New to seahorses need some guidance

[Drewbaby]

I'm setting up a 25 gallon drilled tank with 10 gallon sump. I'm planning to do seahorses.

To get the tank going I plan to use water from my established reef tank. Are there any downsides to doing this vs. starting the tank with all new water?

The current vision on aquascaping is to have some rock build up near the overflow and have some sponges, gorgonians, other non stinging corals there and then have some seagrass or macro in the open area to make it like a seabed

The lighting is four 24w T5's. Is that too intense?

I am also thinking of running an eshopps psk 75. Should I run a skimmer with seahorses? I'm going to have a good amount of macro algae and grasses in the display along with gorgonians and sponges.

[namxas]

Yes, there's a downside in that the water in you reef tank (or any established setup) doesn't contain the necessary bacteria, because the bacteria you're trying to culture in your cycle is benthic/demersal, and is only found on the surfaces in your tank/filter media. All you're doing is adding water that likely has some NO3 content and other pollutants in it, which may lead you to believe that your SH tank is cycled because a NO3 test will be positive from the get-go. Bottom line, there's no benefit, and a few reasons not to do this.

Skimmers are fine with SH, altho I'd run it in the sump and not the DT in case it spews microbubbles.

Macro is the best thing you can do for your SH DT...it provides hitching, hunting, and hiding areas, and aids in water quality.

Sponges and gorgs tend to need a lot of flow, so be sure the tank is set up with that in mind, and that the SH have calmer places to rest. Also, some gorgs become favored hitching posts and often become stressed from the SH constantly hitching in the same spot.

Your lighting is fine, esp. if you're running half 03 actinics and half 10k. Setting it up as a dawn/dusk lighting cycle is the best thing.

HTH

[Drewbaby]

Greg,

Thanks for the reply. I don't quite understand why using the established water from the reef tank with some established live rock wouldn't give the tank a stable amount of beneficial bacteria. In theory it sounds as if you would reccomend to start with all 100% new water, sand, rock, etc. Is that correct?

The skimmer will be set up in the 10 gallon sump.

Do you have any recommendations on which types of macro would be best and more natural ?

Flow is not an issue for the gorge and sponges. The return pump will be a mag drive. Not sure of the size yet, but I have a mag 3, mag 5, and mag 7 that I can use. I'll have to play with it to see what works well. As fir slower flow areas the way I plan to scape the tank will allow for that. I want a stronger flow near the sponges and gorgonians on the rocks and medium flow in the grassbed to keep debris from settling and still allow hitching to occur as well as a slower flow area on the end of the tank with possbly a small powerhead in a rock pile to eliminate dead spots, but with hitching posts on top of the pile.

The lights will be a 50/50 ratio of actinic to daylight, however the dusk/dawn effect is not possible with the current setup. The 4 bulbs share a single balast. I may add on a strip or two of LED's to allow for dusk/dawn and then a pair of small LED's for moonlights.

Is there anything else I need to consider?

[Molehs]

I think Greg was going off the fact you didn't mention the live rock in the OP. Live rock will bring in some amount of the bacteria you need, but most will advise you still need to create a full cycle with the new tank.

I, with complete success, started with a small % live rock and live sand and slowly added fish, CUC, etc over several months to bring up the bacteria levels, effectively no major cycle. As well as no need to do massive water changes to dump the excess of NO3 from a standard cycle. But my version may take 2-4 months rather then the "standard" 2-4 weeks of a major cycle.

[namxas]

Yeppers...established LR will indeed help shorten/kick start your cycle. The nitrifying bacteria colonize surfaces, not the water. That's why you always hear about being sure to have enuff LR in the tank, as it gives the bacteria a home to colonize.

[Drewbaby]

Sorry I forgot to mention that I will be using live rock for tank start up. I can't grasp how established water wouldn't be better than all new water. It would be the equivalent of a large water change. Would it not?

Im not talking about all old established water. The new setup will be roughly 30 gallons. If I take 15 gallons from my existing 4 year old reef that receives 10% weekly WC and then mix another 15 gallons how will the tank not be cycled? The water, rock and sand will all be live so there wouldn't be an initial ammonia spike to start the cycle as it would have already occured in the previous tank 4 years ago. Maybe I'm just not seein the whole picture

[jackinfobo]

When I first start tanks, I use dry rock instead of live rock (usually from MarcoRocks) and add Bio-Spira from Instant Ocean. Would there be a problem with this? I am new to seahorses, and I think it could be better since there is no way of introducing pests into the tank that could bother the horses (like small crabs or something). Would this work? It is basically taking a sterile environment, and adding strictly beneficial bacteria from the Bio-Spira.

[twiggyb]

It would be more beneficial to have new sea water and live rock from your reef with some sand from your reef and the rest new sand. Wait a week and test to make sure you dont have any ammonia or nitrite and then wait another week to make sure everything is still good. Then try to put a hardy coral like gsp to make sure everything goes ok for the next couple of weeks. If you're using new live rock there will be some initial die off that will cause a cycle. Old sea water is just going to dirty a nice new clean environment, assuming you're using LR from your current reef, and IMO no/low nitrates would be healthier for the seahorses. Either way you do this take it slow so you don't end up killing everything. Better safe than sorry.