I’m the photographer at Liveaquaria’s Aquaculture Coral and Marine Life Facility, and I’ve always been fascinated by aquatic animals. Right now I have three aquariums – a chilled “deepwater” aquarium, a coral-only nano bullet tank, and a planted livebearer tank.
My favorite fish are my seahorses, of course. In the wild seahorses are cryptic and rarely seen, but captive seahorses can be very friendly. Mine love to hitch on my fingers when I feed them or do tank maintenance. If you have fish at home, you’ve probably seen them swim at the front of the glass begging for food. Imagine how funny it is to see a seahorse do that. Despite being poor swimmers, seahorses are great dancers with elaborate courtship and greeting dances. They even dance to greet me when I come home.
Contrary to popular belief, captive bred seahorses are not difficult to keep, as long as you are well prepared for them. They have different requirements and are prone to different diseases than other fish, so you might have to first unlearn what you already know about fish to understand seahorse care. Seahorse.org is a great place to go if you want to learn more.
I have five seahorses, three females and two males, living in a 55 gallon aquarium with a 20 gallon sump. Their peaceful tank mates include many small gobies, pipefish, flasher wrasses, non-photosynthetic corals and inverts, and small crustaceans. I tried photosynthetic corals in this tank, but they were overwhelmed by algae due to the heavy feedings seahorses require and had to be moved to their own tank. It’s better this way, since now I can have LPS corals and anemones, which are dangerous to seahorses.
You don’t need a lot of expensive equipment for a seahorse aquarium, but in my experience, a reliable chiller is the most important piece of equipment on a seahorse aquarium. I’m convinced that having a chiller has saved the lives of two of my seahorses and one of my pipefish (more on that later). I also have a Hydor Performer skimmer, Fluval 405 filter, and compact fluorescent lighting.
In future posts, I’ll be sharing more photos and information about each of my aquariums and what has worked well for me. I’ll also tell you about some mistakes I’ve made and how you can avoid them.
