Article: An introduction to seahorses.

[flamingo]

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Seahorses are a very sought after fish, but this is often they're downfall. I can not tell you how many times I have heard of someone getting one an impulse and having them die within a few days. They are unlike many fish, they have special requirements and need very clean water. For a newbie to them research is an absolute must, they require an excellent understanding of them and many things can go wrong if you don't. They're tankmates have to be chosen right, they have to have small foods that ALSO have enough nutrition, they're diseases are often different and more complex, and they need cleaner water than most fish. So for many of those who wish to attempt one of who may have thought of doing them I’m going to write an introductory article on basic info that must be known beforehand.

This will be divided into various sections that include: buying from your LFS, tank size and requirements, food and nutrition, tankmates, diseases, etc.

SOME CONSIDERATIONS BEFORE ATTEMPTING
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Seahorses aren't your average fish. They demand higher water quality and have more requirements than your average clownfish. They can only be kept with certain and specially chosen tankmates. The best set-up would be a tank set-up just for them.

Are you up to the challenge of giving them the best care and spending hours and hours of researching? The other thing that turn off people is they're cost. They can go anywhere from 50-200 dollars for most. For an average pair of H. reidi they can be about 120 dollars if you get a good deal.

TANK REQUIREMENTS:
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I’m not going to go in very deep detail as I could go on for days talking about everything.

A good tank size would be a 45 high. It provides the length they need and at the same time gives them enough height. If you don't go for a 45 high basically all you need to worry about is the height. It should be along the lines of 3 times the size or more of the total length of the seahorse's body when fully grown. So I would say a 30 gallon is a good choice, if you go for a smaller tank you would have to look into the smaller species of seahorses but 30 is really a minimum for most.

To keep they're water clean enough for them you need a good filtration system if your keeping a couple of them or one for that matter. A good choice is adding a sump with a built in refugium to further add more water volume and help stabilize the tank better. Good filtration is a must but at the same time be cautious of strong water flow. Seahorses are very poor swimmers and can't handle strong currents, it complicates there moving and will most likely just sweep them around the tank when they try to swim.

Provide them with plenty of hitching posts. As stated above they are poor swimmers and need to hang on to things, they have that tail for a reason people! Good things to provide for them to hang on are: fake coral, macroalgae ( caulerpa is a good choice), fake plants, and other similar objects.

Temperature is about the same as any other sw fish, 78 degrees. Unless you are dealing with cold water types like capensis and other types. For the cooler types a chiller is need if your tank gets in the 70's range. Other than that the only worry is what type of heater you get. An inline heater is a good choice since they can't hang onto it and burn themselves. If you do have a submersible or hang on heater than make it hard or impossible for them to hitch on. I like the idea of putting a submersible one under the filter outtake on HOB filters.

Other than that set-up they're tank as you would a regular saltwater tank.

SPECIES AND GUIDES TO BUYING:
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Here's a list of species that are readily available, only some are noted because there are about 35 recognized species of seahorses.


Scientific Name_____Common Name______Size
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H. abdominalis - Pot bellied seahorse - 13 inches
H. Barbouri - Barbour's seahorse - 6 inches
H. capensis - Knysna's seahorse - 5 inches
H. comes -Tiger tail seahorse - 6 inches
H.erectus - Lined seahorse - 8 inches
H. Histrix - Thorny seahorse - 7 inches
H. ingens -Pacific seahorse - 12 inches
H. kuda - Spotted seahorse - 12 inches
H. reidi - Brazillian Seahorse- 6 inches
H. spinosissimus - Hedgehog seahorse - 6 inches
H. subelongatus - West Australian seahorse- 8 inches
H. zosterae - Dwarf seahorse - 2 inches
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~ H. = Hippocampus~

Those are a lot of species not posted here but these are some that are commonly found.

Buying: Buying a seahorse is almost the same as buying a normal saltwater fish, it's eating, looks good, swims fine. Except the most important aspect of buying a seahorse is getting Cb, or captive bred. Buying captive bred reduces the chance of getting most diseases that are often associated with wild caught specimens. Cb specimens are also more likely to eat frozen food then wc ones. Make sure if you buy one from your lfs you know for sure it's eating well, preferably it's eating frozen foods like mysis shrimp than live food. Live food is more difficult to rais and supply a constant supply than simply opening
the freezer and taking out a package of shrimp.

Some good suppliers of seahorses are, SeahorseUsa.com, OceanRider.com, Liveaquaria.net, Seahorsesource.com.


FOODS AND NUTRITION
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When you first hear of seahorses you'll hear that they only eat live brine shrimp. This is entirely untrue. Infact it one of the worst staple foods for a seahorse. They must be fed other types of food to survive, provide brine shrimp as a snack. So here's some little profiles on different foods that can be eaten by seahorses

Mysis shrimp- The mysis shrimp, or opossum shrimp, is a very good choice for a staple diet. They are just the right size and provide enough nutrition.
There are two types of mysis, the mysis which is a freshwater shrimp, and the mysi(d) shrimp which are saltwater. Most frozen mysis shrimp are the freshwater type. They can be bought live and can be cultured. This is a good choice for a weekly snack. Don't feed them live foods too often, there is a chance that they may start to prefer live over frozen. Frozen is preferred and the easiest to obtain and feed. There's no need to culture anything, no chance of live food conversion, and all you have to do is pull it out of a freezer.

Brine shrimp- Brine shrimp is a good snack if gut loaded. Meaning you feed them something like Selcon or some other vitamin supplement prior to feeding. Otherwise if not gut loaded they will not provide they're daily nutrition requirements. It is debatable whether or not they have close to any nutrition at all. In my honest opinion they are an almost nutrient deficient animal. They have some nutrition and fatty acids when first hatched since they still have they're egg sacs. But after 24 hours its completely gone and they develop complete digestive tracks. So gut load them only after 24 hours otherwise it wont help at all. One seahorse, the dwarf seahorse or H. Zosterae, feeds exclusively on baby brine shrimp. But for most seahorses leave this food as a snack.

Volcano Shrimp- This is a very new shrimp to a lot of people. I have never heard of these before I visited oceanrider.com. Supposedly they are a tiny red shrimp from Hawaii. They provide enough nutrition but like stated with the mysis, use live foods as a snack.

Other foods like baby livebearers, black worms, amphipods, ghost shrimp, etc. Can also be provided in moderation. Read up on nutritional facts though. There are many foods out there and In my opinion it's important to understand this subject.


TANKMATES:
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Choosing tankmates is also a risky business. Many fish are too large or hyper to keep with seahorses. most will ultimately lead to they're starvation by out competing the seahorse for food. Some will also harass them too, i've seen a pic of some guys seahorses tail almost bitten off by a larger fish, he was like how did this happen? Well you know why.

Just be aware that they can be kept with corals, as long as they don't have sweeper tentacles or have a powerful sting. Most likely they will hitch onto it and sting themselves. Don't keep them with anything that can sting or harm them.

Other smaller fish like dragonettes, small blennies, most gobies, etc. can be kept with them.

They can also be kept with pipefish, but be very cautious doing so. 99 percent of pipefish that are bought are wild caught. Remember the discussion of buying Cb seahorses? Well when you add pipefish it defeats that purpose in terms of diseases. Pipefish are in the same family as seahorses and share the same diseases so they can spread it. If you do this be aware of what can happen.

Check out seahorse.org for a detailed tankmates chart. Just go to library and go on from there.

DISEASES:
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Seahorses have many more diseases than your average sw fish. Some stuff like gas bubble disease is only associated with seahorses and they're relatives. Im going to list some common diseases and how to treat them. im not going to go real in depth though.

Gas Bubble Disease- There are 3 types of this disease: external, internal, and something called pouch emphysema. External can manifest anywhere on the seahorses body, internal though is inside of the body and rarely cured.
External symptoms would include: subcutaneous air bubbles (under the skin), and buoyancy and movement complications.
Internal symptoms would include: Severe bloating of the entire body, external gas bubbles, exophthalmia, and extreme buoyancy and movement complications. They think the cause of this disease is sometimes something to do with the pressure and sometimes bacterial infections. These diseases are complicated to treat and I would suggest going to seahorse.org's forum for help. Pouch emphysema is only in males due to the fact that females do not have pouches. This is usually cured with a pouch evacuation, once again consult an expert or seahorse.org on this subject. These diseases are more common in wc seahorses than in cb seahorses. While pouch emphysema and external gas bubble disease are easily treated internal is not. It's hard to treat and by the time you know it has it it's internal organs are too damaged.
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BE AWARE THAT THE FOLLOWING PATHOGENS, IF NOT TREATED CORRECTLY, CAN BECOME RESISTANT TO TREATMENTS. FOLLOW DIRECTIONS CAREFULLY. IF NOT THE BACTERIA AND OTHER PATHOGENS CAN CREATE A WHOLE NEW STRAIN RESISTANT TO MOST TREATMENTS!
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Ectoparasites (external)- Most fish, especially wild caught, harbor parasites with no trouble. If quarantined properly they will most likely never have any problems. When you first get them don't stress them out too much, the parasites will sense this and take hold. Quarantining them usually makes this impossible for this to happen but if it does happen it can be cured by multiple medications. Formalin, Malachite green, Methylene blue, and freshwater dips are all effective treatment. Make sure the temp and ph is the same as the tank when you do a freshwater dip. Also be careful with copper sulfate treatments, they are very sensitive to this and too much will kill them.

Endoparasites (internal)- Almost the same as above. Quarantining and pre-treatment usually prevent this. Metronidazole (flagyl) ingested, Niclosamide or praziquantel through food ingestion, and freshwater dips are effective treatments.

Exophthalmia (pop-eye)- Not exactly a disease, but it's brought on by stress, bacterial infections or injury. If it only has it in one eye than it probably had an injury to that one. There is no real treatment for this but clean water and anti-bacterial foods may be somewhat effective.

Flesh erosion- This is caused by a raging bacterial infection. Usually the bacterial genus vibrio is the cause. This can lay dormant and spread when the water quality decreases or the seahorse is stressed. Proper quarantining and pre-treatment can avoid this disease altogether. Drugs like furan 2 and paragon 2 used in conjunction can treat this. This disease is more complicated and it's best you research a bit on it. Quarantining and cleaning the tank (sterilizing) can stop this. If it's treated and comes back they may have to just be relocated to a whole new set-up.

These are just some of the diseases, there are many more but theses are some that need to be known.

[Fishfirst]

hey, flamingonhot, and welcome to the forums. I'm glad to see that such a young person is so into animal husbandry. I have been doing a lot of research on seahorses, as I intend to get some this winter. What species do you have? Do you breed them? and if you do, I'd like one fairly soon!

[flamingo]

I have kept their relatives, pipefish. Im about to get a pair of H. reidi after I get live rock for they're tank then ill be in seahorse heaven lol. Im going to try and breed them but so far from what i've heard and been told it's pretty hard to raise the fry, your first batch usually all dies or you may get a one or a couple survivors. The only reason I didnt get them sooner is because of the cost issue. I found a cheap deal on oceanriders.com but they are still pretty expensive. 120 for the pair im getting.

[wildtiger]

You might try looking on ebay, I know there is a company on there who breeds their own and seems to sell them relatively cheap.

Seahorses USA

[flamingo]

Thanks, I have looked at them but they sell everything for like 60 bucks then they get you with 70 dollar shipping. The ocean rider has some bad cred from some customers but i've heard good things otherwise. There package has a pair of reidi, 100 volcano shrimp, vibrance, and shipping is included in the original price. I'd rather buy it from there were I can get a pair but at the same time getting it cheap.

If I try someother type of seahorse in the future I might try some from s usa.

[Fishfirst]

seahorse.org is a great source of info for seahorses. However I'm fairly certain that most seahorses can be housed with small gobies, cardinalfish, dartfish, pipefish, blennies, and dragonetts.

[flamingo]

I know I have to go back and do everything i forgot lol.
Im close to being done but I get a little into everything and type forever lol.
Seahorse.org is a good place, it's been hacked lately but all the articles and what not are still there, the forum is forum.seahorse.org for whoever would like to go to it. It's a little wierd right now because they got hacked so they had to go and upgrade everything and kind of start over.

The only thing I see wrong what what you said about tankmates is the pipefish, when I get totally done with the tankmate sections you'll see why. They can co-exist we eachother but you have to be cautios with disease and all that.

[flamingo]

KK everyone it's done. Can the person who submits them please do it? thx

[Cichlid Man]

Very good. I'm also loving the fact that cichlids are growing on you.

[Fishfirst]

I will get to posting this... its on a word document and I'm just going over any spelling/gramatical errors at this time...

[Cichlid Man]

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I've already done it, you can edit if you like fishfirst as I didn't check the grammer and puncuation as I thought the article was ready to post.

[Fishfirst]

k no problem... I didn't even check if it was posted already.