thinking of ranching some sea ponies

[ChaosReefer]

okay, dont comment about the title it was a joke, anyway....

im thinking of starting a thirty gallon seahorse/pipefish tank,but first i have a few questions to ask etc.

1 - can dwarf seahorses coexist with pipefish and the larger seahorses?
2 - can anyone give me links to reputable seahorse dealers?
3 - can someone describe to me in detail the optimal conditions and tank design for a seahorse tank? pictures would help
4 - what are good tankmates for pepefish and seahorses? inverts and non inverts included, as well as coral
5 - what are the dwarf seahorse species? picks much appreciated

alright, now here are some species i have been looking at, please comment about them based on what you know like availabilty and difficulty:

Solenostomus paradoxus - Ornate Ghost Pipefish (im especially interested in this species, every bit of info about them will be greatly appreciated)
Hippocampus Jayakari - Jayakar's Seahorse
Hippocampus reidi - Brazilian seahorse
Hippocampus erectus - Lined Seahorse
Corrythoichthys haematopterus - dragonface pipefish
Corythoichthys nigripectus - Black-Breasted Pipefish
Doryrhamphus excisus - Blue-Stripe Pipefish
Doryrhamphus japonicus - Honshu Pipefish
Syngnathoides biaculeatus - Alligator pipefish
Doryrhamphus multiannulatus - multibanded pipefish

also just so you guys know i already read the reefkeeping magazine article on pipefish. and have been browsing seahorse.org as well as these forums, so any help will be welcome

thank you

[Samala]

Ok - so dwarfs definitely not in with the larger species. Quickly outcompeted for food, plus there is a big discrepancy in what kinds of food.. dwarfs only live.. the captive bred larger species should be on frozen. The dwarf species available are H. zosterae from the Florida Keys/Bahamas area of the Western Atlantic. There is also H. breviceps that is sometimes available, and H. fucus.. these are smaller SH species. Next in line in size is H. capensis.

I have never seen H. jayakari available for sale or read of someone keeping them. Same for D. japonicus, C. nigripectus, S. paradoxus. Blue stripes available from time to time, and supposedly captive bred available for this species in the UK. Multibandeds are available from floridapets.com at the moment, I imagine they could easily get your Alligator pipes as well.

You should know there are several species on the list that are not easily trained over to frozen and only a few that will be captive bred. Its the captive bred's that are the easier ones to keep as you avoid live-food headaches and disease issues. I think it would be best to decide whether or not you can go the live food route, and then narrow the list based on what you can get captive bred.

Another website if you want to do more browsing.. www.syngnathid.org. HTH,

>Sarah

[HorseoftheSea]

usually you cant keep pipefish and dwarfs together because the pipes need a larger tank and to get the feeding density required to feed the dwarfs would be outrageous.

Dan at seahorsesource.com has high quality horses

Oceanrider.com has good horses but they are a bit more expensive

LiveAquaria.com and etropicals.com both have seahorses

for a seahorse tank the rule of thumb is the tank should be 30in tall but many people keep them in smaller tanks

Gobies are a good tank mate.

Hippocampus reidi are probably the most common and readily availible tank raised seahorse

Hippocampus erectus are also popular

as far as pipefish i have only seen them tank raised once and the were around $450 a peice

wild caught pipefish need live foods

as far as dwarfs go the only species you are gonna find readily avalible are H. Zosterae

this is only my opinion

[ChaosReefer]

thanks for the info guys, i think im gonna go with erectus and reidis but if i can ever bribe i mean find a Solenostomus paradoxus i will definitely snatch it up, i would dedicate an entire public aquarium complex just to keep 1 of these things, first they try to cut me off from my sea dragons... now they try to cut me off from ghost pipefish!!!! the nerve of the australian gov't

[luvabunny]

It's usually not a good idea to mix erectus with any other type of seahorse, CB or not. They are know carriers of pathogens which can decimate other species of horses, without ever showing any signs or symptoms of anything themselves.
The general train of thought is to go with one species of horse and keep them in a species only tank. That said, there are some that do mix the species, but they are keepers who have had horses for years, and quarantine them long and hard.
As far as ideal tank sizes, it depends on what species you get. What you have listed varies from the tiniest to some of the largest, and pipefish almost always require very large tanks.
The same goes for tankmates, it will depend on what species of seahorse you get. You certainly can't keep the same tankmates with dwarfs as you can with reidi, and just as an FYI, even tho it's not on your list, shrimpfish will eat seahorse babies. I don't know if any of the pipefish you have listed will or not.
There is a very thorough list of tankmates on www.seahorse.org. It includes almost any type of critter and coral you might want to add, along with a numerical code from 1-5 of good to keep with, and no go to keep with.

[ChaosReefer]

whoa i had no idea, thanks for the heads up, so which do u recommend erectus or reidi? i want some of the more colorful ones, like the red and yellow ones you see on oceanrider.com, but i refuse to buy from them because of the prices and some other things u dont need to know about

but i was told that pipefish dont need such large tanks in most cases and that a 10 or 30 gallon tank was usually enough... have i been lied to?

[pok3mas7er]

reidi tend to be more.............i'm blanking on the word so i'll use stable. i know that's not right, sorry for the brain fart. Oceanrider is reputable but they are too rich for my blood, and yeah, hehe other issues. I have heard of some keepers that have kept reidi and zoestrae together because they come from the same waters. After seeing someone say something about that they get a tongue lashing from a bunch of the members about doing that. I would suggest getting them on frozen because it's so much easier in that rare instance you have to leave them for someone to take care of. But I also prefer feeding live because it's fun to watch them hunt. If you wanted to keep the dwarfs with like reidi's you might be able to teach the dwarfs to feed from a container that fits in the tank that has openings too small for the reidi to get through. That's going to be more for someone with more experience in trying that though.

As far as the pipefish go. You haven't really been lied to. There are some species that will live just fine in a 10. All depends on the adult size of the pipefish. There are also dwarf pipefish for sale on some sites. Along with what luvabunny said though as far as i know, don't quote me on it, every species of pipefish will eat fry.

[pledosophy]

Chaosreefer,

Although Oceanrider has a bad reputation for past dealings they seem to be making a turnaround as of late. If you have experiences with them I think that sharing with the group would help us all. That being said Dan at seahorsesource.com is your best bet.

Mixing is dangerous although Oceanrider claims that you can mix all of there horses toether for a multiple species tank. I do believe this to be accurate information. I have read nothing that disputes it.

No matter what kind of seahorse you get CB is always te best. Easier to take care of, less pathogens, longer aquarium life expectancey ( because you get them young). Eating frozen is a huge plus. (Take this from a guy with a 4 year old ghost shrimp tank and weekly trips to my LFS for a stubborn Reidi that never took to frozen)

[equinecpa]

One thing that you need to consider is if you want to raise seahorse fry. Erectus fry are much easier than Reidi to raise.

I am fairly new to seahorses (got my first dwarfs in December) and first Erectus fry in February. The Dwarfs were wild caught and succumbed to unknown causes in a few months. The Erectus fry are now juvis and are wonderful! I actually have more than I can care for and will be placing a few to select homes over the next few months.

I keep mine in a 30 Gallon tall Eclipse tank with lots of live rock. I have mushroom, xenia, anthelia, kenya tree, gorgonians, leathers and macro algae. The favourite hitches are the gorgonians. I also have a firefish and two clown gobies in the tank as well as various snails, peppermint shrimp and little hermit crabs.

Carolyn

[pok3mas7er]

Pledosophy, i'm a man of experimentation and i don't know if you've tried this in the past but if you would let me know what you have tried to switch i want to know for later knowledge when i get my own. One thing i thought about while sitting here though is to try and get him to feed a live off a pair of tongs. If he takes that then trick him once. The other thought i had, which i don't know if it would work, is to try feeding live from the top of the tank because by now he should know when feeding times are. Like dangle a ghost in your fingers just into the water so he can see the front. Again if he eats that then try to trick him.

[ChaosReefer]

so which ones are the incredibly colorful ones that you see on oceanrider? like the sunfires sunbirst and fire reds?? i really love those colors and if i knew the species that would be real helpful.

[pok3mas7er]

I'm not exactly sure but i think they are almost all H. Reidi. Some could be erectus as well. Email them and ask them what species. If they respond. Took me like 2 weeks to get a hold of someone after sending an order and getting no response. Then calling almost every day.