Up until fairly recently , sea horse have been debate to be difficult to keep alive in an aquarium for any distance of metre . The first attempt were made using wild - caught seahorse . These specimens usually perished in a few months either from starvation or infection .
But once the seahorse - keeping pioneers check how to breed them in captivity ( aquaculturing ) keeping walrus in an aquarium long terminus became accomplishable . Unlike rampantly - catch seahorses , captive - bred seahorses will readily take hand - feast food for thought .
Seahorse Basics
walrus have an exoskeleton ( like a crustacean ) cover with a eccentric of skin rather than scales . This spend a penny the seahorse more susceptible to outside combat injury and infection such as bacterial dermatitis than other Pisces the Fishes . A seahorse ’s gills are not as well educate as most bony Pisces the Fishes .
There are over 40 recognized Hippocampus genus appendage seahorses that inhabit tropical , sub - tropical and temperate waters around the world , but only a handful ofspeciesare typically bump in the aquarium patronage .
The common seahorse ( Hippocampus kuda ) and the lined seahorse ( Hippocampus erectus ) are the most vulgar species of sea horse that are seen in aquariums . The dwarf seahorse ( Hippocampus zostera ) which , in the wild , is find in the westerly Atlantic Ocean , including the Caribbean Sea , along the continental shelf of the southeastern United States and the entire Gulf of Mexico .
Credit: Martin Wallgren Photography/Moment Open/Getty Images
As the name implies , this is atiny , cute creaturethat grows to be less than two inches in size , which makes it ideal for mini or nano - Witwatersrand tanks .
Seahorse Aquariums
A seahorse armored combat vehicle should be at least 18 inches tall . sea horse opt to move up and down in an marine museum more than side to side . If you are going to keep more than one minor seahorse or one of the larger walrus species , you will need a bombastic tank .
Because they are not strong swimmers ( and because their gills are not very efficient ) , seahorse do not like strong water supply movement . Seahorses have a short and very rude digestion tract , which can result in undigested food for thought at the bottom of the tank and require very regular cleanings to keep urine quality issues .
Seahorses need at least one hold fast or hitching place in the tank , so they do n’t have to be constantly swim . If they are n’t looking for food , sea horse will expend most of their clip with their tails wrap around almost anything that will hold them in position . Gorgonians work expectant for hitching posts , as do faux precious coral or even pliant marine museum plants .
Seahorse Feeding
seahorse should be feed at least doubly per day . The best food for captive - breed walrus is quick-frozen Mysis runt . If you obtain an aquacultured seahorse , it is believably already eat up Mysis , so getting it to eat in your tankful should not be a problem .
While you could just eject some thawed Mysis into the tank and lease the seahorses chase it around until they take hold of some , target feeding your ponies in a low water flow area of the tank will make it well-heeled for them to get enough nutrient without give birth to influence too severely .
Seahorse Compatible Tankmates
Seahorses are not aggressive eater so any Pisces or invertebrates you let in in the tank should be slow , conservative eaters .
LePage V.et al . Diseases of captive yellow walrus Hippocampus kuda Bleeker , pot - bellied sea horse Hippocampus abdominalis Lesson and weedy seadragon Phyllopteryx taeniolatus ( Lacépède).J Fish Dis . ,vol . 38 , no . 5 , pp . 439 - 50 , 2015 . doi:10.1111 / jfd.12254
Behind the Scenes with Seahorses . Birch Aquarium , University of California at San Diego .
