Ocean Rider Seahorse Farm and Tours | Kona Hawaii › Forums › Seahorse Life and Care › standard seahorse noob intro › Re:standard seahorse noob intro
Dear David:
With your background as a reef keeper, you should do very well with seahorses. You’ll find that keeping seahorses successfully is largely a matter of maintaining optimum water quality, and providing them with a nutritious diet along with a stress-free environment.
The setup you outlined should make an outstanding system for seahorses. A 37-gallon tank is a good size for a pair of Mustangs (Hippocampus erectus) with nice height, and the amount of live rock and live sand you are using should provide excellent nitrification and denitrification ability for the aquarium. The Remora is an efficient skimmer and PC lighting is what I prefer for my seahorse setups.
I believe it is important for hobbyists to provide their seahorses with a natural day/night period that includes twilight periods at "sunrise" and "sunset." To accomplish this, I like the power compact (PC) light fixtures that include two tubes — one actinic and one daylight fluorescent — with dual ballasts so that each ballast can be placed on a separate automatic timer. I like to have the bluish actinic come on before the daylight tubes and stay on after the daylights go off, thereby providing a simulated dusk and dawn. This is important for seahorses since they conduct most of their courting and breeding in the early morning hours under twilight conditions. It’s a neat effect and fish and invertebrates can then anticipate "lights out" rather than being plunged into total darkness at night or suddenly thrust into bright light in the morning. I also adjust the timers to lengthen or shorten the daylight periods in accordance with the changing seasons. I find that maintaining a natural cycle this way aids reproduction.
In short, I find PC lighting to be a good compromise for a seahorse system. Power compacts provide plenty of light for macroalgae or the seahorse-safe soft corals in a modified reef system without being too bright, and the dual ballast system allows for a natural day/night rhythm that changes with the seasons. The resulting dusk and dawn facilitate courtship and help the seahorses maintain a natural reproductive cycle.
Mustangs are great choice for your first seahorses and should thrive on the type of system you’re planning.
Best of luck with your new seahorse setup, David! I’m looking forward to your updates.
Happy Trails!
Pete Giwojna