Home Adverts Recent Added Auction Scam Alerts Forum List Your Ad ShopAds Videos Directory
Tropical Fish Aquariums & Equip Marine Fish & Marine Inverts Cichlids Malawi Tanganyikan Cichlids
Wanted Discus Goldfish, Koi & Ponds Retailers & Services ALL ADS By County

Home      Reply		Viewed: 1478 -- Replies: 5
PM | All Topics | General | Cichlids | Marine | Coldwater | Tanks/Equipment | Diseases | Members

Posted	seahorses
20-03-2006 12:21 by lydia	i would like to start keeping seahorses i have a 3ft established tank ready for them but i wold like to know what type to keep and how many can live together happily in that size tank thanks in advance
20-03-2006 14:02 by Alan	Number of things to consider. One they are poor swimmers so whilst you need the turn over of water you cannot rely on tuze or seio pumps you will need sparay bars and airstones. Two they need to be able to wrap their tails around things replicating the natural habitat is vital in achieving this. Three they are not reef fish they will not do as well as they possibly could if you try to keep them in a reef tank. In the wild they generally inhabit sea grass beds. Four they need continual access to food otherwise they will not survive they have small stomachs and need to trickle feed through out the day. Five many will only eat live foods in combination with four this is a nightmare and even those that do eat frozen foods (captive bred specimens are available and I would recommend going for these) you still have the problem with four. To circulate the water I would use a number of airstones this will turn over a large volume of water with out being to strong for the fish to handle. I would still go for live rock filtration this will also provide a good variety of life in the tank I would additionally add a large sump to the set up and put a miracle mud refugium in it this again will provide a lot of zooplankton for the sea horses also add a few pieces of live rock in here. In addition to the tank itself you will need a means of culturing food for the sea horses and on a large scale possibly close by the tank so you can virtually drip feed them in to the main tank or perhaps place a large amount in the sump each morning and evening the sea horses will then get a supply through out the day. I'm not trying to put you off but you really need to be aware of how demanding these fish are if you are still interested I would also look into breeding them as to be honest it is the responsible thing to do with such a threatened animal.
20-03-2006 14:21 by Jaime	I do agree with most of the advice provided by Alan. They do need to be fed often (3-6 times a day) but most these days are trained onto frozen so you dont need live foods. Mine eat frozen mysis that I enrich with vits. Please dont put an airstone in there as micro bubbles can cause problems. As far as your tanks concerned, what are the other dimensions?. Seahorses like tanks with a bit of height. As Alan said live rock & a sump is a good idea. Due to the amount you'll need to feed them filtration will have to be good. You may also consider using calerpa in the main display as this not only helps with the filtration but also provides something for the horses to hitch onto. For more info see www.seahorse.org Hope this helps.
20-03-2006 14:31 by Alan	Thanks for adding to what I said I was not aware of the air bubble problem only going on the extensive research I have done in the past as I once considered keeping sea horses myself. Take more notice of that said by Jaime if he is keeping them he obviously know what he is doing I only posted with matters to consider because no one else was.
20-03-2006 14:40 by Jaime	The micro bubble problem is not the sort of thing that you find in the books. Sadly my knowledge of the problem is due to first hand experiance. I had a skimmer that when not working properly sent fine bubbles into the tank. This caused one of the males to get bubbles in his pouch (they flush their pouches with the water) & he then had bad bouyancy problems. I had to open his pouch with a fine needle type thing & massage the bubbles out. This wasnt much fun for either of us!
20-03-2006 15:12 by Alan	Nasty!!!!!

Previous | Fish Biz | Sitemap | Links | Clubs | Webmaster | Our Sponsors | ShopAds | Directory Visits