Mr Aqua 7 1/2 gallon cube

[Gobby]

Hi again folks,
Thought I'd put up the newest tank we are starting. My daughter made me promise to set up a Dwarf Seahorse tank for her. We read a good book on the subject, now we'll see how we fair. Here are a couple shots:




I'm never happy with the rock scape. Most of this is dry rock. When some of it cures I'm sure I'll pull some out. We have a 50 watt heater, Koralia nano 240 and a sponge filter instead of a HOB, to keep from sucking up all the little seahorses. There is a couple inches of Arragalive Hawaiian black live sand. We set it up on the 23rd of October. I put in a piece of shrimp today. I haven't done any water test yet. The light is a Current Dual Satellite 18W. It is a 24 hour light with day, dusk/dawn and moonlight. I picked up from a guy in california from another forum. It is a discontinued model. Wish us luck.

Buddy

[SaltyDawg]

Looks cool. P.S. you need to mark on the board that the new Burn Notice is November 11...lol

[Gobby]

Thats funny Bob...she already took care of that, believe me!

[CarmieJo]

Looks nice!

[boyesreef]

just a quick heads-up, ditch the digital temp gauge. get a couple of those stick to the glass glass ones. i had a digital one exactly the same as the one in picture one, and it was a whole 8 degrees off. it read 72 and the tank was at 80. i would get 2 glass ones and put one near the heater and one as far from the heater and lights as you can get it. the one near the heater is so you can catch it if the heater fails and runs full blast, the other will give you the lowest reading in the tank, so you know if it is reading too hot, the tank NEEDS to cool down.

[Gobby]

Thanks guys...I do have a glass one in both of the tanks. They are reading the same as the digital one. When they differ I will ditch the digital. :-)

[boyesreef]

sounds like a plan gobby!

[Gobby]

Okay...a little update. The digital thermometer on my 28 gallon Nanocube already died. It is gone boyesreef. Good thing I was backing up with the glass one. I'll pitch the one on this tank as well soon.

So I added a CUC to the tank. It cycled pretty quickly and just in time for a delivery form Foster & Smith and Reefcleaners.org. I put in the usual snails (nausarius, nerite, florida cerith, dwarf cerith), and Hermit crabs. Since this tank is for my daughters Dwarf Seahorses that she wants to try, I went with a sponge filter. The thing makes a big mess because of the tank being hoodless. I have decided to go with a Aquaclear 20. I'll move the sponge to a quarantine tank I have that isn't up yet. So for now I have two filters going. I might as well let the sponge keep curing. I am using the foam block and carbon inserts, but not the biomax media in the Aquaclear. I replaced them with a Purigen pouch I had here. What do you think? I will add a foam cover to the intake to protect the seahorses and back down on the flow if need be ( a nice feature of the Aquaclears). I am going to gradually back down on the salinity of the water before we order our seahorses. My water comes up to 1.026 when I use the manufacturers directions of 1/2 cup per gallon (Instant Ocean). Optimal for the seahorses is 1.019.

G'day,
Buddy

[CarmieJo]

Sounds like you are making progress. I think I remember reading that pony keepers don't like hermits for fear of them grabbing a tail but I'm not 100% on that. I would highly recommend going on over to www.seahorse.org and do lots of research. The "org" is the definitive seahorse resource.

[boyesreef]

boy, did i call it or what? glad i could be there to warn you

[Coreyz]

I have found with Instant Ocean that I have to double the recommended amount to get to my 1.024- 1.026 target for salinity, and many prefer Reff Crystals, and then are now changing to other brand names.... As far as clean up crew I used to have over 40 clean up crabs in my 125 tank, now I have three very small ones, the big ones were tearing up my pulsing xenia and other soft corals as I am sure they could do sea horse tails. I banished the them to my sump to clean up particles there and I feed them algae wafers. I don't ever plan on buying large crabs for my reef display tank again after that loss. There are many natural clean up crews now like my horde of brittle star fish, bristle worms, and other snails. They are a well balanced jack of all trades... other than removing aptasia.

[Gobby]

Thank you folks for your responses. I don't think I'm ready to put the horses in quite yet. I want the tank to age a little more. I'm going to yank out the crabs later and remove some rock to make more room in there.

Gobby

[CarmieJo]

BTW, the org says that the correct SpG is 1.021-1.024. http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/testing.shtml

[Gobby]

Yeah I know CarmieJo...I read that 1.019 was optimal for Dwarfs. I am going to bring it down gradually as to not shock whats in there. I'll let you know how it goes.

Buddy

[saxman]

I know this is a bit late, but crabs of ANY kind will kill and eat zots. Also, with zots, if you don't go with a sterile-type setup, you really need to watch out for hydroid blooms due to the high availability of small live prey (BBS). 'Droids can and will kill zots.

Other than that, keep the tank cool (+74*F max), and make sure the SH have lots of hitches (I see nothing in there ATM).

I'm assuming your "good book" is Alisa Abbott's book? It is indeed good, but parts of it are a little outdated.

[Gobby]

Hi Sax,
Yes that is the book I have. I'm not sure if you can tell me what is outdated. It might take to much time. I will remove the crabs as soon as we're ready for the zots as you call them. The rock you see in there isn't all staying. It was mostly dry rock that I figured I would seed till we got some gorgonians and other hitching posts. I have been mixing my water to 1.020 and the temp is 76. I'll get it down some more. Thanks for all your recommendations. I know one thing.... I hate rimless, hoodless tanks. They get so salty and messy on the outside. I can't keep up with it... Lol.

Gobby

[Mostly Rock]

How's the pony tank goin?

[Gobby]

Hi Mike,
I have to take out some of that rock, put in some hitching post and remove the crabs. Then I'll order her ponies and see how she does. How you doing?

Buddy

[Mostly Rock]

I'm fed up with my Bullet Goby... my tank constantly looks like it's in the middle of a blizzard... but I guess that's better than fighting water parameter issues I also swear I saw a fluke on one of my new Purple Firefish Gobies... I was told they were QTed for 8 weeks (they were a Christmas Present!) but I would expect anything fluke like to be dead and gone after 8 weeks, or FW dipped away... Just in case, I'm thinking about adding a cleaner wrasse. A Cleaner Shrimp would be ideal, but my Coral Banded shrimp is the first invert serial killer I've ever met

[Gobby]

Okay...over to this tank a minute. I've been playing mostly with the nanocube 28 and we haven't gotten any Dwarf Seahorses in this tank yet. What I do have in it is this:

[IMG][/IMG]

Can any of you identify the what I quess is some kind of red algae. Also there is something else growing out from underneath the shell. I'm not sure what that is either.

Gobby

[CarmieJo]

Nice picture! I have some of that red algae too but I don't know what it is. I think it looks nice and it is slow growing.

[Gobby]

I like it to CarmieJo. Did you notice the Orange plate like stuff also growing out from underneath? :-)

[CarmieJo]

I think it might be a plating algae. Pull up some images of Lobophora spp and see what you think...

[Gobby]

Ahh...yeah, I see some that are close.