love the setup man if may ask a question what kind of plant is that in there? Also how much are Dwarf Seahorses I have never seen any around before only in pics from books and Internet.

I'm not exactly sure what the plant is - it's some type of macroalgae. Dwarfs are about $10 each, give or take a few dollars and depending on whether they are wild caught or captive bred. Most seahorse keepers suggest captive bred over wild caught. The only captive bred source I know of for some reason hasn't processed my brine enrichment order and it's been like a month so I went with the wild caught.

I would love to take a video of them but I'd need a nice video camera. The only reason the pictures look like they do is because I have a DSLR camera. My phone too lousy pictures too blurry to see, and I think the video would be the same. Maybe I could convince my mom to borrow her HD camera

Today the first male has done a courting dance for one of the females. I am going to document which females are pairing with which males to avoid any inbreeding with the babies. The plan is to remove the parents once the babies are sexually mature.

I have a second 6 gallon tank (with TONS of risky hitch hikers) that I am cycling now. I'm going to capture my bristleworm somehow and remove it from that tank (the thing is huge). It will be for the parents (it's going to be a fantastic reef display tank) and then my 5 I've got going now will be for the babies, so I can keep paired seahorses without worrying about them mating with their children. Each pair will only be allowed one sex of children. I'm thinking I'm going to keep only males from the first pair, for instance.

Now this all assumes I can keep track of the pairs. I did document the male's attempt with this female, even though nothing happened from it (she was too interested in food). And the females are the ones that can look SO alike. But I'll upload a picture of the cute courting couple later today You can see how he is displaying his belly. And his color has changed! I'll show a before and after picture

Wow!! Fascinating ^^ I can't wait to see! The idea of even smaller seahorses freaks me out tbh. (in a good way)

Here is is. This morning with the yellow female, this evening with the pink female (my favorite) being snubbed by both lol

Here's a picture of my tank-to-be!

It's cycling right now and I'm not going to stock it with seahorses for another 6 months (assuming I can be patient. I have to wait until December regardless (I promised )

ok, forgive this if it's a dumb question. . . Why can't you put seahorses in it sooner than 6 months? Is it because they're salt water and you have to acclimate the live rock to the tank??

It's awesome looking btw!! I can't wait to see the finished product!!

Well I am being extremely careful with this tank because it was loaded with bristleworms and irregular shaped starfish and aiptasia. I was told it takes 6 months to fully establish a tank so it is completely stable - I don't know how true this is, but since they have a home and I'm no hurry I thought I'd try it out.

Thanks! I can't either - I have so many plans for it.

I have more pictures of my tanks:

Display, 6g



Seahorses 5g

Nice!! So the snail is all alone cycling the water for a few months? Do you have to feed it, or does it eat the algae and particles left from the plants??

Last night I attended the folk festival here and they were parading around homemade lanterns from the lantern festival and someone had a large pink seahorse lantern and I thought of you!! My camera was pooping it up with the lighting and stuff so I dd not get a pic

ooh seahorse lantern

I think I have hmm...maybe 3 or 4 adult snails in there and they've had at least 2 tiny babies that I've seen. I also have pods, a tiny crab hitch-hiker, and the plants add to the bioload too. The kenya trees died I thought they would. So unfortunately they are adding to the bioload too.

The snails I'm assuming eat algae... I don't feed them though. I do feed marine snow to the pods and macro-algae or random life, which the snails might eat too.

The crab is gonna go when he gets big though. I'm waiting for him to get big enough for me to catch him. I can -not- get rid of these blasted bristleworms though. I am literally about to boil my liverock at this point and let the tank cycle without them. Not really they are too pretty. But I am on bristleworm patrol and I don't mind picking the rock out and setting it down on the counter momentarily to snuff them out :/ (which worked with a few btw)

Can you remove the Kenya trees or did they already rot? Those guys can be toxic so it's best not to leave them in if they're dying. That goes for most softies, actually.

I was able to catch hitchhiker crabs with a little plastic trap sold for that purpose. I know a lot of people make their own traps with bottles but that's tricky to do in a smaller tank like yours. My trap can supposedly catch bristleworms, too, in a different opening but I've never used it for that purpose.

Ditch the marine snow. It's totally useless IMO. It's pretty much just polluting your water. Well, if you do mean the product "Marine Snow" and not something else, anyway! If you want to feed the copepods, feed live phytoplankton. If you're looking to feed coral, feed oyster eggs/cyclopeeze/Coral Frenzy/etc. depending on species.

What's wrong with the bristleworms? Are they fireworms or just the regular common guys? I'm not sure why you want to remove them, are they stinging your seahorses? They do make traps for them.

Good luck, new tanks can be challenging but also fun!

ooh thank you for all of the great tips! I just want to get the bristleworms out so that when the seahorses move in they don't get attacked for swimming too close or nipping out of curiosity.

I was planning on moving that kenya tree out this evening but I am going to go move it now - thank you

I've been able to successfully get all the ones I have seen out (the bristleworms) but the problem is that there are so many. I might look into a trap but I've heard mixed reviews.

And I'll be ditching the marine snow too! Thanks - btw - does the macro-algae just need light or any type of supplement?

Also some pics of the new cute couple I saw dancing!

Adorable pictures!

Bristleworms don't really "attack" exactly but you're right that they may sting when nipped. I'd hope the seahorses would leave them alone after that but I don't know how smart they are . I've only had one fish get stung...a sailfin molly. He thought it was food, oops. He was upset for a few seconds but was fine after that. I don't think they normally cause much damage, even to small fish. So if you miss a few I think you'll be OK.

That being said, bristleworm population blooms are usually for a reason. There might be uneaten food, stuff rotting on the rocks (was your liverock cured?), or it could be from the marine snow. If you can figure out what they're eating you can put a dent in the population .

Let me know if you need help culturing phytoplankton or rotifers.

I can't remember what kind of macro-algae you have (I know which ones you ordered). Some require Calcium and others do better with an Iron supplement. But most do fine with the lighting alone (though it usually needs to be pretty intense!).

Thanks

Oh yes - the tank is deep in its cycle and full of ammonia I imagine. I'm actually about to test it. I took out both the kenya tree and the macro-algae you said takes over the tank because it looked like it was dying too and I also didn't want it to population explode either. so now I have one tank with it and one tank without so I have a little risk mitigation the other one is doing well though - I think it's the water quality. I'm ready to find some record ammonia levels

No more marine snow lol

2 more bristleworms down -blows smoke off finger and holsters finger-