does anyone have sea horses?

[Kat]

I have a small 14g nano and if I get the 75g I was thinking of moving my livestock to it and using the nano for just sea horses. any suggestions?

[OurFishies]

I want them! I don't have them though.

[daugherty]

i did have some but they need cooler water than a reef tank about 75 76. and many time they only eat live food some times you can get tank rasied ones the will eat frozen.

[Piggy]

My sister has two in a 55 gallon. She's had them over three month now. Not really sure their type but I do know they are not the dwarf ones. Her's are tank raised. They eat mysis shrimp plus brine shrimp. She feeds them 2-3 times a day. She uses a turkey baster to feed them. Does a water change once a week.

[cthegame]

I was going to get a few for my fuge but they are not easy to keep. They will eat all my pods and as mentioned before, they need cooler water so i decided against it.

[Damseluver]

They are quite a bit of effort for a species with a short life span. If you are looking for a food training challenge you could try a mandarin. I have food trained quite a few with a pretty decent success rate.

First make sure you buy one that is not half starved to begin with and is on the large side.

Put it in your nano with a slow feeding tank mate. I use dart fish. Feed heavy with frozen mysis. The dart fish serves to show the mandarin that the mysis is indeed a food item. Be prepared with gut loaded live brine and commercial bags of pods. Most come around in a week or two to the frozen mysis. Make sure one feeding a day is exclusively frozen.

Dont be put off by people who tell you this is impossible. I have done it more than a few times and have a manadrin in a forty gal tank right now that has fed on nothing but frozen mysis for over two years now. Some can even be trained to take pellet. Check out melvs reef. I believe he has a article on one taking pellet from a small jar he places on the bottom of the tank.

[Kat]

Wow that sounds cool, I would love to have a mandarin are you sure it would be happy in a 14g tank ? and if I feed heavy I'm afraid of making a big mess. they are such beautiful fish I would feel so bad if I couldnt get it to work. how long should I give it before taking it back to the LFS ? I really dont want to kill anything.

[Damseluver]

IMO provided food training has been successful the nano will be fine for the mandarin. In fact preferable as there will be little to no competition from other fish for food. Even when food trained they are slow and methodical about taking there food.

Be prepared with knowledge on how to gut load live brine and make sure there is a local source for bagged pods. Heavy multiple feedings will only be necessary until the mandarin recognizes frozen mysis as a food item and then twice a day is plenty. Failure is a possibility but from my experience with a honest effort the majority can be trained to take prepared foods.

Choosing a good specimen is also important. Don't not buy a starving or small mandarin. You can not "save" it. You want one at least as large and thick as your pinkie finger.

I may get some flack for suggesting this to you but from my experience and give the fluctuating nature of pod population in even large systems food training should be considered mandatory if keeping this fish is the goal. Once food trained they can be kept in any size system preferably species specific or nearly species specific tanks eliminating food competition from other fish. Your nano would fit this description.

[Bifferwine]

Mandarins and seahorses alike, do not buy one unless the LFS can show you in the store that it is eating frozen food. If you put a mandarin in a new 14 gallon tank, and it's not already eating frozen food, it will starve to death. If you have one that's already eating frozen food, you are good to go. So in a tank that small, I would not recommend you try and train it to eat frozen, but instead just buy one that's eating frozen already.

Others are right about the seahorses, they can be challenging to keep because they require low water temperatures and are very susceptible to disease. If you do decide to get seahorses, be sure to only buy ones that are tank bred. Never buy wild caught.

[Kat]

where would you purchase a trained mandarin? my LFS does not keep anything long enough to train, they only buy what they can sell quickly and its the only store within 100 miles. is there anywhere online that I can trust when they say " trained"