Sharing my Seahorse tank with you all

finding nemo · #1 06/30/2006, 02:07 AM

Hello everyone. Just thought I would drop in to share my horse tank with everyone.
It is a 45 gallon tank with a coralife fixture over it.
Aquaclear filter.
All live rock and feather caulerpa.
The tank has been set up for over a year with nothing in it but the live rock ,live sand seeded from my other tanks and some xenia and a few frags of zoos and some large purple mushrooms have been added to make it look pretty.
A pair of mandrins and 3 young Hippocampus Mohnikei .
The tank is full of pods and I keep a pile of rubble in the front of the tank and the back corners for a hiding/breeding place safe from all of those hungry mouths.
They eat out of my homemade butter tub feeder and are doing well.
I am just getting back into seahorses after a few years of not having them around and am enjoying them a lot.
Here is the tank.

lfduty · #2 06/30/2006, 02:16 AM

Im in LOVE with your tank

finding nemo · #3 06/30/2006, 02:18 AM

Thanks Lf.

hawkfish21 · #4 06/30/2006, 07:02 AM

Very nice!

sloshesv · #5 06/30/2006, 09:19 AM

That's a little bit of seahorse heaven right there.

Jordan55 · #6 06/30/2006, 10:18 AM

Karen, I love the tank. I like how the rock work is actually in the sandbed and the macro is all over the rock. It looks like their natural habitat.

Keep it up!

finding nemo · #7 06/30/2006, 07:55 PM

Thanks everyone, I have always strived to have the natural habitat in all of my tanks, it is a bit more work to clean out the caulerpa and thin things but it keeps everything stable and natural and the horses are happy. Constantly in the rocks looking for those elusive pods

Hi Jordan.

finding nemo · #8 06/30/2006, 07:58 PM

Also wanted to point out, I have one 4 pound rock right in the center of the tank, then I bought some live rock rubble on ebay and just poured it in the front of the rock. It is full of bugs and stuff and it gives the pods a place to breed away from the horses and mandrins.
Tanks don't have to be messed with in the way of rock, just pour it in and let it set where it lands and let nature take it's course.
That is just how I do it anyway.
I don't like the set up look, like someone spent days fixing each rock in a certain place.
Think how boring the oceans would be if everything was stacked up nice and neat.

mr_miagi32 · #9 07/01/2006, 01:26 AM

Thats a beautiful tank finding nemo. I love the planted SW tanks! Have your mandarins bred or spawneD?

pledosophy · #10 07/01/2006, 01:31 AM

Miagi Aye!

Good to see you over here. I'm Pleder on Fish Forums.

finding nemo · #11 07/01/2006, 01:38 AM

HI Mr. no they are new to the tank and young, but are a pair from what RM says.
I to love the planted tanks. All of mine are planted.

mr_miagi32 · #12 07/01/2006, 01:41 AM

Wicked finding nemo! As soon as I catch and sell my macro eating hermits, im going to try macro in my display.

Quote:

Originally posted by pledosophy
Miagi Aye!

Good to see you over here. I'm Pleder on Fish Forums.

Hey Pleder!

Shiva1 · #13 07/01/2006, 01:48 AM

Nice set-up!

Can you tell us a little about maintenance/filtering/equipment?

finding nemo · #14 07/01/2006, 01:54 AM

Good morning Shiva. Happy to.
I do little maintance on all of my tanks, I have them as close to the ocean as I can get.
I do not drip, drop nor add anything to the water. Water changes are every month or so when I get around to it.
I do top offs with tap water as dont have my RO system set up yet.
I use aquaclear 500 on all of my tanks, none have fuges or sumps.
I do use powerheads, in the seahorse tank I have one small waterfall pump, the table top kind to move a bit of the water but one half of the tank barely moves with the low flow, one half gets the flow from the filter which I run a small bag of carbon and a filter pad in, changed every week or so.
Light is a coralife 96 watt times 2 bulbs. 1/2 actinic and the other sun light.
Thats all I do.
And I do have to pull the caulerpa several times a month or it would take over the tank.

finding nemo · #15 07/01/2006, 01:58 AM

Oh and it is a 45 gallon

Shiva1 · #16 07/01/2006, 02:38 AM

Sounds like you know what your talking about

!!

What's the quality of the tapwater in Texas?

finding nemo · #17 07/01/2006, 02:57 AM

I try to learn all I can and do a lot of experimenting with my tanks.
Don't know about the water quality. It is well water however and only Chlorine is added. I let the water sit for 2 days before adding it for top offs tho.

sunfishh · #18 07/07/2006, 12:26 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by finding nemo
Also wanted to point out, I have one 4 pound rock right in the center of the tank, then I bought some live rock rubble on ebay and just poured it in the front of the rock. It is full of bugs and stuff and it gives the pods a place to breed away from the horses and mandrins.
Tanks don't have to be messed with in the way of rock, just pour it in and let it set where it lands and let nature take it's course.
That is just how I do it anyway.
I don't like the set up look, like someone spent days fixing each rock in a certain place.
Think how boring the oceans would be if everything was stacked up nice and neat.

I love your low maintance philosophy and it seems to be working because your tank is awesome. I suspect that part of it is the macroalgae you have. It tends to do the work for the aquarist.

finding nemo · #19 07/07/2006, 02:49 AM

Morning sunfish, yes your absolutly right on the maintance.
I do not believe you need sumps, fuges and such to have a well balanced tank.
They do seem to take care of themselves when you get as close to mother nature as you can.
I do have to harvest the caulerpa often or it will take over everything.
I have a few zoo frags in there on top of the big rock that get over run fast so I have to keep up with pulling it often.
I also have cucumber in there, and loads of bugs and bristleworms.
At the end of the day before lights out I take my turkey baster and blast any uneated food out of the feeder so that the bristleworms can clean it up before it spoils, it is all gone withing an hour.
Yesterday I changed the filter to an aquaclear 300 for the tank as needed the 500 for my large tank.
I need very little filtration on the tank and I have a problem now with the smaller filter creating bubbles in the water as it falls in, so need to figure out how to elliminate that today.
All in all, natural is the way to go and much less maintance.
The closer you can get to there natural habitat the healhtier they will stay.
I also have two pink clams in the tank, the small ones that lay on there sides.
They are not the red flasher kind and I cant think of the name of them but they are very cool, great filter feeders but stay hidden in the caulerpa most of the time. I have a few pictures of them someplace if you would like to see them.

luvabunny · #20 07/07/2006, 02:49 PM

Hi Nemo,
I used to live near Canton - can't say I really miss it much tho =)

I'm now in Okla and have never seen Mohnekei offered. Where did you find yours? Do you have a positive ID on them? They certainly are a little different than most I'm used to seeing around here.

BTW, beautiful tank. I, too, try to use the KISS method as much as possible. No sumps, fuges or additives for me, and I also use tap water, only I use it straight from the tap with chlorine neutralizer and PH buffer. If it's not in the salt, then except for DT's, it doesn't get in the tank.

The club I'm a part of tried to tell me for 2 yrs you couldn't keep a SW tank that way, then I held one of the monthly meetings at my home. They've never questioned it again..........

It looks like you have both male and female horses. Are you going to try to raise some? Just interested, since you don't hear much of this species.

Very, very pretty. Thanks for the pics!

finding nemo · #21 07/07/2006, 04:23 PM

Hi bunny, thanks so much, I bought them from Reefermadness.
They only had 4 when I bought them 2 months ago, I lost 2 of them right off as were very small. Then I lost another when it went up the feed tube, now I don't leave it in the tank, then they got three more in and I bought them.
I know I have a male and female so far, not sure about the smaller ones.
The largest is only 4" or so long, not sure how big they will get, but I hope they don't get much bigger as I like the smaller ones.
I like your way of thinking on keeping tanks. So many people go way overboard on there tanks, but then I do not keep any hard corals to speak of that would need all of that stuff.
I keep all softies. You can see my 125 tank under large tanks section titles "Sharing my 125 with you"
It to is all natural, no sumps, I also have a 75g and a 15 tall.
So I guess I am addicted

LFS_worker · #22 07/08/2006, 06:20 AM

very cool! one of the better ones Ive seen

kpc01 · #23 07/08/2006, 01:48 PM

Looks good...any details on how you made, and how you feed using the butter container. I am wanting to make something similar for our tank. Any help would be appreciated!

finding nemo · #24 07/08/2006, 03:23 PM

Hi Kpc, happy to tell you how it is made, quite simple actually.
You can use any flat back container that will fit up against the glass.
I used a butter dish. plastic. Took my ice pick, metal and heated it on the stove for a few seconds to make the tip red hot, then I burned a hole in it for a suction cup I had from an old shower caddy.
Then while it was still hot I made a hole on each end big enough for an average size straw to to thru, then I ran a straw thru one end, into the cup and out the other. That is there hitching post to eat and they use it when ever they are eating, they just hook on and swing hanging upside down in the cup to eat.
When the food gets over a few hours old I take my turkey baster and blast it out for the bristleworms and bugs to eat.

For the mysis shrimp I bought a 1" round corner tube that comes in 3 feet sections.
I cut a 12" piece of it and use a heater hook with a suction cup on it to anchor it onto the glass hanging into the dish. I take a frozen piece of mysis shrimp, drop it in the tub, as it thaws it falls slowly into there dish where they are always watching it fall and waiting for it to come down into the dish.

Here are some pictures I took for someone else that wanted to know how it is made.
Hope it helps. I kind of like the butter label on it so I left it on

But you can remove it of course

Tank with it in. Always remove the feeding tube after feeding as I lost a horse that went up in the tube and couldnt get out.

One of the horses hitched to the straw eating.

finding nemo · #25 07/08/2006, 03:27 PM

Forgot to mention, you can replace the straw when it gets dirty or do like I do and just put the whole thing up on the top shelve in my dishwasher and let it wash it all up then replace it back in the tank.