Seahorses, Anyone?

[SeaStar88]

Hello everyone, and my deepest apologies if this is not the proper area to discuss this topic. I am a long time reader of this forum for my own fish but I only joined today. I had a quick question in regards to the frequent users or new users on here about keeping seahorses. Do any of you keep them? After reading up on them, apparently they've started to be captive bred which reduces the stress of being in an enclosed environment (I don't blame them), and have began to be much more available to the general public. I imagine they're difficult to care for, but you all are very committed to your fish I'm sure you wouldn't have any problems.

I personally have never seen one in a pet store, not even a fish specialty store. Then again, I'm in a little town, perhaps if I went into SF I'd have better luck.
Thanks again!

 

[nmonks]

The captive-bred seahorses aren't difficult to maintain at all. Seahorses have always been quite hardy animals; it was feeding them that was difficult. The captive-bred specimens take frozen foods without complaint, since that's all they've ever been offered. You can't really mix seahorses with anything much though, and because they're potentially quite large as well as gregarious fish, they need their own, fairly sizeable quarters.

Lots of books on them: buy or borrow one before doing anything else.

While there are some brackish water seahorses, most are fully marine, and you'd probably want to ask more questions in the marine section of the site rather than here.

Cheers, Neale

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Yeah in general (not talking from personal experience here but from what I have read) captive breed ones are no more difficult to keep then most other resonably sensitive marine livestock. Feeding for seahorses has normally been the problem. I dont know enough about their feeding habits to comment but Im not sure just having them eating frozen is enough as I believe (and I could very well be wrong here) that they need to eat more or less continuously (rather than large amounts once or twice a day). There are ways to work around this but I still personally think its best to provide them with lots of pods (via a fuge or other method) to make sure they get enough to eat.

Other than that its a case of just have the tank set up right. There arent a great many fish you would want to put in with them though. If you like sea horses but want something slightly easier you could look at pipefish. These are slightly easier to look after as they are much more active at hunting food.

There are a lot of good sites out there about keeping seahorses though so take a look around. I know a few people on here have kept them as well so should be able to give you some first hand knowledge.

 

[SeaStar88]

Thank you both very much, I appreciate the responses. You know, I was actually looking at pipe fish, they are so beautiful. They're closely related to seahorses, aren't they? Or am I terribly off?

 

[humpy_the_humphead_wrasse]

yeap ur correct there, they are both syngnathidae