What is needed to house Seahorses

I will eventually get a nice salt water tank built in my rec room but that is a bit out right now as I'm working on a ray tank.

I've also wanted seahorses. Curious to know if anyone keeps them and what kind of advice from setup to care they can offer? I've heard they can be territorial as well.

Thx

seahorses need a tank will low flow! they are real fragile and eat ALOT!!!
so if you decide to get some read up on them AS MUCH AS YOU CAN and be prepared to dump money into them! you have to constantly feed em everyday! and watch them very carfully! every 1 i know thats tried seahorses has failed! but maybe youll have better luck! lol
you can try housing them in a lil 3g eclipse tank! also you have to make sure they have somthing to hang on to and hide behind!

I'm thinking a 29g would provide a nice footprint for them. How many do you think will be able to be housed together in that setup?

I know about taking care of the sensitive guys. Rays can be a task until they get used to you.

The tank we have them in at work is a 20g long with a powerhead with a sponge on it and a protein skimmer and that's it for mechanical filtration. Its got sand, live rock and a few mushrooms and some seafan skeletons for them to hang on to. That's where we keep the pipe fish as well.

Hope that helps some.......

How many do you have in the 20 and by chance do you have any pics?

Its the tank at the lfs I work at so the number varies...... any where between 1-6, same number on the pipe fish and some little gobys and blennys from time to time and usually 3 blood shrimp are in there too......

I don't do salt but that's how the tank is at my lfs and they do very well in there, one guy has been in there for a few months now and is quite happy.

Seahorses are hard man... and expensive too!!! but i've heard from everyone they are hard and not to waste the time. sooo, just my opinion, unless you know a LOT about saltwater and what not, i wouldn't buy the best most colorful 200 dollar ones. lol which is all i mostly see in my LFS... but try it out and let us know!!!! I been wanting to try it out too. the LFS usually has like 15 in a 25 GAL tank... but they are like 1 inch or 1 1/2 inch long($125)... they have like a 3 inch one($225) it's beautiful..

PASS!!!!........................................too much $$$ for a very fragile animal that you can barely see!!!!i think a 29g would be good!
just get some mermaids fan skeletons or somthin for them to hold on to! theyll be fine!
but youll have to be ontime of water params like KrAzY!!!

I've definately read that they are extremely sensitive and territorial too.

When I had seahorses I used a 15 tall tank. Used an undergravel filter with airflow..no power heads. Had some sea fans that were dried i put in there for them to latch on to. Had black mollies i aclimated to slat water in there as well. When i fed them since they are relatively slow moves i used a glass pippette to put the brine shrimp right in front of them a few at a time till they stopped eating. I just had two in there at one time never really had a territory problem, but I might have just gotten lucky. I later tried to put a few chromis in the tank. They ended up killing the horses....I was 14 and really did not know better It was a little rough keeping the tanks H2O condition going well. Small tank with limited water movement= pain in the you know.

Have not messed with Seahorses since then just thought I would relate my experience 11 years ago. Good luck.

Tons of books at Barnes and Nobles.com for less than $5 with more recent info

Keeping seahorses is easy. So long as you keep to pristine water conditions. Ive had seahorses for 6 years now and each has lived for about 3 or 4 years. Ive kept reidi, zosterae, and erectus. They have funny personalities and are rather social. Mine love to curl around my hands when i am cleaning the tank. So long as you keep to only seahorses in the tank or peaceful fish such as the pajama cardinal or yellow clown goby. Keep lots of hitching posts. I prefer to use red grape macro or caulerpa. Fake corals work well but may scratch their tails and can lead to infection. So fake plants are good alternative. Live corals are obviously a no no if they sting. Mushrooms, kenya tree coral, and polyps are what i have used and i've had no problems yet. The taller the tank the better. 29 gallons and up. Keep atleast 2. They get really lonely and depressed alone. For a 29 gallon you could keep up to 4. I use live brine shrimp or enriched frozen mysis as feeds. They do eat a lot. So keeping seahorses is possible! Good luck.

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