seahorse for beginer

[Navarre]

Opcn is right. Beginners dont understand the subtle signs that a more experienced keeper might recognise to show if the fish are unhealthy. A true beginners fish like chromis or a dottyback are very much more forgiving and thus are excellant fish for an enthusiast to cut their teeth on.

My first aquarium and thus first fish was a 120 liter tank with two sub-tropical seahorses. You can definately be successful as a beginner with seahorses, but you really have to avoid the reef forums. 

No offence there ...... but seahorse tanks are very different from your average reef tank setup.

My point exactly and no offense taken. People should avoid reef forums for seahorses as these creatures are not reef fish!

The very fact that these question pop up in these forums indicate that the person doesnt truely understand what seahorses need or they would be posting in a specialist forum. I think people ask here or any reef forum as they think they can have seaorses swimming alongside acros etc... this is not so and why i dont recomend them to people new to the hobby. my advice is learn the hobby first, see how the filtration and circualtion works, see what effect the tank undergoes through its maturing process.. learn off of this with livestock that cna handle a rough ride and not with something that will invariably die off whilst the person is learning the hobby.

 

[stellablu]

I guess it really is up to the individual. My uncle has had the same pair of seahorses for seven years now. He had no prior SW experience, just FW with cichlids. He did his research and waited until he felt he was prepared.

I think the problem with most unsuccessful fish belonging to "beginners" is that they are impulse buys. That person wants that fish and they are going to get it regardless. It's a sad fact, but it happens all the time. In fact, I've done it before with a puffer...well I brought him home in a 20g knowing at adult size I'd need a MUCH larger tank, but same concept.

My uncle had the time, money, ability and willingness to learn more about the species and their needs, and he finally went out to purchase them. Just because someone is a beginner to SW doesn't make them incompetent.

If someone has thoroughly done their homework, sets a tank up, cycles it, monitors the temperature and can keep it at the desired temperature...then they deserve the chance to own a seahorse. On the other hand, if you have some doofus who thinks they look cool and only wants one for the sake of novelty then perhaps they should stick to a single damsel or something.

I'm really of no help, haha I just wanted to mention that not all beginners are unsuccessful. In the same right, not all "experts" know it all even if they consider themselves a know-it-all. I've seen some experts, in the business or hobby for 15+ years lose fish due to their own mistakes. We're all human, ya know?

 

[Navarre]

Well put stellablu.

If i implied that all beginners are incompetant then i appologise as this is not my intention. You did however put across far better than i did the pitfalls and problems this hobby faces (not just seahorses).

There are people out there that will get a fish without doing the reseach and this causes problems. People are easily influenced and the film Nemo shows a seahorse swimming alongside clowns and butterlfy fishes so that means they "MUST" be ok If a person does thourough research then yes! go ahead and try them, what i was trying to put across is that these fish are delicate and can easily be mistreated by inexperiencd people. If theperson does their research extremly well then there is no reason why it should not be tried.

However.. many people simply dont. they come on here ask if its ok.. get a "yes they are easier than most people believe" and thats enough for them to simply go out and get the creatures with no further research. At least by saying "no, actualkly they are more tricky than your average fish" makes the person ask more questions and at the very least, enter the hobby with caution and alot more care (which in my opinion is a good thing)

 

[Dragonscales]

hmm, last I checked this section of the forum was called reefs AND marine. Seahorses were marine animals last time I checked.

Secondly, if a beginner was to post a question on them in this forum then what is the big deal? You and I may know you wouldn't put, say, a moray eel with a seahorse but a person new to seahorses might think it is fine. By them posting here it can only do a world of good as it allows people who know the difference to set them straight and point them in the direction of reliable sources of information. It also allows people to give them pointers on any questions they may be curious about. The very fact that the person is enquiring on a forum rather than rushing out and buying a tank full of seahorses is proof in itself that this person isn't taking the wrong path and is willing to invest time and effort to provide the fish with a healthy, happy home. The least we could do is be civilised, non-belittling and understanding towards them and to the fact that, as most of you have said at one time or another, not everyone has the same experiences with seahorses (and other fish). I always thought that forums were a place to obtain and share information as well as help people less knowledgable than ourselves in a matter of interest. Guess I was wrong

Oh, on a side note. I don't seem to be the only pro-seahorse person here after all, and majority posting seem to be/have been "beginners" too. Funny that, the "voice" ratio seems to be turning, experienced "voices" at that!

 

[Opcn]

Oh, on a side note. I don't seem to be the only pro-seahorse person here after all, and majority posting seem to be/have been "beginners" too. Funny that, the "voice" ratio seems to be turning, experienced "voices" at that!

And we all know that this forums is totally representative of peoples POVs.

I'm proseahorse too, pro not risking there lives that is

 

[zendarx2]

I See both sides but if I was asking about keeping say a turbo snail and some one said “Oh they are harder then most snails only the experienced should try. Then I might decide to try other things that are easer and that I don’t really “Want” to keep, then work my way up. But then I might become bored of the fish/snail that I did not want in the first place.

Anyway I really like the help I can get from this site, the LFS in my area all are full of themselves thinking that a me a new comer to SW does not know anything that he is talking about. One guy asked me what kind of equipment I was going to get. I told him and he got up on his pedestal and starting telling me about how I need to buy the “Most expensive” equipment and how if I don’t I will be sorry. I told him I am going to buy the “Best” equipment for the tank but he insisted that the “most expensive” was the best. Well unless SW is magical then the most expensive is not always the best, it never is with anything and I have had FW for years without a problem. If the most expensive thing was true it would make things a lot easer. You could go to ebay and just search by price or just buy seahorses they are more expensive then some other fish so they must by all “more expensive is better” accounts be better then other fish.

But yes most not all but most people who have had SW put me off by there attitude mostly when I ask or mention seahorses but I want a pair and I feel that with all the research I have done all the questions I have asked and the fact that I don’t just treat my fish like fish but like members of the family then I will provide a good home for a pair of CB seahorses. It seems crazy to me to have a fish and only drop some flake food in there once or twice a day. CB seahorses seem easy to keep (with how I care for my pets). In fact I have a snake that will not eat on its own so I have to force feed it every time to me this is an easy pet.

So to any new comers in Fresh or saltwater be prepared to hand feed each and every animal you have in the tank. They are “your” responsibility and you put them there the lest you can do to repay them is to expect to hand feed them, if you do then they will be the most beautiful and wonderful friends ever.

P.s. I really do not mean anything against people who don’t like the idea of keeping seahorses cb or wc.

 

[PetsplusEmployee]

HOOOOLD ON!!!

ok here people, I work for Pets plus. We got a shipment of 500 tank raised seahorses in about 4 months ago. We feed them 3-4 times a day a mixture or frozen mysis shrimp and live brine shrimp. Once the food hits the bottom of the tank they usually dont go after it. Tank raised seahorses are extremely EASY to take care of. We offer many already built nano-cube and 10 gallon setups for seahorses. The only thing needed is to keep water quality which means weekly water changes. Seahorses arent territorial so many numbers can be kept in a relatively small tank. Whenever your looking to buy seahorses make sure that they are tank raised, mostly all natural seahorses die in captivity. B)

 

[Dragonscales]

Once the food hits the bottom of the tank they usually dont go after it.

Try setting up feed stations in the tanks. Place a marine safe tray/dish in the tank and put food into that. Once one horse learns to use it the rest will generally follow by way of example. By training them to eat from a bowl you will experience alot less waste in the tanks and in turn, better water conditions and healthier horses because they won't be expending so much energy chasing food.

 

[pleder]

This thread is sad. Why do so many people with no experience on something post like they're experts ? It is O.K. to say you don't know something.

My first fish was a reidi male in 2001. He is WC, and I have him still today. It can be done. It is not that hard. The reputation seahorses have earned for being hard to keep is greatly driven by ignorant people giving bad advice.

IMHO stating something is not possible do to ignorance is a diservice to this forum and forums like it.

FWIW you may be unaware that one of the foremost experts on seahorse care and breeding in the home aquaria came to this site, posted twice in this thread, and has never returned. He has spoken at IMAC and MACNA several times, works with Project seahorse, and has supplied seahorses from his breeding many of the national aquariums around Europe.

Why is the "friendliest fish forum around" so good at driving away members? Think of how a change of attitude could have added great value to this site.

People come to boards like this looking for anwsers. If you don't know the answer at least you could steer them in the direction of a place that does such as seahorse.org , or syngnthaid.org . Stating opinions like they are facts, and creating false statistics to back up your ideas lowers you.

For every one seahorse that lifes probably 20 die

For every one true fact about seahorses someone makes, about 20 are completely made up.

We offer many already built nano-cube and 10 gallon setups for seahorses. The only thing needed is to keep water quality which means weekly water changes. Seahorses arent territorial so many numbers can be kept in a relatively small tank. Whenever your looking to buy seahorses make sure that they are tank raised, mostly all natural seahorses die in captivity.

I would urge you to sell larger tanks. The min size for a pair of medium seahorses would be a 20g tall, 2 pairs could work in a 29g. Putting a pair of fish that will grow to be 6" to 10" in a 10g is not wise. To perform the mating dance a seahorse needs 2.5x there length in vertical room to swim, this cannot be obtained in a 10g. Also you will find that in a larger system a seahorse will explore more IME. I think small tanks are fine for grow outs from juvies, but not has a home. They are not capable of handeling the bioload.

The tank size is also very dependent on the species. If you are putting fuscus in a 10g than that is cool. If you are putting any of the medium sized horses the commonly available being reidi, erectus, comes, barbs, or spins, you are providing a bad environment, and need to do some more research. If you are dealing with a species like kellogi, ingens, or abdominals than you will need a much larger tank, a 55g being the smallest. These larger species will easily grow over a foot in length.

Also it is important to get seahorses that are captive bred, not tank raised, and captive bred in a closed system for that matter. Many of the seahorses on the market are bred in ocean pens in Asia, they carry the same risks of pathogens and parasites that WC's do,although they do eat frozen.

I will also strongly disagree that most "natural seahorses" die in captivity. Wild caught seahorses can live very long and healthy lives in captivity, I have kept my WC for 5 years, he was full grown on purchase, making him at least six years old to date.

I do think that buying CB seahorses has many advantages and should be strongly enouraged. Unfortuanetly I was ignorant at the time of my purchase and followed some bad advice.

The main reasons for buying CB would be to help to reduce the number of seahorses taken from the wild for the aquarium trade ( although most are taken for Traditional Chineese medicine ), to help promote stronger blood lines of seahorses, to reduce the risk of internal parasites, and most captive bred seahorses will eat frozen food, which can easily be enriched and is far less expensive than feeding live. While I strongly agree that captive bred seahorses are the better buy and the better deal on many levels, let's just be straight with people on what the reasons are.

 

[Dragonscales]

Hi pleder,

This is a rather old thread which has popped out of the woodworks in the last few weeks. Around the time this thread was made there were several others which also contained rather heavy debate about seahorse keeping. Fortunantly alot of members who were against or not sure about seahorse keeping have come to see it as a mainstay of the hobby, and a handful have even expressed increased interest in learning more about them.

I am pro CB seahorse keeping and always have been and I can honestly say that the vast majority on this board are warming more and more to fish which are somewhat out of the ordinary realms of marine keeping (aforementioned seahorses, cephalopods, etc, etc). Sure, there are probably a handful out there that will never be convinced, but what can you do? You can't please everybody all of the time I guess. Even so, the ones who still don't agree tend to just not post in relevant topics from what I have personally seen and the level of ferocity over the issue has dropped to practically non-existence.

All in all it is a welcome change which I was personally very suprised with and I commend those who were able to set aside previous misconceptions and actually put some thought into the matter, do some research of their own and change their opinion or at the very least, have shown enough common curtesy to not turn every recent saltwater oddball topic into a proverbial sh*tfling. There have been talks about adding a section specifically for sw oddballs as well (still holding my breath here nav lol) which I think would benefit the advance of proper seahorse husbandry, awareness and conservation (as well as many other obscure fish/inverts) greatly. Not to mention it would make it easier on myself and others to chase up sw oddball questions and post the relevent info asap, I know I personally miss one or two topics every so often.

 

[Opcn]

Not always but new hobiests tend to have poor water husbandry techniques, they tend to do things like push off water changes and overfeed and they tend to not listen as well as they could. I would much rather see them make a damsel very unhappy than kil even a captive bred seahorse, there are lots of new hobiests out there who kill damsels, dont try to tell me otherwise, and you will never convince me that captive bred seahorses are hardier than figi blue devils, ergo beginers should start out on something easier. Sure there are alot of begners out there who could do seahorses right off the bat, but there is NO way for us to tell which ones and then there are the lurkers who we never even hear from. You hear from alot of people who started out on seahorses and had them live, the ones you don't hear from are the ones who killed them and left the hoby because it was too hard. The MO that has the best results is to get them going on something interesting and easy then move onto something interesting and not quite as easy, and its not as easy when you have to do a water change one a week insteaad of when the water starts to smell, or when you have to airate your water before adding it to the tank, or when you have to keep the food frozen or atleast rehydrate it before adding it to the tank, or when you acctually have to test your water when nothing apears wrong. Sure we would all do that for a damsel, but alot of newbies wouldn't, and since this is the internet we can't tell which ones would and which ones wouldn't.