Advice? Looking for thoughts on my next project

I have been wanting a seahorse tank for a while, but just never can commit to it. I think that plan sounds pretty reasonable with zoas and pallys. What temp will you run? I remember people like keeping them at lower temps for bacterial infections. I have been curious about carbon dosing with seahorses too for nutrient reduction. Seems counter intuitive to keep lower temps to limit bacteria, but then to dose carbon to increase bacteria, but most ppl don't report increased pathogens with carbon dosing and they might even out compete pathogens. Sounds like you will use macro for nutrients? A scrubber might be good for them too.

 

Those are all good points made above. Another thing to consider is the dimensions of your tank. Seahorses enjoy depth and floating up and down in a water column, so if your tank is rather shallow it might not be the most ideal setup for them. Not saying its not possible or anything, just not necessarily ideal.

 

That should work having both corals and seahorses together. The only problem I see is you will not have optimal coral growth. Most corals do best at 76 degrees and if i remember correctly seahorses should be kept in a water that is 67 degrees. With a seahorse tank you also need to do weekly water changes since you cannot have a high flow in the tank to kick everything from the bottom up to get filtered out. Also the other problem from what iv noticed is that corals thrive in semi dirty water. So doing weekly changes you will have a fairly clean tank. I purchases a biocube with intentions of making it a seahorse tank just haven't gotten that far to get it up and going. You would need a chiller and get some seahorses that are fed frozen food. People have a feeding station in the tank where they let the thawed frozen food fall down into. Then seahorses eat out of that without the food flying around the tank. Since they are so slow they cannot compete with other fish so all the tanks iv seen are species only tanks. Hope I helped any other questions just ask. I don't know a ton about them since I do not have the tank up and going. That is just what i learned from the research iv done on them.

 

IMO

Really bad idea.

Corals need flow, period. And there is no way to get good strong flow to just part of a tank, it just doesnt work that way.

I havent heard of a 55 long, what are the dimensions?

A mandarin and seahorses DO NOT go well together. It is very hard to keep a mandarin supplied with enough pods and live foods. Seahorses eat the same thing, so how are you going to keep them both alive and healthy?

Seahorses likes cooler water, corals do not.

Do a ton of research on seahorses, and see where that takes you.

 

I have a 29g biocube with seahorses and corals. My horses actually prefer warmer temps and we keep the tank around 76-78. I have a few zoas and sponges and a sun coral in the tank as well. I have had the tank close to 2 years and all are doing well.

 

I have never tried sea horses but I did read that it is easy to introduce hydroids if you keep coral and hydroids are supposed to bad for sea horses. Not sure the effect of them on full size seahorses or if it affects the dwarfs more. Very cool if you keep them though. I never attempted since they seem like a lot more work. Would hate it if they starved.