Sea horses

Just starting to think about a sea horse tank for my 8 year old. Can someone give me the quick version of how much work it entails. I heard they need to be fed twice a day, which would be hard to ever go out of town. I would like to do a 12 G nano with 4 pigmy's. Anyone think this is do-able. I know I have a lot of research to do. Would you recommend a reef tank, or sand and some LR only? Thanks

 

do you have much experience with saltwater? ive read a few articles on seahorse care and it seems like hard stuff and a lot of people dont have success getting them on prepared foods, also they are super sensitive to temperature swings etc and you would need a tall tank with lots of plants (fake or real but real is better) for them to grasp onto. I believe when i read the pygmys are the hardiest of the species...if i can find the articles i was reading ill post them up here

 

im sure you could find some infor here: Log In

also i believe con999 and rayjay are experience with seahorses if you contact them

this is the link i believe i was reading: SEAHORSE KEEPING

 

They take quite a bit of attention to be successful with them.

The biggest thing is you need to maintain the right temperature. This usually requires the usage of a chiller.

 

from my understanding the tank needs to be kept between 68-74 degrees while staying closer to 70-72

 

Maybe I'm an exception, or maybe I'm irresponsible....

I've got 3 horsies in a 30 gallon tank. They do require more work than your average fish....and there are unique situations that they get into.

Mine have been healthy, I've had them for almost a year.

I struggled with the temps over the summer, the tank got into the low to mid 80's despite my attempts to cool it. I now keep the tank in the high 70's, because I like my coral to grow. I keep lots of soft corals with a couple montis, if that is considered "reef".

They require for the most part frozen mysis shrimp, and the more you feed them, the better. They breed if I feed them at least once a day. Most of the time I try to make sure that I feed them every other day. It is a problem if you aren't around to feed them since you can't just set up an automated feeder.

They are fun to watch, but they aren't as fast or move around as much as a clownfish, so I find they can be somewhat boring after a while.

HTH, Rick

 

i have heard of success in similar situations but not nearly as many...the fish itself can tolerate the temperatures however they are more prone to get infections hence why ideally you keep the temperatures lower to prevent infection but if its not broken dont fix it, you probably got a batch of lucky sea horses but from what ive read into i wouldnt recommend it to someone just starting with sea horses, i though about it at one point because i have a 20 hex laying around which is pretty tall but decided against it because it would be a lot of work

 

OK, first of all, if you read the links at the bottom of the page linked above, (or in my signature) then they will give you the basics you should know to get into the hobby.
While some people have pushed the conditions beyond recommended and succeeded, most doing so will fail. Many still fail even at recommended conditions.
Second, you cannot buy pygmy seahorses but you can buy standard seahorses of various sizes and you can buy dwarfs H. zosterae.
12g is too small for standard size (min. rec. 29/30g) and too large for dwarfs unless you are going to put a heck of a lot in there. You would have no problem keeping 20 dwarfs in a five gallon and the tank still looks almost empty.
Dwarfs need live food to survive and usually we feed them enriched (with Dan's Feed from seahorsesource.com) brine shrimp.
However, because the dwarfs tend not to hunt down their food much, we need feeding density to an extreme so they get sufficient passing by their hitching point to snick up.
This means a lot of removal of uneaten live food as leaving it in there allows the dwarfs to then feed on food that has lost it's nutrition.
Dwarfs or standards, the number one thing you can do for best chances of success is keeping the tanks clean. This normally means much cleaner than a reef tank needs to be. (with seahorses of any size, cleanliness is next to godliness, as the saying goes)
Next is keeping the tank under 75°F as already mentioned.
Bacteria presence in the tanks will increase exponentially with each rising degree, especially as you get to 75° and higher.
The first recommendation for treating problems in seahorses is to put them in a hospital tank and lower the temperature to 68° to lessen the growth of bacteria which is probably the number one killer of seahorses.
There is nothing "quick" that can be learned and be successful in this hobby IMO.