, 1 skunk shrimp, 1 blood shrimp , 1 fromia star, 1 hammer coral, 1 green star polyp, 1 cluster zoa and the usual clean up crew. Water parameters are stable. I feed mysis, spirinula, baby brine that I grow, phytofeast once a week and frozen wild caught Shrimp pieces for the anemone. I add a bottle of copepods ever other month. Do you think the seahorse will work well in this tank?

They absolutely do best in a dedicated tank, but not just because it's other seahorses but more so of their requirements starting with a much cooler temp than most tanks run (70/72 degrees), plenty of areas where they can hitch onto in and out of flow areas, other slower moving fishes are fine with them, especially the dragonet you have, the clowns actually aren't that bad, but once you add more such as the dotty back which is pretty fast, then competition for food is a problem. Any stinging corals (hammer, anemone, ect) are a definite no go, as well as the shrimp which would stress them out from trying to clean them, also they need to be in pairs or more than one.

 

[rayjay]

If you really want to set up for a seahorse tank, the starting point for size to accommodate just one pair of standard seahorses is 30g and 25-30g for each additional pair.
No one thread could be sufficient to advise you as to seahorse requirements so I'd advise reading the stickies at the top of this forum and then if you still want to pursue the hobby and have unanswered questions, start a new thread with your inquiries.

 

[Stacyod]

I really appreciate the nice replies. Thanks for taking the time to write them. I will not be getting the seahorse at this time. Maybe in the future in species only tank. I am grateful for this forum. The kind members have helped me avoid many mistakes the lfs would happily allow me to make.

 

[Peace River]

@Stacyod - in addition to the appropriate advice given in the posts above, I will add that most of the seahorses that I have caught (and released) in Tampa Bay have been dwarf seahorses (Hippocampus zosterae). Even though you are passing on this seahorse (which I agree is an appropriate decision), this may given you a direction for additional research about the seahorse that you saw in your LFS.