Seahorse owners-what live food do you use?

C

claireputput

I have been watching for new posts here for the past month or so and have only seen a couple of threads started.
I have purchased 5 H. erectus, 3 inch size. They are now in the tank for at least 9 weeks and they are growing.
I bought ghost shrimp for them and they hunted them all down. I have since ordered Red Hawaiian shrimp that are seahorse safe and wonder if others have tried this for their horses?
I have attached a current picture of one of my horses.
 
I have two baby tiger tails. They eat frozen mysis really well but I also try to keep some live baby brine in there in case they want something live. I have somehow established a constant supply of them in both of my big tanks and sumps. They haven't taken off in my seahorse tank so I'm guessing they eat them, they stare at the gravel a lot... Idk if that would benefit yours considering they are much bigger than mine.
 
Thanks @Tabi1720. Mine do eat frozen Mysis but I just wondered as I wanted to give them live food for a switch up. I also have Tisbe in my refugium and sometimes those manage to make it to the display tank.
I just had not heard of the Hawaiian reds and wanted to make sure I wasn't adding a nuisance to their tank. Have you heard of these?
 
That is wild. I ordered that shrimp off amazon-I hope I am getting tank raised as that was the claim! :(
This is the shrimp I am talking about. I am going to set up a tank for them and put half in the seahorse tank and half in their tank.
I really don't do too well with shrimp but since these can go salt-maybe! My saltwater shrimp (I have two tanks and one is reef with inverts) are doing well. My freshwater shrimp never make it.
 
I hope you don't mind butting into this thread. How difficult is it to keep seahorses? My wife bought a 45 tall for seahorses and then read that it was very labor intensive. Is it that tough?
 
Hi, imo they are no more work, at least tank bred and raised, then others.
My spouse is retired and feeds them once during the day-we feed Mysis shrimp 3X's daily. We rest them from food on Fridays-just started that. And I have a feeding tube that I send the food down into a trough.
I also purchased Tisbe copepods and just ordered Hawaiian red shrimp see above post.
I really think the hardest thing to do is not to watch them all day long! :)
 
+1 on the tank raised. They are very easy to care for as long as you are careful what you expose them to, live rock and live sand may have parasites deadly to seahorses. Wild caught are a different story all together. No wild caught seahorses!!!
 
Easy to care for...Yes...but that means you have to be willing to feed them once a day. Mine eat frozen mysis, but they still have to be fed once per day. My 210g reef...it can go for days without food being added. So in reference to a standard saltwater aquarium seahorses are a lot more labor intensive.

If you have a large population of pods, then the ponies can go for a few days without the mysis, but thats only with a LARGE population of pods in a mature tank. If you start a seahorse tank, dont plan on ever being away from your house for more than 36 hours. Thats based on my 4.5 years of keeping them, fighting off numerous diseases and issues.
 
It seems hard to find people that have been successful in keeping seahorses on the forum. My GF loves them but to this point we have difficulty in keeping them and we only buy tank raised. Taking a break from trying to keep them after the last 4 passed. All died within a week, one day they were fine then they just started dropping. Corals are fine, other fish (couple gobies, clown and Banghai) are fine. Truly bewildered.
 
Thats discouraging king speed, and sorry for your loss. I kept cardinals as tank mates, but I always found the clowns to be aggressive towards the horses. they would outcompete them for food and were territorial. I never want to discourage an experienced reefer from trying to keep seahorses, because they arent really any harder to keep than a normal tank. But they do require more attention with the feeding, and since they have a small digestive tract its easy for water quality to go south quickly. This is why I always caution people. It seems nowadays people have less patience and want more automation for their tanks. Obviously since you need to feed multiple times a day until you have a live food source the horses need more attention.

I have always kept 5 turbo, 5 trochus, 15-20 hermits, and even an emerald crab in my 60g horse tank. Many discourage against the Emrald, but Ive never run into issues. I also run MP10's to ensure adequate flow, but I use the foam covers on them to protect the horses. Add in a good skimmer and a fuge to grow pods and the water quality will be fine. I also run Biopellets as my main source of nitrate and phosphate removal.
 
Forgive me if you already knew this but seahorses CANNOT be exposed to air, they must be transferred completely under water and they can also become fatally ill if their tank has too many bubbles. That's one of the main things that make them such a sensitive species.
 
I briefly considered a seahorse tank. After a lot of googling and visiting forums dedicated to seahorses I decided against it. Found many references about how susceptible seahorses are to bacterial diseases. Most suggested keeping even tropical varieties below 75? because bacteria multiply exponentially above 75. 78-80 is fine in the ocean but in our tanks another matter. Having said that I'm sure many have success keeping them in warmer tanks.
 
Yeah. Mine is at 78 degrees but I used aquarium gravel, fake decorations and seeded it with bottled pods. Absolutely nothing from any of my other tanks goes in there so I can keep it parasite free. I do weekly 10% water changes and make sure the water level doesn't drop so the water coming from the filter doesn't create any bubbles as it runs back into the tank.
 
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