Contest Team SEAHORSE: Catherine

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Do you have to keep your water cooler for these guys? I found a LFS that is selling them for 14.00 a piece (is that a good, bad or normal price?)and am thinking about setting up a small tank for them. What kind of equipment are you using/ going to use?

Bobby, be sure you find out exactly where these horses came from before you consider purchasing them. Seahorses are endangered and it is illegal to sell wild-caught but it happens all the time. You want tank-bred horses that have been weaned onto frozen mysis. That price your LFS is offering them for is extremely low and cause for suspicion. What type of horse are they? Tank temps depend on the breed of horse some like frigid temps and some like it warmer. My tank has hippocampus erectus and hippocampus barboli and I keep my temp at 78. Also, horses need a dedicated tank to do well. They are wimpy and slow eaters. When I say slow I mean SLOW. The food practically has to swim into their snouts to eat! They are wonderful animals with personality and beauty. We need to keep a good captive bred population going so I encourage people to get to know them. It is worth it. Read over my thread and you'll find out what equipment I'm setting up for these guys.

C
 
How long do you have to wait on the Seahorses? Who did you order them from?

I'm getting mine from ORA. They are the only ones I can find that are offering tank-bred, frozen eating dwarf horses. I might get them next week, maybe months, it depends on their availability. Another great source for horses is Seahorse.com - Seahorse, Sea Life, Marine Life, Aquafarm Sales, Feeds and Accessories - Home. The offer a FANTASTIC FREE COURSE in seahorses and have ponies for purchase as well.

C
 
They are Hippocampus zosterae, or dwarf seahorses. They're in the tank breed section on their site. I'll have to ask them to make sure next week. I have looked up several sites and they say to put them in a 5 gal or smaller tank due to feedings. On all those sites I can't find a deff temp. One site says 70 to 75 ans another would says 75 to 78.
 
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Bobby, I got to help setup the dwarf seahorse exhibit at the AQ and those things are SUPER delicate, in fact more of those lil guys die than survive... they are super super cool but require such a perfect balance of everything that if anything is off or goes wrong you'll lose em :( the pics i attached are from the setup night, those little guys are less than one inch big!


Catherine, I can't wait to see your ponies, for my recent marine bio class me and my bf did a report on sea horses and all that jazz :) You'll have to make a trip to teh monterey aquarium sometime and check our ponies out :D
 

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Catherine, I can't wait to see your ponies, for my recent marine bio class me and my bf did a report on sea horses and all that jazz :) You'll have to make a trip to teh monterey aquarium sometime and check our ponies out :D

Yeah, I'm really nervous about this whole tank. I've never tried so many plants and I know the dwarfs are super delicate. I'm really hoping this tank doesn't crash. Keeping the parameters exactly spot on is my focus right now.

What a cool project you worked on! FUN!

Catherine
 
WooT! My Nano Koralia came in! Put it in my tank along with my other Nano Koralia and re-aquascaped the whole thing. I'll take pictures when the dust cloud settles. There is some serious water movement in there. I moved out everything that is going into the fuge and put it in my big fuge (which is now being called Biffy in honor of the originator of the design) and I'm getting ready to fill my other 10 gallon with water to start building the fuge. Hope to have it built by the end of the day and then work on overcoming my fear of hooking two tanks together. I also got my light bulbs and my little light hood is now complete. Pics tonight!

Catherine
 
I did the same thing for the light on my nano tank. I ended up not using it because I upgraded my other tanks light and used the old one from it. I still have the hood light from the 10 gallon painted and everything in the closet for a back up. Did you do the lexan cover they talked about on the vid?
 
I did the same thing for the light on my nano tank. I ended up not using it because I upgraded my other tanks light and used the old one from it. I still have the hood light from the 10 gallon painted and everything in the closet for a back up. Did you do the lexan cover they talked about on the vid?

Do you mean the plexi-glass cover to seal the bulbs? Yes, if you look at the sides in the picture you can see the little bead of silicone glue. This was incredibly easy to do and the corals are doing well with the light levels. I'm not sure that I like the color of the bulbs though. It seems kind of cold. Also, I wand to add a moonlight somehow. All in all, it was a cheap and easy mod for my nano and I'm happy with it.

Catherine
 
Sooooo today was a big day for Team Seahorse! I'm eliminating my strip of nano tanks and a few items got moved into the contest tank. I added a little yellow goby named Oboe, Stella 2, a few brown buttons and a few small pieces of LR. I just kind of tossed the LR into the tank but I really like the way it looks. Most of my plants are still alive but a couple are showing signs of stress. I hope the addition of a fish will help them out. The light's out now so I'll take pics tomorrow. Woot!
 
Finally, some pictures:

Here, you can see some of the diversity in that live sand from GCE. Also, Stella 2 (the GSP), some polyps and some of the macro algae still alive:

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In this next picture, you can see how the whole tank is coming along. The whole back wall is bubbles. I do that to move the water for the seahorses because I've found it does a good job of keeping things moving without shooting streams of water at them. You have to be careful that the bubbles stay at the top 10 inches of the tank or seahorses can develop GBS. Also, my horses like to have a bubble massage at the end of the day. You can see my little goby, Oboe, that I added yesterday on the bottom right in front of the little cave.

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These next two shots are of Oboe. He seems so much happier in this Nano tank. Before he was in a 10 gallon with a rock only, now he's got a lot of room to play!

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The Nano is still a lot busier that it will end up but I'm still moving my other tanks all over the place so I'll move stuff out soon.

WooT!
 
Thought I would post some more pics.

Starting to get worried about my ponies, I'll call my guy tomorrow.

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