Mustang Sea Horse

Dear Carlos:

Yes, sir, like most seahorses, Mustangs appreciate an assortment of marine plants or bed of macroalgae for use as hitching posts and natural feeding stations.

I prefer decorative marine plants or macroalgae in a variety of shapes and colors for this — reds, browns, golds, and yellows in addition to green varieties, some tall and feathery, some short and bushy — to provide natural hitching posts and shelter for my seahorses. I like to start with a mixture of red and gold Gracilaria (Ogo) and artfully arrange them around a lush bed of assorted bright green Caulerpa. Any of the plumed (feathery) or long-bladed Caulerpa would be ideal for this, such as Caulerpa sertularioides, C. mexicana, C. ashmedii, C. serrulata or C. prolifera. The result is a colorful macroalgae garden with a very nice contrast of colors (reds, yellows, greens, and brown) and interesting shapes. A tank heavily planted with macros such as these is a lovely sight and mimics the seahorses’ natural seagrass habitat well.

As an added benefit, the macroalgae act as an excellent form of natural filtration, reducing the available levels of phosphates and nitrites/nitrates. Be sure to prune and trim back the fast-growing Caulerpa regularly; when you remove the clippings, you’re exporting phosphates, nitrates and other nutrients from the tank, thereby helping to maintain good water quality, and pruning the runners helps keep it from going sexual.

When pruning or trimming back macroalgae, take care not to actually cut it. Remember, you’re not pruning hedges or trimming trees — the idea is to carefully pull up and remove continuous, unbroken fronds. Simply thin out the colony of excess strands, gently plucking up convenient fronds that can be readily removed intact. A little breakage is fine, but cutting or breaking too many strands will result in leaching undesirable substances into the aquarium water as the Caulerpa’s lifeblood drains away. Too much cutting or breaking can thus sap the colony’s strength and cause die offs or trigger the dreaded vegetative events that judicious pruning otherwise prevents.

If you’re concerned about your ability to maintain and control of Caulerpa properly, just use a different forms of macroalgae that grows less rapidly instead and you can get the same sort of benefits at relatively little risk. In that case, some of the other macroalge you may wish to consider are Gracilaria, Ulva, Chaetomorpha, and Chlorodesmis. Hawaiian Ogo (Gracilaria sp.) are bushy red-to-brown macros that do well under low light levels. Sea Lettuce (Ulva sp.) are deep green sheets of algae that do best under a little stronger lighting. Maiden’s Hair (Chlorodesmis sp.) are bright green tufts or clumps of very fine-bladed algal mats to grow attached to small rocks. All of these types of macroalgae are much less prolific and slower growing than Caulerpa. However, like all macroalgae, they should still be harvested periodically in order to export the excess nutrients they have consumed.

Aside from red and brown Gracilaria and the bright green Ulva and Maiden’s Hair, some seahorse keepers also like the Chaetomorpha turf algae. It can best be described as looking like the clumps of the colorful plastic grass we use to fill Easter baskets. It is popular because it is slow growing and doesn’t require the kind of pruning that Caulerpa needs, and because it it comes loaded with microfauna: miniature feather dusters, copepods and amphipods, tiny snails and micro stars. Sounds like another interesting marine plant that can add some extra variety to a lush bed of macroalgae.

Good inverts for seahorses include decorative cleaner shrimp like those listed below:

Peppermint Shrimp (Lysmata wurdemanni)
Scarlet Cleaner Shrimp or Skunk Cleaner Shrimp (Lysmata amboinensis)
Fire Shrimp (Lysmata debelius)
Harlequin Shrimp (Hymenocerus elegans and H. picta) – predatory on sea stars;
and/or
large ornamental snails (living sea shells) such as the following:
Tiger Cowry (Cypraea tigris)
Deer Cowry (Cypraea cervus)
and/or
Assorted Feather Dusters (Sabellastatre magnifica, Sabella sp.) whose colorful crowns resemble gaily-colored parasols.

Other good invertebrates to keep with Mustangs are the assorted snails and micro-hermit crabs that comprise an efficient cleanup crew. As you know, the clean-up crew is an important part of every seahorse tank, and when stocking your system, it’s a good idea to begin by installing your janitors first. A good clean-up crew can help maintain good water quality and keep the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels under control, and your sanitation engineers can go a long way toward preventing problems with nuisance algae. It’s best to have them in place from the first.

I prefer a cleanup crew consisting of a mixture of assorted snails and micro hermits (heavy on the snails but light on hermits) at a density of up to 1-2 janitors per gallon. The snail assortment may include bumble bee snails, trocha snails, margaritas, Astrea and Cerith snails, etc., but especially Nassarius snails.

Nassarius snails are terrific detritivores and amazingly active for snails. They’ll bury themselves until they detect the scent of something edible, and then erupt from the sand and charge out to clean it up.

For best results, Astrea sp. snails should go in the tank as soon as the ammonia and nitrite levels are down to zero in order to keep nuisance algae from gaining a foothold in your tank. Introduced as soon as possible to a new aquarium, that has reached this cycling phase, Astrea snails effectively limit the development of all microalgae. In other words, they are good at eating diatoms, but will consume red slime and green algae as well.

For hermits, I like a combination of Dwarf Blue-leg (Clibanarius tricolor), Left-handed (Calcinus laevimanus), Mexican Red Legged Hermits (Clibanarius digueti) and above all, Scarlet Reef hermit crabs (Paguristes cadenati), which are my personal favorites.

The Scarlet Reef Hermit Crab (Paguristes cadenati) is a colorful micro-hermit that’s a harmless herbivore. So cannibalism isn’t a concern at all for these fellows, nor are they likely to develop a taste for escargot. As hermits go, most of the time the Scarlet Reefs are perfect little gentleman and attractive to boot. I even use them in my dwarf seahorse tanks. Best of all, they eat all kinds of algae, including nuisance algae such as red, green and brown slimes, as well as green hair algae.

Stick with hermits like the above, which are known as micro hermits because they start out tiny and stay small. Avoid Anomura species of hermit crabs no matter how small they are, however, because they will kill Astraea snails to obtain their shells.

A mixture of the snails and micro hermits listed above provides a very good balance of herbivores, omnivores, and detritivores that are all active scavengers and completely compatible with seahorses.

After the tank has been up and running for several months, you can add a few large Peppermint Shrimp (Lysmata wurdemanni) and/or Scarlet Cleaner Shrimp or Skunk Cleaner Shrimp (Lysmata amboinensis) to complete your cleanup crew and add a touch of color and activity to the tank.

Peppermint shrimp (Lysmata wurdemanni) are a favorite with seahorse keepers because they eat Aiptasia rock anemones, and both the peppermints and Scarlet cleaner shrimp (Lysmata amboinensis) will perform another useful service by grooming the seahorses and cleaning them of ectoparasites. As an added bonus, they reproduce regularly in the aquarium, producing swarms of larval nauplii that the seahorses love to eat.

Just remember, it is important to select the largest possible cleaner shrimp for your seahorse tank(s). Seahorses will actively hunt small cleaner shrimp and they are quite capable of killing shrimp that are far too big to swallow whole, so the cleaners need to be large enough that they are not regarded as potential prey.

Another thing to keep in mind when introducing cleaner shrimp to your aquarium is that they are more sensitive to water quality and rapid changes in pH, temperature, or salinity than fishes are, meaning the shrimp need to be acclimated more carefully and gradually. Whereas drip acclimation should be avoided for seahorses that have been on the shipping bag for 24 hours or more, it is the perfect way to acclimate delicate shrimp from your LFS. They will do best it drip acclimated to the new aquarium over a period of several hours to allow them to adjust to any differences in the water parameters very gradually.

Shrimp that are introduced to a new aquarium too abruptly will not flourish and are liable to die within a day or two from the stress of acclimation, unable to adjust to any significant differences in pH or salinity, or they simply fail to thrive and expire a week or two later for no apparent reason. If the shock is too great, they will autotomize, dropping legs, claws and/or antennae immediately upon being introduced to the new aquarium conditions.

There have been several other threads on the Ocean Rider Club discussion board at seahorse.com from hobbyists who were just starting out with seahorses that you should also find to be of interest. They include lots of tips on the care and keeping of seahorses like the Mustangs you are interested in, including discussing how to setting up an ideal system for seahorses, including filtration, feeding, lighting, circulation and so on. I’ve provided links to those discussions for you below, so please check them out when you have a chance. I think they will answer many of your questions about keeping Mustangs:

Click here: Seahorse.com – Seahorse, Sea Life, Marine Life, Aquafarm Sales, Feeds and Accessories – Re:ok stocking density…
http://www.seahorse.com/option,com_simpleboard/Itemid,144/func,view/catid,2/id,1526/#1526

Re:Hello, newbie here! – O http://www.seahorse.com/option,com_simpleboard/Itemid,144/func,view/id,1004/catid,2/

Click here: Seahorse.com – Seahorse, Sea Life, Marine Life, Aquafarm Sales, Feeds and Accessories – Re:Setting up a 100gal for
http://www.seahorse.com/option,com_simpleboard/Itemid,144/func,view/id,1382/catid,2/

Re: Guidance on Keeping Seahorses:
http://www.seahorse.com/option,com_simpleboard/Itemid,144/func,view/id,639/catid,2/

Re: New to seahorses and I have lots of questions!
http://www.seahorse.com/option,com_simpleboard/Itemid,144/func,view/id,152/catid,2/

Re: Tank set-up advice
http://www.seahorse.com/option,com_simpleboard/Itemid,144/func,view/id,715/catid,2

Re:New with lots of questions 🙂
http://www.seahorse.com/option,com_simpleboard/Itemid,144/func,view/catid,2/id,1050/#1050

Best wishes with all your fishes!

Happy Trails!
Pete Giwojna