Using live food becomes a perpetual feeding cycle for the seahorse. The outcome for the seahorse is a happier fish with fresh food and a closer to normal environment. For the seahorse owner, the fear of your seahorse eating enough is erased, leaving you to enjoy your aquarium.
Switching to live seahorse food saves a lot of headaches. With regular supplements of additional live organisms the food chain remains constant and the seahorse remains healthy.
With a little planning and preparation, your seahorse will be a fun, healthy, low stress addition to your aquarium. I would assume if you digestive system was horrible I would want live food in the tank especially if they eat 50 times a day. Nice treat for them and something for them to chase between feedings, but if you get tank raised sea horses there is more nutrition in frozen.
Pods make so much sense here: constantly eating animal with a constantly reproducing live food source. My most recent copepod order from AlgeaBarn was for my new seahorse tank! My seahorses are loving them! Do not be fooled by their small mouths, however. I have seen 4-inch seahorses attack and consume small shrimp more than half an inch long with little difficulty. Remember that any peppermint shrimp tankmates may be eaten. Once you decide to keep seahorses, you should really start with a new fish aquarium.
There are too many factors to consider and too many restrictions to abide by when trying to add seahorses to an established aquarium. Start by considering the size of your tank. Seahorses are vertically oriented animals and utilize the water column to its fullest extent.
In other words, the height of your aquarium is just as important as its footprint. Find a tank that is at least 18 inches tall—the taller, the better. This gave me a roughly byinch footprint and 24 inches of height for the horses to play with. A tank this size, if properly filtered, will be an adequate home for three or four seahorses without causing them stress, or two to three horses if you plan on adding a different fish or two.
The standard fluorescent strip light that comes with most aquariums is sufficient for seahorses in most cases. Controlling the temperature of a seahorse tank is also important. Seahorses prefer cooler water than most tropical aquaria, so the tank should be kept cooler for their maximum comfort. A tank temperature of 74 to 76 degrees Fahrenheit will be suitable. Most of the time, this cooler temperature can be controlled by running a fan over the top of the tank, but you may want to entertain the idea of possibly using a chiller if you live in warmer climates.
Filtration is a hotly debated topic in any aquarium setting, and seahorse tanks are no different. A good-quality hang-on-the-back HOB filter will be suitable for seahorse tanks—even preferable in some ways.
Seahorses should not have a large amount of flow in their environment. They are relatively weak swimmers, and they would be buffeted constantly by the flow of a strong canister filter or most overflow-style filters. Overflow filters are a good option, provided the return flow is not too strong for the tank size.
If you do choose an HOB filter, you will need one that is rated for a larger tank than you will be keeping. Because of their primitive digestive systems, a single seahorse can create a large amount of undigested food that essentially passes straight through its gut, only to decompose in the aquarium.
Filtering this out becomes a full-time task. Water movement from a lower-flow HOB filter also becomes an issue. With reduced current comes reduced oxygen in the water. Low flow also has the possibility to produce dead zones or areas of extremely low oxygen. A simple and elegant solution is available in the form of a protein skimmer. Simply put, a protein skimmer—even an inexpensive one—is an essential piece of equipment for any seahorse aquarium.
Another option is the addition of a single low-flow powerhead. The commonly held belief that a seahorse cannot tolerate any current is a misconception; a healthy horse can handle a strong flow if it has to. But please do not subject even healthy seahorses to strong water flow. The idea of watching seahorses zooming around your tank or surfing the current may be amusing, but this is not recommended for seahorses.
Rather, a small powerhead near the bottom or back of the tank is enough to generate a gentle current that will eliminate dead zones and still not stress your seahorse. Seahorses were once considered to be very difficult animals to keep. At one time, they were only caught in the wild. Wild specimens usually only lasted for a few months in home aquariums before succumbing to infection or starvation. Recent years, however, have revealed a breakthrough with seahorse keeping: captive-bred seahorses.
Captive-bred horses outshine their wild brethren in many different ways. They are weaned on frozen prepared foods, are hardier in a wider range of environments and are almost always disease-free.
Finally, and probably most importantly, captive-bred seahorses are not removed from the wild, so we are not contributing toward the depletion of them from the ocean. A seahorse tank is going to be set up slightly differently than a FOWLR fish only with live rock or a reef environment; however, the differences are minor. An oft-repeated recommendation is that seahorses need to be housed in species-only tanks. While it is true that keeping horses with other tankmates requires a good deal of advanced planning, it is not difficult to find many species of fish, invertebrates and corals that will be acceptable seahorse tankmates.
There are plenty of online references to help plan your tank, most notably at seahorse. There are many slow, cautious fish that make excellent tankmates for seahorses. Scooter blennies, firefish, Banggai and pajama cardinals, and royal grammas are generally considered safe tankmates. Many small goby species are acceptable. The key to keeping other fish with your horses is their activity level.
Fish that have a high activity level will easily outcompete the seahorse for both fish food and swimming space. Although fish add visual interest and diversity in a seahorse tank, I strongly recommend that you start with your seahorses and add only a couple fish from this list afterward.
Let the seahorses get used to their environment before introducing any strangers. Most snails are fine for seahorse tanks and are in fact recommended. Mysis shrimp can typically be purchased at your local fish store and is also available online.
Mysis shrimp is packaged in individual cubes or in flat packs that can be broken into smaller sections. The jumbo size of mysis shrimp available through Hikari is too large for our seahorses so select a smaller mysis shrimp size. Mysis shrimp has been flash frozen after harvesting. Online purchases should be delivered in overnight or two day delivery with proper packaging to make sure the mysis shrimp remains frozen.
A variety of food sources is helpful to provide seahorses with a balanced diet.
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