Seahorses? Anyone Kept Them

[simonas]

Everytime I go to the LFS I find myself drawn to the seahorses. They are beautiful creatures and love the sea horse set ups just for them

Has anyone ever kep them?Are they harder to maintain than a reeftank for example as I;ve found my reef tank difficult to maintain

Any info would be appreciated as I;m thinking of setting up another 94l tank for seahorses if thats doable?
I;m going to start googling now so these are my first thoughs prior to research

Simon

 

[nicklos]

My uncle use to keep them. They are extremely hard to keep.
You have to have a tall aquarium. If you decide to do this, keep only seahorses.
Find a breeder, don't trust any LFS as most are wild caught and will not survive in an aquarium.
They will only eat live foods. The water has to be perfect. Lastly, they need a place to "hitch up".
They will wrap their tail around coral (real or fake) to escape currents and rest.

 

[HappyGeorge]

Never kept them but have read a bit on them, question always seems to be not so much whether its hard to keep them but whether its hard to keep them happy, healthy and with a reasonable life expectancy, I think you're pretty restricted on what you can keep with them, as they hate flow. Always looked like a major head ache to me.

 

[seffieuk]

Take a look at Connorsbala and Kelwoo's journel - both keep seahorses

Seffie x

 

[simonas]

cheers seffie, read Kelwoos, its a great journal but ends badlty for her though. I;m just going to have a big old read for a while first and then see what to do

 

[-Nemo-]

Don't keep them personally, but maintain a seahorse tank at work... One of the more difficult things is that they need to be fed multiple times a day, so being able to do that for some people, might be difficult depending on your schedule. Along with that goes the additional nutrients going into the tank, which may/will affect water quality. ORA sells multiple species that are captive bred around here, but I don't think ORA goes overseas... The ones I take care of are captive bred yellow kudas, which are doing great. They eat everything and anything that is given to them.

I used to think they needed a tall tank as well, but we have them in a regular rectangle tank and they seem to do quite well.

 

[simonas]

cheers Nemo
do you know whether feeding morning , early evening and bedtime is ample. I couldn;t manage duriung the day so if thats no good this is a non starter for me

 

[-Nemo-]

I don't think that would be a problem Simonas.

 

[JamieMRatcliffe]

I kept them for a while, found that the hardest thing was keeping the water levels constant - Any fluctuation and the horses become unhappy/unhealthy.
Which can be hard because of the amount of foods going into the tank.
Fascinating to watch, especially the mating rituals! Never reared any of the young though.
They are fine in a rectangular tank but it makes mating near enough impossible - thats when they will need a (relatively) tall tank.
There is a great store within driving distance from me (Near Manchester) that has some fantastic tank bread horses, they specialise is horses so are very helpful and knowledgable.

 

[simonas]

cheers Jamie
what species did you keep?

Is that simply seahorses? is it in northwich? if so not far from me either

 

[JamieMRatcliffe]

I had a pair of Hippocampus Reidi, had to sell up because of limited time around 18 months ago.

Although Im looking to move house in the summer and if I do I'll be starting a seahorse set up again.

And yes SimplySeahorses, absolutely fantastic place, i got some corals and other bits from there and they were always high quality.

Go for a look round if its near you, or ring them up and reserve a pair if you're defo getting some.