There be horses in there!

I was to collect the Hippocampus B variety but unfortunately only two were ordered and one died during transport, so I took option B and purchased two Kuda species, the female is yellow and the male more orange.

They have settled in well, the female feeding enthusiastically while the male half-heartedly. Since I still had store credit, I also purchased three Peppermint Shrimps. The Dancing Shrimp I originally wanted was proving hard to source so I settled for these guys instead.

As a bonus, one shrimp was carrying an enormous amount of greenish eggs under her tail and spends most of the time alone. I have not heard of great success rates breeding these shrimps in captivity, but if nothing else will add to the seahorse diet?

Tank mates

The gorgonian did not fair well so have returned these to the shop but placed more rock in the background where the macro algae is really looking good - and I know I'll be thinning it out soon!

Ben from Amazing Amazon (Melbourne, Australia) called to say he has several subspecies of seahorses coming in this week, and had particularly ordered Hippocampus Barbouri for me. After searching the net, I am very happy with his selection.

Hippocampus Barbouri

I've also researched other compatible tank mates for Seahorses and found Firefish gobies (also known as Firetail Goby) Nemateleotris magnifica will perform well in this tank.

Firetail Goby Nemateleotris magnifica

Patience, Patience, Patience...is the key to setting up any tank, and also read as much as you can. I found this excellent site for species compatibility for seahorses:

www.seahorse.org/library/articles/tankmates/tankmates.shtml

Cycling and settling

I've left the tank to cycle and settle for the past two weeks and just added some filter feeding gorgonians for decoration and somewhere for my fish to rest. The red "driftwood" just wasn't working, and began to break up, with the bark falling away.

Gorgonians opening, a side view of the tank.

The snails are certainly doing their job for keeping the glass clean of algae.

I'm also considering a scooter blenny (not a Mandarin) to assist the shrimps with the cleanup of uneaten food in and around the algae and rocks.

Scooter Blenny

The Seahorses and Dancing shrimps are on order and should arrive in about a week. I have asked that they be held in the store (quarantine) for a further week to be sure!

Identifying Pets or Pests

One huge difference between marine and fresh is the abundance of "critters" that seem to suddenly appear in an marine tank with live rock. One piece of rock seems to be growing some beautiful red seaweed but more surprising was this little guy...

It appears to be an incredibly small but exceptionally long tube worm of some kind. It definitely has a mouth part made of four opposing white (hairy) extensions and continuously crawls over rocks and sand in search of food. It also has the ability to coil itself up like a spring as shown above.
Once I know what this is, I'll post a reply, hopefully it wont be an issue for the seahorses - nor end up fodder for the Camel Shrimp.

Important Water tests

Seahorses require excellent water parameters and periodic water tests are essential prior to adding any livestock and prior to general maintenance schedules such as water changes.

I have performed the following water tests:

Nitrite 0ppm

Ammonia 0ppm

Nitrate 0ppm

PH 8.4

Phosphate 0.5ppm

The PH at 8.4 is perhaps a little high, I will need to achieve between 8.1 and 8.3 but due to the new live rock and sand, this is not an unexpected result.

I was very pleased to achieve 0ppm in Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate as I was expecting some spikes here due to the live rock, it must be more cycled than the store thought.

The tank will be left to cycle for at least another two weeks - this hobby has certainly taught me patience, to go slowly when adding anything new or for the first time. If these parameters remain consistent and stable then I will add my 4 seahorses and 6 dancing shrimp soon.

Initial Setup

I've kept marine for over 12 years now and had the large tank, the small nano tank, the inbetween tank while mostly keeping soft corals. After the unfortunate death of my zebra (dwarf) lionfish who became quite tame, I lost interest in the mushroom corals and associated fish.

Having a 80lt nano now devoid of coral, rock and fish but with fully cycled rock in the filter chambers, I decided to research fish that are captive bred, enhance a hobby that doesn't rob the oceans of wildlife. Hippocampus Kudo, or Asian Seahorses are captive bred in Western Australia and therefore an industry I'll support. They are already accustomed to frozen Brime and Mysis shrimps, and are available in a variety of colours.

Hippocampus Kudo, Asian Seahorse

My tank looks so empty after selling about 20 different coloured mushroom corals, my banded shrimp, tomato clown pair (with anemone), one electric blue damsel and one hawkfish. I have left the snails in there to help with the algae on the glass.

The initial start with fresh rock and sand,

I have added fresh sand for buffering, and purchased new live rock that has substantial coraline growth. The algae is from a friends sump, though more aesthetic than functional but with power fluros may not last. Height is more important than width for seahorses so this seemed the perfect tank.

I will also be adding at least 6 Camel shrimp, as distinct from Peppermint shrimp. Camel shrimp, or Humpback, Dancing shrimp are red with white stripes and dots.

Camel Shrimp or Dancing Shrimp: Rhynchocinetes uritai

Peppermint Shrimp

The shrimp will assist with cleaning up any uneaten food from the sand bed and I hope to also get a few red starfish for the same purpose if I can find any captive bred species.

Adding driftwood that looks like coral for the seahorses to anchor to.

I will now let this system settle for at least 2 weeks, the new rock needs time to cycle, and then check that ammonia and nitrite are zero before adding any stock.