Fish Of The Week - Seahorses

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I can give some 'golden rules' haha :D
1) Make sure you purchase captive bred horse's...wild-caught's are too much of a hassle, firstly they may require live foods as they cant adapt to eat frozen and they may contain parasites which can be added to your aquarium, causing potential problems down the line. I strongly feel that us aquarists should purchase CB fish anyway, in order to keep numbers up in the wild in their natural habitats.
2) Food- Mysis staple diet, and vary the diet by offering other fooods such as Brine Shrimp (while the SH's are small), Krill (especially when the SH's are larger), live river shrimp (mine love to hunt and chase the shrimp, and you can also enrichen the shrimp with vegetable flake etc, giving the SH's some form of vegetation to eat) etc.
I feed mysis to mine twice a day and either add some brine shrimp in the middle or instead of the second serving of mysis. I add river shrimp twice a week (24 shrimp last a day and a bit with my female). I fast them for one day, replicating what would happen in the wild.
3) Choose tank mates very carefully - other seahorse's are great as they are very sociable, but certain fish can be tricky/risky. You can easily find good tankmates on the web. I have tried Banggai Cardinal's, Firefish, Midas Blennies and Mandarin's and all have made good tankmates. I have also tried a Clownfish, and after 4 months the clown became aggressive, so i would consider Clowns with great caution.
4) Tanks- my tank is 24" (W) x 15" (D) x 18" (H). I think this is a decent size for Reidi's. My female is 7" with her tail uncurled.
5) Dealing with temperature- one of the hardest, most challenging things that SH keepers have to deal with is controlling the temperature. For me, i do not use a heater, and in the winter the temperature remains stable. In the summer however, i have to use a fan directed towards the water surface to reduce the temperature. I find it easy to keep at the same temperature by turning the fan on and off. Make sure you keep on top with your evaporation top ups though.
6) Decoration- I prefer the natural look, so i use tonga branch LR, Caulerpa etc as hitches for the SH's. The caulerpa i use is C.Profilera..which grows quickly and helps to reduce nitrates in the water.

I personally think they are easy creatures to care for and are a joy to keep!
 
Thank you Connor, I'm sure people will find that really intresting, I certainly did :good:

Seffie x
 

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