210 Tigertail Playground

[Richard]

Still has a ways to go before it's ready for horses but I finally got water running in my 210 gallon (7 x 2 x 2) which will eventually be home to my Tigertail seahorse herd. I wanted to have an area for a seagrass bed but I can't stand looking at deep sandbeds so I made a dsb retaining wall out of base rock and sealed it up with handi-foam. It looks awful now but once it gets grown over with coraline algae and other stuff it should look pretty good I think. The sandbed is about 6" deep behind the retaining wall.

I also made hitches using plastic chain hooked to some anchor decorations. I think the horses will like them.

[Alamo]

looks very intresting :)

[Texreefer]

very cool looking,, cant' wait to see the progress once grasses are added

[seamonkey2]

great, yes full of grass will be even better

how big is the herd going to be Richard, Texas big :)

Jose

[leliataylor]

I've never gotten that artistic with my seahorse tanks. The seahorses will love the grass bed. What kind of grass are you going to grow? I am starting to have some success cultivating Turtle Grass. My seahorses use Caulerpa prolifera maxima in the same way they use Turtle Grass and it is alot easier to propagate. They can be hard to find in the macro algae. Your Tiger Tails are some very lucky seahorses.

[LoneStar]

Nice

I will be looking forward to following this tank.

[erikharrison]

Very, very cool. I would love to be able to sit and stare at that tank once you get all your horseys in there! PLEASE take alot of pics so we can vicariously view that sweet tank! :)

[clone]

horse races anyone.VERY nice and creative.I like it alot.
cant wait to see it once you add the grass.

[Richard]

how big is the herd going to be Richard, Texas big :)
Jose

I have thirteen right now, 4 CB from ORA & 9 imported juvi's. Plus I'm waiting four 4 more from ORA once they grow them out a bit more. So at least 17 :).


What kind of grass are you going to grow?

Probably shoal or turtle grass, still trying to decide. Maybe I'll just try both. The first 2 1/2" of the sandbed is sand/refugium mud mix so hopefully that will get it growing. I use prolifera in another tank but have always wanted a real seagrass bed.

Ok I am done adding things that aren't alive so now I can get to the fun stuff. I added a few coral skeletons to fill in some empty space and added a layer of coral rubble. This makes for a great breeding ground for microfauna (pods, microstars, spaghetti worms, etc.) plus I wanted to have some jawfish in this tank and they use it to build their burrows.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1342/1353319984_41bb40bd52_o.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1101/1353322160_d10c6e3773_o.jpg



Filtration is pretty simple on this tank. I have a Tunze DOC in tank skimmer.The main pump is a panworld 150ps which runs to two torpedo canister filters (this isn't a Hiatt filtration setup though). I am still waiting on the biomedia to arrive so I am bypassing the canisters for now. I plumbed it such that I can turn a few ball valves and backflush the canisters during water changes. This will keep the biomedia nice and clean.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1202/1353328544_1853c6690a_o.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1004/1352438633_0aac0974d8_o.jpg

Then the water goes through a 57watt UV and back to the tank.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1033/1353323898_95b835c407_o.jpg

[apedroza]

Looking good Richard!!!

[Jeff]

in the latest CORAL magazine sept/aug the cover is corallimorpharians there is a decent write up on raising baby seahorses that may be a pretty good way to raise them. i just bought 3 tank raised s/h and one pipe fish a couple of weeks ago. 1 horse and the pipe have died and the 2 remaining have white spots on them. when are you going to start carrying ora seahorses for sale.

[Richard]

when are you going to start carrying ora seahorses for sale.

Never, seahorses are one animal that is best ordered direct. Too much exposure to potential pathogens from wc fish that move in & out of store tanks. Plus most store tanks are running a little too warm for horses. I do occasionally special order ora horses for people and prefer that they come pick them up in the bag. ORA is the only place breeding tiger tails at the moment but for all other species I would recommend buying direct from breeders like seahorsesource.com or draco marine. For H. erectus there is a hobby breeder on seahorse.org named Tim that raises some beautiful ones. He sells them for about half the price of commercial breeders.

Sorry to hear about your horses. White spots as in ich? Are you treating them?

[Jeff]

no it's not ick, it is a patch of white that appears on the horses just days before they die.

i don't run a chiller so my tank is around 78-80f, but i guess all the captive breed s/h are actualy the hybrids from vietnam. thanks for the info on seahorse.org i may have to contact them.

[Headless_donkey]

This looks like a great Stable!

[Headless_donkey]

Looks like a great Stable!