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Well it\’s been a successful month with no casualties. my hipp. kuda is doing extraordinary, eating both brine and frozen cyclops/mysis. However my tank is 14 gallons and is a biocube, and I found an opportunity to buy two (one male, one female) kuda seahorses who are very young. They get along okay, and food is divided equally, in addition it\’s been 3 weeks since their arrival. Is this a bad idea? should I get a fourth or should I return one? The seahorses are small, so they have plenty of room to swim and court each other, but won\’t one get lonely with the other two?
also the two new kuda are bright yellow singling the red kuda out…
Dear Charlie:
Thanks for the update! It’s good to hear that your Hippocampus kuda has been doing so well.
Keeping a trio of seahorses will often work out very well. In most cases, it’s not a requirement to keep seahorses as mated pairs. You needn’t worry that the odd man out in your threesome is going to be too lonely. Captive-bred-and-raised seahorses are normally very gregarious, highly social animals that very much enjoy the company of others of their kind, and although one of the seahorses won’t have a mate, there will always be another pair of seahorses within sight in a small aquarium such as yours.
As long as there is no aggression or hostility toward the third wheel — and there usually is not in situations such as yours — then there’s no need to try to even up your herd of ponies. In most cases, a trio of seahorses will get along splendidly, and they may all participate actively in courtship and breeding at some point. That is to say, the same two seahorses may not be the ones that breed exclusively each time a brood of babies is produced, and the ponies may change partners once or more over the ensuing months and years. (If given a choice of partners, Hippocampus kuda tend to be rather promiscuous in the aquarium and will often breed year-round in captivity if conditions are to their liking once they begin to feel at home.) Within a species, the coloration usually doesn’t matter, and I would expect that the yellow kuda and the red kuda will intermingle freely and become good buddies.
Whatever you do, Charlie, I would advise against adding any more seahorses to your existing aquarium. I would say that your 14-gallon Biocube is already stocked to capacity with three H. kuda, and if you want to expand your herd any further, then I would suggest upgrading to the 29-gallon Biocube, which has better height in addition to a lot more elbow room. It’s a better system for keeping seahorses than the small 14-gallon Biocube.
Best of luck with your H. kuda, Charlie!
Respectfully,
Pete Giwojna
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