Starting a sea horse tank

I was going to breed dwarfs....and researched and researched for at least 3 months just on dwarfs....and I finally decided not to go ahead and do it. I had kept seahorses before and had some experience in the whole thing...plus I have several SW tanks set up...
I am not saying that they are impossible to keep, but they are a species that are one of the harder ones to keep. Many will require live food ALL their lives, some will take frozen food and for some reason stop eating and will only eat live again. Some you can never get to eat! They are also very, very messy eaters...have to do frequent water changes...I was doing mine about every 4 days or so! And can only be kept in species only tanks

Here is my impression of a seahorse eating...you should see me doing this to truly understand ;D....oh I see food.....oh there it goes.....oh, more food....maybe that piece looks good.....ooppss too late it is past me.....hmmm maybe I will move now.......what was I doing......oh yeah food.....slurp 1 piece......Im tired I am going to sit here.....look Joe more food..... (Start process over again). Thank you, thank you very much!:grinthumbs: tell I am tired!

But go on Seahorse.org, syngnathid.org, reef sanctuary and many other sites and there is a lot of info out there. Again, not saying it cant be done....just difficult. Good luck if you try it.

 

best way to keep them is well is seahorse only. We have had our best luck with ORA captive bread horses they eat frozen foods right away.

 

really!
are they hard to keep a lot of people keep saying that they are not to good looking and that they are hard to keep. I am new to this hobby but i have someone who is experienced on my side. So i feel like he will be able to help me a lot plus this website with people who are full of knowledge =) haha but yeah what do you think?

 

I have to agree, there was a place back in P.R. that swarm with those critters, and never cough any do to their looks,not very appealing to me, or collector friends.

 

thanks so much for your answer!!
thats great information to know. I haven't done a water change yet but im excited to do one? i know that sounds dumb but like i literally have never done anything fish related before haha. But thanks again

 

this is a mandarin

you cant mix other fish with seahorse except maybe a pipefish(i think), but i don't recommend that to someone with no expierence, seahorse are so slow you will think they are retarded, every other fish is 20x faster then them and will eat all the food before they can get any or beat them up tell they die.

honestly i don't know how seahorse can survive in the wild.

 

They will only eat live food from what i have experienced. If the someone tells you that they eat frozen food they are either really lucky or just pulling your leg. I have a couple of friends that have tried keeping them and have not had much luck. This was probably mainly due to the fact that they had little experience with saltwater fish so i think they were doomed from the start but it may be different since you have your boyfriend to walk you through everything. Good luck if you decide to keep them

 

Thanks for the tips!!

 

Seahorse care is so specific that it's best to go to the site where there are plenty of long term hobbyists with up to date information available.
While I like this forum, the best information for my seahorses is at Seahorse Organisation. Keeping and Breeding Seahorses in the home aquarium..
If you check out their forum you will find people there that live in your area, some maybe even breeding horses.
They have a library as well as the discussion forums.

 

Be prepared to maintain your tank to keep pristine water conditions. Sea horses are very demanding animals and are very fragile. I kept my sea horses for about a year before they fell to a fungal infestation, due to my friend's kid putting his hands in the tank. I was told that even keeping them for a year was amazing. I just kept a ritual weekly 10% water change, siphoned out the uneatened mysis shrimp, changed the lamps as soon as I hit the 12 month mark and kept waterflow very low. Best of luck, try to keep these things in mind and you should be fine. Oh, and keep little children's hands out of the tank.