Dear Carrie:
You’re very welcome!
Soft corals such as colt coral are good choices for a seahorse setup and will make beautiful additions to your aquarium. You are doing the right thing by being patient and waiting for your new set up to stabilize and mature before you introduce the corals, and they will benefit as a result.
Macroalgae of all kinds is typically very popular with seahorses and maiden’s hair is no exception. Maiden’s hair algae makes great natural habitat for copepods and amphipods, and you’ll find that your seahorses are naturally drawn to it for that reason. So your seahorses are really going to appreciate it, Carrie, but the color green usually doesn’t do much for seahorses when it comes to their coloration. I find that bright red, yellow, and orange hitching posts are generally the most effective in terms of keeping seahorses like Sunbursts and SunFires looking their best and brightest. Just be sure to include a few brightly colored hitching posts in your tank in addition to the maiden’s hair and your seahorses should be very happy.
Colorful sponges are often really good choices in that regard, Carrie. For example, tree sponges and tube sponges are usually brightly colored (red and orange shades are common) and their shape and texture seem to make them irresistible to seahorses as hitching posts. Very often, all the seahorses in the tank can be found clinging to the same tree sponge together, eschewing other nearby holdfasts that appear every bit as comfy and attractive to human eyes. Tree sponges are everything both you and your seahorses are looking for in terms of aquarium décor.
If you pick up that red sponge from your LFS, be sure to position it in the aquarium where it will receive relatively brisk water flow and low light in order to discourage the growth of algae. (Seahorses seem to like brightly colored artificial tube sponges and tree sponges just as well as the real thing, and the faux sponges are a lot easier to keep, of course.)
Best of luck with your new seahorse system, Carrie! Just be patient and get your water quality parameters stabilized exactly where you want them before you do anything else, and you’ll be starting off on the right foot.
Happy trails!
Pete Giwojna
Post edited by: Pete Giwojna, at: 2006/10/27 14:13
Ocean Rider, Inc. is an Organic Hawaiian-Based Seahorse Aqua-Farm & Aquarium that Follows Strict Good Farming Practices in Raising Seahorses and Other Aquatic Life.
