S&M's Seahorse IM Lagoon 50 Build

Daniel@R2R · Oct 19, 2016

Good-looking pony! Great addition. Looking forward to seeing how she acclimates.

shornik · Oct 20, 2016

So far she hasn't eaten very much at all, I do see her hunting bugs a bit but she's mostly hitching and not swimming around much like my male does. I'm hoping she'll start eating soon, at least start chasing down the mysis. I'll keep monitoring her and if I don't see any significant changes I might move her to a QT tank where I can make sure she eats and fattens up a bit before putting her back in the DT. I'm always hesitant about moving them as I don't want that stress to make things worse.

77.christy · Oct 23, 2016

I fatten mine up w/ ghost shrimp. They love them! And it's fun to watch them hunt

shornik · Oct 24, 2016

So it's been about 1 week and Mystery2 (the female) has definitely been eating and swimming around more. I did not move her but let continue to acclimate to the new surroundings. I also switched my feeding schedule to 3 times a day instead of 2, but I wasn't really consistent because I was out of the house quite a bit over the weekend. I'll keep an eye on her but it looks like she's made it past the early days and will be fine.

I'm definitely going to get some ghost shrimp anyway just to watch them hunt them down.

shornik · Oct 31, 2016

Well the tank seems to be settling in so I thought I'd add some pics of the tank and some new Gorgonians and Sponge I bought for the tank, the more "hitching" places the better I figure. So here they are:

DSC02508 by shornik
FTS

DSC02512 by shornik

Yellow Tree Sponge, well that's what it's called but its definitely Orange and not yellow.

DSC02516 by shornik,

Purple Sea Plume

DSC02526 by shornik

Mystery2

And Alfred in his favorite spot, hunting for pods.

Daniel@R2R · Nov 1, 2016

Man, I love this! Looking great!

shornik · Dec 9, 2016

So I just fed the ponies I laughed at this. It was almost like they said "ok you go low and I'll go high".

shornik · Feb 22, 2017

Yikes I haven't posted for quite a while, well all was going good which mostly explains why I haven't posted. But today I noticed Albert was twitching and just didn't look good. Last time I saw this with one of my ponies (Mystery) she died. So I just gave Albert a fresh water dip, per Dan at SeaHorseSource. I didn't notice any parasites coming off him but at times he was twitching which is what Dan's article says to expect, as well as him playing dead for a little bit. I did the dip for 8 minutes and now he's back in the tank. He doesn't look great but obviously I just stressed him out quite a bit. I'm making new SW for the QT tank in case I need to move him. I'm just hoping that with the freshwater dip he'll be OK..... I'll keep everyone posted. Here's a link to the Freshwater Dip in case it is helpful to anyone else.

vlangel · Feb 22, 2017

I hope he is ok! Its so hard when one of them is not up to par.

shornik · Feb 23, 2017

Unfortunately Albert died sometime last night. I've had him for 7 months and I don't know what happened. Whatever it was acted quick, he was perfectly fine a day ago and then he was gone ;-(

vlangel · Feb 23, 2017

I am sorry! That stinks. Its always really hard to lose one.

shornik · Feb 24, 2017

vlangel said:
I am sorry! That stinks. Its always really hard to lose one.

It sure is, it was hard for me to get much work done yesterday. And the more I think about the more I think I might have done something to cause this. I haven't done anything different from the normal routine, however on Sunday (2 days before he died) i cleaned out a big bunch of Chaeto from my refigium and it always has lots of pods that I can never get out, so this time I let the Chaeto get blown a bit by my MP10 and perhaps bacteria that might have been on it was introduced into the tank - or at least at higher quantities than normal. It's the only thing I can think of.

At any rate, I have to say that SeaHorseSource is the best!!! I emailed Dan to talk to him about what happened so I can learn what I might have done to save him and what to do in the future if something similar occurs. Within I'd say 1 minute! of sending the email, Dan's calling me on my phone to talk about it!!!

I'm going to post his suggestions in case it might be helpful to anyone else (as you might expect its all about keeping the bacteria levels down):

1) Lower the water temp, I've been running at 75-76 and so I'm going down to 74-75 to see how the Chiller operates and hopefully 7-74.
2) Instead of doing weekly 5 gallon (10% in my case) water changes, do 10 gallon changes every other week.
3) I should give my remaining pony - Mystery2 a FW dip just to be proactive.
4) OK, first 3 will be easy but .... He suggested I swap out my gravel for sand. The reasoning is the sand provides a more solid surface since the grains are so small and therefor the food/detritus has less of a chance of going down into the sand/gravel bed to decompose and increase bacteria. As you can imagine this is going to be quite the pain. I'm debating that if I do this I might just go bare bottom (I'm guessing @vlangel will cheer this approach).

Those are the main things. Also after I did the FW dip I should have placed Albert in a QT tank and probably dosed Furan-2 since it was almost certainly a bacterial infection that was the problem.

Odds and Ends from our conversation:
1) Female seahorses can change to male!!! He does not know why but has seen it happen in his brood tanks.
2) On average the seahorses should live 3-5 years with some going 5-7 and some of his customers having them for 9! (Sadly Albert only made it to 7 months).

That's about it, thanks for reading and wish me luck with the changes I'll be making and I hope they are beneficial when I get new ponies to keep Mystery 2 company - she/he is pretty lonely now......

vlangel · Feb 24, 2017

shornik said:
It sure is, it was hard for me to get much work done yesterday. And the more I think about the more I think I might have done something to cause this. I haven't done anything different from the normal routine, however on Sunday (2 days before he died) i cleaned out a big bunch of Chaeto from my refigium and it always has lots of pods that I can never get out, so this time I let the Chaeto get blown a bit by my MP10 and perhaps bacteria that might have been on it was introduced into the tank - or at least at higher quantities than normal. It's the only thing I can think of.

At any rate, I have to say that SeaHorseSource is the best!!! I emailed Dan to talk to him about what happened so I can learn what I might have done to save him and what to do in the future if something similar occurs. Within I'd say 1 minute! of sending the email, Dan's calling me on my phone to talk about it!!!

I'm going to post his suggestions in case it might be helpful to anyone else (as you might expect its all about keeping the bacteria levels down):

1) Lower the water temp, I've been running at 75-76 and so I'm going down to 74-75 to see how the Chiller operates and hopefully 7-74.
2) Instead of doing weekly 5 gallon (10% in my case) water changes, do 10 gallon changes every other week.
3) I should give my remaining pony - Mystery2 a FW dip just to be proactive.
4) OK, first 3 will be easy but .... He suggested I swap out my gravel for sand. The reasoning is the sand provides a more solid surface since the grains are so small and therefor the food/detritus has less of a chance of going down into the sand/gravel bed to decompose and increase bacteria. As you can imagine this is going to be quite the pain. I'm debating that if I do this I might just go bare bottom (I'm guessing @vlangel will cheer this approach).

Those are the main things. Also after I did the FW dip I should have placed Albert in a QT tank and probably dosed Furan-2 since it was almost certainly a bacterial infection that was the problem.

Odds and Ends from our conversation:
1) Female seahorses can change to male!!! He does not know why but has seen it happen in his brood tanks.
2) On average the seahorses should live 3-5 years with some going 5-7 and some of his customers having them for 9! (Sadly Albert only made it to 7 months).

That's about it, thanks for reading and wish me luck with the changes I'll be making and I hope they are beneficial when I get new ponies to keep Mystery 2 company - she/he is pretty lonely now......

When I have lost ponies I went through the same things you did...wondering if something I did or did not do caused their death. I always feel guilt over it too.
I think it was good that you talked to Dan. I should have done that when I lost Boaz, although I think I know why he got GBD and have since remedied that situation. I appreciating you sharing what you learned from Dan so the rest of us can also use that info. I definitely agree about a sand bottom instead of gravel or crushed coral. I too have heard that mysis can get down in the crevices and fuel bacteria. I don't recommend a bb like my tank to everyone because its not as natural as a sand bottom. Aesthetics play a big part in setting up a tank and if a bb does not appeal to everyone, I totally understand. I painted mine which helps but it still looks a bit sterile.

Good luck with the changes you make!

Lionfish Lair · Feb 24, 2017

I'm sorry to hear this news.

shornik · Apr 21, 2017

Well, 2 months have passed, since the passing of Albert and I'm happy to announce that a) Mastery 2 is doing just fine, b) the tank seems to be fine, c) I did many of the changes that Dan suggested (see post above), and as a result I received 3 new seahorses today from Abbie and Dan at seahorsesource.com

All the new ponies are doing fine and during this afternoon's second feeding I saw one, maybe two of them eating but they are all acting curious so I know its just a matter of time. Mystery 2 seems to be paying the new arrivals very little attention, probably a little miffed that all her hitching posts now have other seahorses on them, but I think once she gets over herself she'll warm up to her new friends. So now I have 2 males and 2 females, pictures of the newbies are below....

vlangel · Apr 22, 2017

shornik said:
Well, 2 months have passed, since the passing of Albert and I'm happy to announce that a) Mastery 2 is doing just fine, b) the tank seems to be fine, c) I did many of the changes that Dan suggested (see post above), and as a result I received 3 new seahorses today from Abbie and Dan at seahorsesource.com

All the new ponies are doing fine and during this afternoon's second feeding I saw one, maybe two of them eating but they are all acting curious so I know its just a matter of time. Mystery 2 seems to be paying the new arrivals very little attention, probably a little miffed that all her hitching posts now have other seahorses on them, but I think once she gets over herself she'll warm up to her new friends. So now I have 2 males and 2 females, pictures of the newbies are below....

Beautiful ponies! I am sure Mystery will come around. Thats what I love about seahorses, instead of ganging up and killing new members of the herd they eventually become friends.

I too just ordered 2 new ponies from Dan and Abbie and mine are also doing very well. I also have a herd of 4, 1 male and 3 females.

77.christy · Apr 25, 2017

I commend you for keeping seahorses. I tried, but my work schedule was too much to kept them fed properly. And the never learned to eat frozen. [emoji22]. Keeping live brine was a chore. Lol. They're beautiful.

shornik · Apr 25, 2017

77.christy said:
I commend you for keeping seahorses. I tried, but my work schedule was too much to kept them fed properly. And the never learned to eat frozen. [emoji22]. Keeping live brine was a chore. Lol. They're beautiful.

Thanks @77.christy If you're ever ready to give them a go again, try getting them from a source where they are already trained to eat frozen - it's so less stressful.