Can I keep a seahorse in my refugium?

[mweber]

I have a 58 gal refugium for DSB and caulerpa and a few other misc macros. I move about 500 GPH through it. Do you think I could keep a seahorse alive in it?

 

[MarkS]

Absolutly! Although you will notice a drastic reduction of pods in the main tank.

In the mean time, check out www.seahorse.org

Mark

 

[monkeyboy]

I'm sure that it will do fine but then again you can't really call it a refugium any more can you?

 

[Alex1]

Seahorses do not like big currents they like to be in calm water. They can not fight currents so they get pushed where the water takes them. I am sure it would have plenty of food but the pods will be reduced a lot from it. I would not do it unless it had low water movement.

Alex

 

[davelin315]

I had some seahorses in my refugium which was hooked up to my seahorse pond (it's on my website). Problem was, the refugium has a DSB, and one of the seahorses kept on getting internal gas (found it floating tonight - not dead, just filled with gas) and my guess is it's due to the DSB and the gasses bubbling out of it. Seahorses and any bubbles are a bad combination. I can't be positive that the reason the seahorse is floating is the DSB and life in the refugium, but it's a pretty good guess I think. Otherwise, the other one was fine in it, but I did move both of them into the main pond tonight. Check out my website, there's a couple of pictures of the pond and the refugium. Also, one thing about seahorses is you're supposed to have your water column at least 3x the height of the seahorse, and in my setup, the refugium is not very deep so as to allow more surface area for the water, and also, more light to penetrate deeper to the plants in it.

 

[mweber]

Thanks.

I think I'll wait 4 months or so untill I have teeming life, then give it a try. My refugium is only about 3 weeks old and still looks pretty quiet.

 

[Capn]

Make sure you buy a large aquacultured animal (or 2) if you decide to do it. They might eat you out of house and home though.

Cap

 

[Hippocampus]

Your seahorses will be fine in your refugium. I have to discount Dave's theory on the DSB, based on my own experience. I have 6" DSB in my seahorse tank and have only had one horse (out of over 80 I raised) with a gas bubble problem. Your water flow may be a little high, but the horses will gravitate toward low-flow areas. I wouldn't plan on the refugium providing enough food to sustain them though (which, as someone pointed out, doesn't make it much of a refugium if your point is to raise critters to feed the main tank). Seahorses will decimate a pod supply in short order -- they require a tremendous supply of food to sustain them because they don't have stomachs per se. If you do want to keep WC seahorses (which I STRONGLY discourage), you could supplement their diet with enriched artemia.

The good news is that the CB species available from Ocean Rider and Flying Fish Express will take frozen food, and sometimes even seem to prefer it. Frozen food is very inexpensive to feed -- an 8-ounce flat pack of mysis ($13 from Premium Aquatics) usually turns brown in the freezer before my seahorses finish it. Wild caught horses are another story -- I got feeding live foods down to a science, and still was spending $50/month/horse to keep them fed with a variety of foods. (Do not even try to feed seahorses solely on a diet of live brine.)

Unless breeding is a priority, I wouldn't worry too much about the height either. I had two 6" seahorses successfully mate in a 10 gallon tank. Where there's a will ...

Please do join us at seahorse.org if you're looking for more information. We have many commercial breeders and advanced hobbyists who will answer any questions you have. Dave Lin is a member there, as am I. Our top concern is always the horses, so there's no such thing as a stupid question.

HTH.

Donna

Donna