Seahorse Training Program — get certified now!

Dear Ralph:

I am pleased to hear that you had an opportunity to visit the Ocean Rider seahorse farm while you were vacationing in Hawaii, sir! The seahorse tour is an amazing experience for anyone who has an interest in these amazing aquatic equines.

The Ocean Rider seahorse training program is completely free of charge, Ralph, so there are no fees associated with the training at all. However, the seahorse training is a correspondence course that is conducted entirely via e-mail and we must therefore establish e-mail communication before you can begin the lessons. Just contact me at the following address with a brief e-mail that includes your full name (first and last), which I will need for my records, and then give me a little background information regarding your experience as an aquarist, and I will be more than happy to enroll you in the training program and get you started off with the first lesson right away:

[email protected]

It doesn’t matter if you have an aquarium up and running at this time that you would like to use for seahorses or if you will be setting up a new tank from scratch, Ralph, but if you are planning on using an existing aquarium, please include a description of the tank you have in mind. It will be helpful for me to know the size of the tank, including it’s dimensions (length, width, and height), the sort of filtration system and lighting you are using, and a complete list of all of the current aquarium inhabitants, if any, including the cleanup crew.

The additional information requested above will help me to provide you with the best possible assistance and guidance as we progress through the lessons in the training program.

Best wishes with all your fishes, Ralph!

Respectfully,
Pete Giwojna, Ocean Rider Training Program Advisor

Hi Pete
I would like to take the Training Progam i have 3 salt water reef tanks in my house and want to make one a seahorse tank. Thank you I am looking forward to getting started.

Dear Lisa:

Excellent! A 75-gallon aquarium can certainly make a wonderful habitat for seahorses and I generally like the way you have equipped the tank, Lisa. The two Marineland Penguin biowheel filters, in conjunction with a DLSB and live rock will certainly provide your seahorse setup with very efficient biological filtration, including plenty of both nitrification and denitrification ability. With 70 pounds of aragonite in your deep live sand bed, you should have no trouble retaining the pH of the aquarium water in the proper range. And, of course, an in-tank refugium with an abundant population of copepods and amphipods is always a welcome addition to a large seahorse setup.

Give it its very efficient filtration system, your 75-gallon aquarium system can easily support two or three pairs of large tropical seahorses such as Mustangs or Sunbursts and still provide you with a very comfortable margin for error, Lisa.

Most of the current inhabitants of the 75-gallon aquarium should do very well with seahorses, Lisa. The pajama Cardinals, fire shrimp, red leg hermits, dwarf hermits, and Turbo snail all make good companions for seahorses. But you’ll need to keep a close eye on the scooters at first, and I recommend relocating the chocolate chip starfish as a precaution, as explained below:

When discussing compatible tankmates for seahorses, it’s important to remember that one can only speak in generalities. There are no unbreakable rules, no sure things, no absolute guarantees. For instance, most hobbyists will tell you that small scooter blennies make great tankmates for seahorses and 9 times out of 10 they’re right. But every once in a while, you will hear horror stories from hobbyists about how their scooter blenny coexisted peacefully with their seahorses for several months and then suddenly went "rouge" overnight for no apparent reason and turned on the seahorses, inflicting serious damage before it could be captured and removed.

Does that mean that we should cross scooter blennies off our list of compatible tankmates for seahorses? Nope — it just means that we must be aware that individuals within a species sometimes vary in their behavior and respond differently than you would expect, so there are exceptions to every rule. It’s fair to say that scooter blennies generally make wonderful companions for seahorses, but there’s always a small chance you might get Satan reincarnated in the form of a scooter blenny. There’s no guarantee that adorable scooter you picked out at your LFS because of his amusing antics and puppy-dog personality won’t turn out to be the blenny from hell once you release him in your seahorse setup.

In other words, Lisa, your two scooters are very likely going to be perfect gentleman and make fine tankmates for your seahorses, but observe them closely for the first several days after you add your seahorses to make certain that the scooter blennies do not object to their presence. After all, they will be the established residents in the aquarium, and the seahorses will be newcomers that are invading their turf.

As far as starfish go, it’s best to avoid a large predatory species such as chocolate chip starfish and African red knob starfish (Protoreaster spp.). I would describe predatory sea stars such as these as "opportunistic omnivores," meaning that they are likely to eat any sessile or slow-moving animals that they can catch or overpower. For instance, I would not trust them with snails, clams, tunicates, soft corals and the like. Most fishes are far too fast and agile to be threatened by sea stars, but seahorses are sometimes an exception due to their sedentary lifestyle and habit of perching in one place for extended periods of time. What occasionally happens, in the confines of the aquarium, is that a predatory starfish may pin down the tail of a seahorse that was perched to the piece of coral or rock the starfish was climbing on, evert it’s stomach, and begin to digest that portion of the seahorse’s tail that is pinned beneath its body. That’s a real risk with large predatory species such as the beautiful Protoreaster starfish are the popular chocolate chip stars, which are surprisingly voracious and aggressive for an echinoderms.

But there are a number of colorful starfish that do well with seahorses. Any of the brightly colored Fromia or Linkia species would make good tankmates for seahorses. However, bear in mind that, like all echinoderms, sea stars are very sensitive to water quality and generally will not do well in a newly established aquarium. Wait until your seahorse tank is well-established and has had a chance to mature and stabilize before you try any starfish.

Three attractive species I can recommend are the Fromia Sea Star or Marbled Sea Star (Fromia monilis), the Red Bali Starfish (Fromia milliporella), and the Red Starfish (Fromia elegans), which are safe to keep with seahorses. They are not nearly as delicate as the Linkia species and should do well in the tank such as you’re planning that has lots of live rock and optimum water quality, and are nonaggressive starfish that feed primarily on detritus and meiofauna on live rock and sandy substrates.

A protein skimmer should not be needed in a tank like yours that features plenty of denitrification ability, Lisa, providing you use a product such as AquaBella Organic Solution or SeaChem Stability on a regular basis to assure that the aquarium includes large populations of facultative and anaerobic bacteria that can complete the nitrogen cycle by converting nitrates into nitrogen gas, which will bubble out of the aquarium and be removed from the tank entirely. Adding monthly boosters of AquaBella, in particular, will be especially helpful for a tank like yours with a DLSB since it will help prevent any impaction of the gravel bed.

The beneficial microbes in the AquaBella rapidly undergo a population explosion in the gravel bed of the DLSB, taking advantage of the enormous surface area and virtually unlimited attachment sites it provides to build up their numbers quickly. These microbes utilize organic wastes as food, metabolizing organic solids and phosphates contained in fish wastes and leftover fish food as well as in detritus, enzymatically breaking them down to harmless substances in the process. This effectively keeps such wastes, organic matter, and other gunk from accumulating in the DLSB, preventing impaction and keeping the aquarium water crystal-clear while helping to maintain optimum water quality. (For hobbyists who might doubt the ability of beneficial microbes’ ability to rapidly breakdown the organic matter that accumulates in the substrate of a seahorse setup, I should point out that AquaBella is also used by hog farmers to break down the organic "sludge" that often accumulates in their hog pits to a depth of 2-3 feet over time. Needless to say, if the AquaBella can handle the tremendous amount of wastes produced by hogs being fattened for market, it will have little trouble keeping up with the waste products of your seahorses.)

In fact, the AquaBella is so effective in removing proteins and other organic wastes from the aquarium water that protein skimmers often have little to do in an aquarium that uses this product. Many times a protein skimmer proves to be unneeded for an aquarium that has been cycled with AquaBella and then receives booster shots of the bioenzymes it contains on a monthly basis. For these reasons, the AquaBella should be especially helpful in your 75-gallon tank with a deep live sand bed, Lisa.

As for what else you need before you bring in your ponies, Lisa, the two primary things that come to mind are the need to bolster your cleanup crew and the need to provide some colorful hitching posts for the seahorses. A selection of colorful branching corals and artificial gorgonians will provide convenient places for the seahorses to hang out and will encourage them to look their best and brightest. You can read a detailed discussion on the aquarium décor that is best suited for a seahorse tank in Lesson 1b (Decorating and Aquascaping your Tank) of the seahorse training program, which includes several dozen photographs of other hobbyists’ seahorse setups to give you a better idea of the possibilities in that regard.

Likewise, Lisa, Lesson 2 (Cycling a New Aquarium & the Cleanup Crew) of the seahorse training course will provide you with detailed recommendations for the type of sanitation engineers and aquarium janitors that are especially useful in a seahorse tank. You want to include more snails for one thing, including plenty of the Nassarius snails that make excellent sand sifters for a tank with a DLSB.

In short, Lisa, I would be very pleased to enroll you in the Ocean Rider seahorse training program and it will explain exactly what you need to do in order to convert your 75-gallon aquarium into an ideal biotype for seahorses, but the training program is a correspondence course that is conducted entirely via e-mail, so I need to have your e-mail address in order to get the lessons and information packets to you. If you will send me a brief message to the following e-mail address, I will respond immediately and include the lessons as an attachment to my e-mail:

[email protected]

Best wishes with all your fishes, Lisa! I hope to be hearing back from you via e-mail very shortly.

Happy Trails & Happy Fourth of July!
Pete Giwojna, Ocean Rider Training Program Advisor

Dear Lisa:

Yes, I do think it’s best if you relocate the chocolate chip starfish just to be on the safe side. If nothing else, that will assure that you don’t lose any more snails from your cleanup crew to the predatory sea star.

Okay, it sounds like you are ready have a nice selection of hitching posts for your ponies, and bright orange is a very good color for encouraging the seahorses to brighten up (especially the Sunbursts). The decorative porcelain pot sounds very interesting, and I can certainly envision the ponies using the handles as convenient perches, but I am especially intrigued by the sabertoothed cat skull, Lisa – it must be quite an attention getter! (I once had an aquarium with large red bellied piranha and one of the few decorations in the tank was a life-size human skull, which was artificial, of course, but very realistic nonetheless. That sparsely decorated piranha tank was always a favorite with my visitors and the skull was an amazing conversation piece.)

But I should explain that when you post your messages here on the forum, your e-mail address is not revealed, so I have no way of sending you the lessons for the training program unless you contact me off list and establish e-mail communication. Please send me a brief e-mail message to the following address, Lisa, and I will go ahead and send the lessons for the Ocean Rider seahorse training program right away:

[email protected]

Best wishes with all your fishes, Lisa!

Respectfully,
Pete Giwojna, Ocean Rider Training Program Advisor

Dear Lori:

Oh, yes – absolutely! The seahorse training program is always available from Ocean Rider, Lori. In fact, newbies and first-time and time buyers are required to complete the training program to my satisfaction before they can be certified and are authorized to purchase any ponies.

I would be happy to enroll you in the Ocean Rider seahorse training program, Lori, but before I do so I need to know your full name (first and last) for my records. It will also be helpful if you could tell me a little more about your background as an aquarist and the type of setup you are planning on using for your seahorses, if you are that far along in your planning. This additional information will help me to give you the best possible assistance and guidance as you progress through the lessons.

Please allow me to formally introduce myself, Lori. My name is Pete Giwojna and I provide tech-support for Ocean Rider (seahorse.com). As you know, part of my duties in that regard include providing a quick training course for new Ocean Rider customers and first-time buyers to get them up to speed on the aquarium care and requirements of seahorses.

The purpose of this training is twofold: (1) to assure that the hobbyist has a suitable aquarium, completely cycled and with the biofiltration fully established, ready and waiting when his seahorses arrive, and (2) to assure that the hobbyist has a good understanding of the aquarium care and requirements of Ocean Rider seahorses by the time he or she has completed the training and been certified. All of which will help to ensure that things go smoothly and that the home aquarist’s first experience with Ocean Rider seahorses is rewarding and enjoyable.

This basic training is very informal and completely free of charge, yet quite comprehensive, Lori. Ocean Rider provides the free training as a service to their customers and any other hobbyists who are interested in learning more about the care and keeping of seahorses. It’s a crash course on seahorse keeping consisting of 10 separate lessons covering the following subjects, and is conducted entirely via e-mail. There is no homework and there are no examinations or classes to attend or anything of that nature — just a lot of good, solid information on seahorses for you to read through and absorb as best you can, at your own speed, working from your computer in the comfort of your own home. The training course consists of a total of several hundred pages of text with more than 230 full color illustrations, broken down into 10 lessons covering the following subjects:

Lesson 1: Selecting a Suitable Aquarium & Optimizing It for Seahorses.
Tank dimensions and specifications (why height is important);
Tank location and aquarium stressors;
Setting up a SHOWLR tank to create ideal conditions for seahorses;
filtration options
protein skimmers
UV sterilizers
titanium grounding probe
substrate
lighting
water circulation
Test kits for monitoring water quality;
Aquascaping the seahorse tank;
artificial hitching posts
macroalgae
Basic aquarium setups for seahorses;
undergravel filters
sponge filters

Lesson 2: Cycling a New Aquarium & Installing the Cleanup Crew.
The nitrogen cycle;
nitrification and denitrification
Step-by-step instructions for cycling a new marine aquarium;
Seahorse-safe sanitation engineers and aquarium janitors;
snails
microhermit crabs
cleaner shrimp
Starter seahorses (hardy, highly domesticated, high-health ponies)

Lesson 3: Reading Assignments (books, articles, and columns devoted to seahorses).

Lesson 4: Water Chemistry, Aquarium Maintenance, & Maintaining Optimum Water Quality.
Basic water quality parameters (acceptable range and optimum levels);
ammonia
nitrite
nitrate
pH
specific gravity
dissolved oxygen
Advanced water chemistry for reef keepers;
Performing partial water changes to maintain good water quality;
Aquarium maintenance schedule;
daily
weekly
monthly

Lesson 5: Feeding Seahorses.
Frozen Mysis serves as their staple, everyday diet;
brands of frozen Mysis
thawing and preparing frozen Mysis
enriching with Vibrance
Recommended feeding regimen;
how to tell if your seahorse is getting enough to eat
Feeding tips for seahorses;
preparing and serving the frozen Mysis
feeding new arrivals
secretive feeders
morning feedings
setting up a feeding station
training the seahorses to use a feeding tray
artificial feeding stations
natural feeding stations
purchasing a ready-made feeding station
elevating the feeding station
fasting seahorses
target feeding
handfeeding
Mysis relicta from Piscine Energetics
Broadcast feeding or scatter feeding — just say no!

Lesson 6: Compatible Tankmates for Seahorses.
Safe and unsafe companions — no guarantees;
Tropical tankmates;
fish to avoid
seahorse-safe fish
seahorse-safe invertebrates
Feeding seahorses in a community tank;
Seahorse-proofing a reef tank
safe corals
unsafe corals
lighting the seahorse reef
managing water circulation for a seahorse reef

Lesson 7: Courtship & Breeding.
Courtship displays in Hippocampus (fully illustrated)
brightening
tilting and reciprocal quivering
carouseling
promenading
pouch displays (pumping and ballooning)
pointing
copulatory rise and the egg transfer
Pair formation
Morning greetings
Male brooding — a true pregnancy
Giving birth — dawn deliveries

Lesson 8: Raising the Young.
Seahorse fry
Determining ease of rearing
Setting up a basic nursery for benthic babies
Advanced nursery tank options for pelagic fry
the shaded nursery
kriesel and pseudokreisel nurseries
the divided nursery
in-tank nurseries (illustrated)
the greenwater "starter" nursery
hyposalinity for pelagic fry
Delivery day
Culling the fry (if necessary)
Feeding the fry
hatching and enriching brine shrimp (Artemia)
decapsulated brine shrimp eggs
culturing rotifers and copepods
Fry feeding schedule

Lesson 9: Disease Prevention and Control.
Captive bred vs. wild-caught seahorses
Importance of High-Health seahorses
Seahorse anatomy illustrations
external anatomy
internal anatomy
Screening seahorses from your LFS
Quarantine tank
Quarantine protocol for pet-shop ponies and wild seahorses
Beta glucan boosts immunity to disease
Early detection of health problems
aquarium stressors
disease symptoms in seahorses
What to do at the first sign of a health problem
The seahorse-keepers medicine chest
first aid kit for seahorses
must-have medications to keep on hand
properties of the main medications
Life expectancy
Hepatic lipidosis (prevalence of fatty liver disease)
Seahorse disease book

Lesson 10: Mustangs and Sunbursts (Hippocampus erectus) & Acclimating New Arrivals.
Nature of Mustangs and Sunbursts
multi-generational approach to rearing
hybrid vigor
genetic diversity
selective breeding
Hippocampus erectus species summary
scientific name and common names
meristic counts and morphometric measurements (illustrated)
climate and distribution
color and pattern
breeding habits
breeding season
gestation period
brood size
pelagic/benthic fry
onset of sexual maturity
ease of rearing
natural habitats and natural history
preferred parameters and aquarium requirements
suggested stocking density
successful rearing protocols
feeding the fry
nursery tank designs
rearing and grow out tanks
diet and nutrition
color variations
temperature requirements
wide ranging species with different races
recommended reading
Acclimating new arrivals (step-by-step instructions)
Keeping and culturing red feeder shrimp (Halocaridina rubra)

The seahorse training program is a correspondence course that is conducted entirely via e-mail, Lori, and once we begin the lessons, I will be providing you with detailed information on all of the subjects above and answering any questions you may have about the material I present so that everything is perfectly clear to you. I will also be recommending seahorse-related articles for you to read and absorb online.

In short, Lori, the training course will teach you everything you need to know to keep your seahorses happy and healthy, and it will arm you with the information you need in order to tackle your first ponies with confidence. It will explain how to set up a new aquarium and optimize it to create ideal conditions for your seahorses.

How long this training will take to complete depends on your experience level as an aquarist to a large extent. For example, if you have never kept seahorses before and you do not already have a suitable saltwater aquarium up and running, it will take at least eight weeks for your training and preparations to be completed before you can be certified. It will take that long to learn the basics of seahorse keeping, set up a suitable aquarium, cycle the tank from scratch to establish the biological filtration, and optimize the tank to create an ideal environment for seahorses. Only then can you be certified ready to receive your first seahorses.

On the other hand, experienced marine aquarists and hobbyists that have had seahorses before and already have a suitable saltwater aquarium up and running can be certified much more quickly. I will run through the same basic information with them, but most of the information I provide will be familiar material for such hobbyists and they should be able to review it and get up to speed quickly, plus they should have well-established aquariums ready, fully matured that they can fairly quickly adapt in order to make them more ideal for seahorses. In a case like that, certification can be completed as soon as they have absorbed the material I provide and are confident they have a good grasp of the specialized requirements and aquarium care of the seahorses.

So in order to get started, Lori, the first thing I need to know is how experienced you are with saltwater aquariums. Have you ever kept a marine aquarium before? If so, how long have you been involved with the saltwater aquarium hobby? Do you have one or more marine aquariums up and running at this time? If so, how long have the tanks been in operation?

Do you have an aquarium up and running at this time that you intend to use as a seahorse tank? If so, can you please describe the aquarium system you will be using for your seahorse tank? How large is the aquarium (length, width, and height)? What kind of filtration equipment is installed and running on the aquarium? What type of lighting system does the tank you? How long has the proposed seahorse tank been up and running? Please list all of the current inhabitants of the aquarium you will be using as your seahorse tank, if any.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a suitable aquarium for your seahorses up and running at this time, Lori. I will be providing you with lots of recommendations and options in that regard so that you can pick out a tank that is just right for your needs and interests. And, of course, once we begin, I will be working with you personally every step of the way through our ongoing correspondence until your new aquarium is ready for seahorses and you are well prepared to give them the best of care, regardless of how long that may take.

All we ask in return is that you stick with the highly domesticated Ocean Rider Mustangs or Sunbursts when you are finally ready to stock your tank, Lori. As you know, Mustangs and Sunbursts are the perfect ponies for beginners. They are hardy, highly adaptable, easy to feed, and perfectly adapted for aquarium life — the world’s only High-Health seahorses, guaranteed to be free of specific pathogens and parasites.

Because the seahorse training program is a correspondence course that is conducted by e-mail, Lori, we must first establish e-mail communication before we can begin. Please send a brief message with the additional information requested above to the following e-mail address at your earliest convenience, and I will get you started out with the lessons as soon as I receive the e-mail:

[email protected]

Best wishes with all your fishes, Lori!

Happy Trails!
Pete Giwojna, Ocean Rider Training Program Advisor

Dear Mike:

Very good, sir! Your previous experience with freshwater aquariums as well as marine aquarium keeping will serve you very well as a seahorse keeper, Mike, and I would be very happy to enroll you in the Ocean Rider seahorse training program.

However, the seahorse training program is a correspondence course that is conducted entirely via e-mail, Mike, so before we can begin the lessons, we must first establish e-mail contact. If you will send me a brief message expressing your interest in the seahorse training program to the following e-mail address, I will respond and we can then begin the training once we’ve established e-mail communication:

[email protected]

I will be looking for your e-mail message and get you started out with the training material as soon as I hear back from you via e-mail, Mike.

In the meantime, best wishes with all your fishes, sir!

Happy Trails!
Pete Giwojna, Ocean Rider Training Program Advisor

Dear Sue:

Outstanding! A 100-gallon aquarium that is 4 feet long and 2 feet tall can certainly make a wonderful habitat for seahorses that offers them excellent stability and plenty of room to roam as well as providing the aquarist with a very comfortable margin for error.

The nitrate levels (20 ppm) are a bit high and the pH (7.8) is a bit too low, but that will be easy to correct once the aquarium has completely cycled and the biological filtration is well established, and all the other aquarium parameters are excellent, Sue.

Needless to say, I would be very pleased to enroll you in the Ocean Rider Seahorse Training Program, Sue, but it is a correspondence course that is conducted entirely via e-mail, so we must first establish contact off list before you can begin the training course. Please send a quick e-mail message to me at the following e-mail address, Sue, and I will get you started out with the training material as soon as I receive your reply:

[email protected]

Best wishes with all your fishes, Sue!

Respectfully,
Pete Giwojna, Ocean Rider Training Program Advisor

Hi Pete,
We would like to get started in the seahorse training program. We were at the facility in April and my daughter has taken a real interest in sea horses. We have had fresh water fish and turtles but not for some time. We would need to purchase a new set up. Thanks in advance for your time and consideration. Colleen and Amanda ~ [email protected]