Seahorses...asking for my Mom ;)

[KaitieG]

I have kept several planted freshwater tanks for a few years now.  My mom (who likes my tanks) hasn't kept fish since she was a kid in the '60s '70s, when she had seahorses and guppies (different tanks, obv).  She came on a couple trips to our semi-local fishstore, and they have a truly beautiful seahorse display tank with sea urchins and a couple cool looking shrimp too.  She is seriously considering trying to set one up "with my help".

Except I've never done salt water.  My parents do have an RO system.  So that is a plus.  Their budget is fairly realistic, too. 

However, it sounds like seahorses are rather challenging. They aren't something I would personally take on at my stage of life, but I have to admit the inspiration tank is outstanding.  Wish I had a picture...I'll work on that.  

Anyone here have tips/advice/warnings/equipment guidance/trusted sources to point me to as we research this idea?  

I'd post on Facebook too but just finally signed up for Facebook a couple months ago and ACO Group rules don't allow me to post there yet. 🙂

[Tlindsey]

On 8/13/2024 at 11:51 PM, KaitieG said:

I have kept several planted freshwater tanks for a few years now.  My mom (who likes my tanks) hasn't kept fish since she was a kid in the '60s '70s, when she had seahorses and guppies (different tanks, obv).  She came on a couple trips to our semi-local fishstore, and they have a truly beautiful seahorse display tank with sea urchins and a couple cool looking shrimp too.  She is seriously considering trying to set one up "with my help".

Except I've never done salt water.  My parents do have an RO system.  So that is a plus.  Their budget is fairly realistic, too. 

However, it sounds like seahorses are rather challenging. They aren't something I would personally take on at my stage of life, but I have to admit the inspiration tank is outstanding.  Wish I had a picture...I'll work on that.  

Anyone here have tips/advice/warnings/equipment guidance/trusted sources to point me to as we research this idea?  

I'd post on Facebook too but just finally signed up for Facebook a couple months ago and ACO Group rules don't allow me to post there yet. 🙂

I personally kept Seahorses in the 90's. During that time no one not even the lfs used rodi water. I personally mixed distilled water the brand Instant Ocean reef crytals. Had a custom 45 gallon tall setup with a few coral and live rock. My filtration was a small sump and skimmer. The most challenging was providing food for them they ate adult brine. Going to the lfs became a bit much so decided to try frozen mysis. After mixing a few mysis shrimp the live brine shrimp a couple of times was so excited when one started sucking in the mysis. Hopefully now most seahorse breeders feed such non live food. The key to keeping the seahorse healthy is keep their environment stable at all times. You can not slack on aquarium maintenance. I also recommend live rock because seahorse will hunt for copepods. I had custom made metal halide light fixture at that time. Now they make inexpensive led lights for marine setups. I always believe if I could keep seahorse so could others as well. @KaitieG

[KaitieG]

Thank you so much @Tlindsey, this is encouraging!  Our "l"fs is quite a drive, so figuring out the food piece is important.  I would love to build an ecosystem like I have for the freshwater tanks (to varying degrees of success).  I am just trying to find out where to even begin such a concept with salt water.  But it is an exciting thing to keep learning.  That's one of my favorite things about keeping fish...there's always another thing to learn and try!

[Biotope Biologist]

Few things:

 

1. Seahorses need a well aged tank. Like 1-2 years old and I would go ahead and stock with microfauna- copepods, shrimp, annelids and the like

 

2. Seahorses need to be in a group or pair they are terribly anxious creatures 

 

3. They don’t live very long. Expect 3 years at the absolute max. Some have seen 5 but it is incredibly rare.

 

4. And this is a big one. Seahorse and their ilk lack stomachs. Which means they are constantly eating which means you need to setup a system or be there to feed them 10-15x a day. Pro Aquariums have a separate tank full of live brine that is hooked up to a time fed pump to pump them in to the display every hour-ish.

 

Knowing this there are brackish and freshwater counterparts to the saltwater seahorse if you don’t want the hassle of setting up a full marine tank. Luckily seahorse are sedentary and small so realistically you only need a 20-30 gallon display. I would do a 10-20 gallon sump. Also seahorse are on the expensive side of the hobby. If your LFS is worth it’s salt they are likely priced by the pair at $200-400 depending highly on if you have a local breeder as they do not travel well by air.

 

None of this is meant to dissuade you seahorses are beautiful and very rewarding if not demanding fish to keep. They breed very easily as well when they come of age and that can be a fun challenge on its own

 

Cheers, 

I hope you try it!

[gardenman]

Yeah, the current price of seahorses is impressive. In my younger days, you could order them through the mail from ads in the back of comic books and things like Mad Magazine. And they were cheap. You could get a pack of ten for next to nothing. They were often sold next to the "sea monkeys." 

I have a pet theory that you could create a freshwater line of seahorses. They tend to be coastal critters, and coastal waters are prone to wild variations in salinity. Some species are found near river mouths where salinity can vary wildly. Heavy rains can drop the salinity a lot in coastal waters. Establish a colony in full saltwater then gradually (over years, probably decades) reduce the salinity as they breed and breed.  It might take a decade or two and need a restart or two, but given their readiness to breed and adaptability to fluctuating salinity levels, I suspect it's possible to eventually create a freshwater line of seahorses. There are freshwater pipefish that are closely related to seahorses. You'd probably still need a high pH and hard water, but even that could eventually be overcome. Selectively breeding the hardiest of those in less and less saline water could/should eventually give you a line of freshwater seahorses. Time and money would be the big issues.  It would be a labor of love to pull it off. And you'd need colonies of them with lots of food and maintenance. Then once you'd created the line, they'd flood the market and kill the price since they breed so easily. The first pair of freshwater seahorses that hit the market could sell for God only knows how high of a price. But within a year or two the market would be flooded with them since they reproduce so readily. 

It would take the right lunatic with lots of cash to pull it off, but I think it's doable. It would almost certainly be a very bad investment though. The overall cost to develop them would likely be well over a hundred thousand dollars. If you're a hobbyist who wants to make a name for himself/herself though, it could be doable. You'll kill a lot of seahorses in the process though as many/most won't be able to adapt to the conditions you're trying to impose on them. It would be a very Darwinian process, with few surviving each step, but eventually you could create a freshwater line of seahorses. Or maybe not. 

Do you go with a gradual ever-reducing amount of salinity or do it in jumps? A ten percent reduction then plop and drop and see who survives? Let them breed for a bit and then another ten percent drop? Or do you just have tanks very slowly becoming less and less saline over time? It's something someone would pretty much have to give their life to in order to pull it off. And the semi-adapted ones couldn't be sold as they aren't either freshwater or saltwater seahorses. They'd be living somewhere in the brackish realm.

[Lennie]

Maybe she would like pipefish?

 

Would be fairly an easier to care option, althought they also have their challenges, I believe easier to keep compared to seahorses. But still require a tank setup suitable for them.

 

Also there are freshwater pipefish species, so these would make stuff easier by not preparing or measuring saltwater tank parameters all the time, preparing new salt water for every water change, investing on a RODI, and more

[Tlindsey]

On 8/14/2024 at 6:13 PM, Lennie said:

Maybe she would like pipefish?

 

Would be fairly an easier to care option, althought they also have their challenges, I believe easier to keep compared to seahorses. But still require a tank setup suitable for them.

 

Also there are freshwater pipefish species, so these would make stuff easier by not preparing or measuring saltwater tank parameters all the time, preparing new salt water for every water change, investing on a RODI, and more

I didn't suggest freshwater pipefish because honestly my pair is not that colorful. The only specie that is colorful are the African Ansorgii freshwater pipefish from Cameroon. 

On 8/14/2024 at 7:11 PM, Tlindsey said:

I didn't suggest freshwater pipefish because honestly my pair is not that colorful. The only specie that is colorful are the African Ansorgii freshwater pipefish from Cameroon. 

I personally have a pair of Doryichthys Martensii freshwater pipefish for about 7 months now. Although not colorful they are very interesting and entertaining lol.

@Lennie

 

[Arcticgypsy]

That's so cool that your mom wants to get back into the hobby.  I'm sure she has some great memories.  If she had a marine tank in the past, I'm sure it won't take long for things to come back to her.   I tried keeping seahorses in my 1st marine tank, but didn't have a lot of luck.  The ones I tried were wild caught, and the LFS was kind of shady and not very helpful.  they prob weren't in the best of health when he sold them to me.  

Back in the 70s, we didn't have the luxury of the internet / youtube.  There are loads of fantastic vids on starting and maintaining saltwater tanks.   This is a couple channel to check out.

 

 

Edited August 15 by Arcticgypsy

[KaitieG]

@Arcticgypsy Thank you for the channel suggestions!

[gardenman]

"Back in the 70s, we didn't have the luxury of the internet / youtube.  There are loads of fantastic vids on starting and maintaining saltwater tanks.   This is a couple channel to check out."

Yeah, back in the seventies the big name in saltwater fishkeeping was Nektonics. I used their undergravel filters with the built-in protein skimmer cups and also their hydrometer for my marine tanks. Dolomite was the substrate of choice back then. Crushed coral wasn't widely available. While YouTube and the Internet weren't really around, there were lots of good books offering guidance. The first "instant bacterial starters" hit the market then and revolutionized the hobby for a bit. You could add some of that magic stuff and have the tank ready to go fairly quickly. Or so the manufacturers said. I still cycled my tanks the old-fashioned way. I may opt for a nano marine tank at some point again. It's been a while since I branched off into the marine side of things.

[Biotope Biologist]

Marine hobbyists would have you believe that you need this and need that, but there is a bit of a “walstad” approach taking over the marine world. 
 

Macroalgae is great at absorbing unwanted chemicals in the tank much like freshwater plants. And by reducing photoperiods at certain times you can stave off the much unwanted reproduction stage that really mucks up an aquarium. 
 

The aforementioned copepods, annelids, and other microfauna can churn the sand and provide nutrients to the tank as well as keep the algae from taking over the tank. These have become readily available as well. 
 

Growing shallow water corals and beginner friendly ones that are less aggressive also means you need less light and less human interference.

 

All of this combined means you can have a fairly low-tech marine tank for your seahorses and be quite successful. Also many reef shops offer cheap saltwater prep services so you don’t even really need an RODI at home. 

[Arcticgypsy]

On 8/15/2024 at 8:14 AM, KaitieG said:

@Arcticgypsy Thank you for the channel suggestions!

yw....hope you will share photos of her tank once it's up and running.