Sea horse log day 53:
Well, I have three adults and one baby at this time. I had a tank crash at the beginning of February, yes the week of elections and my daughters wedding. Of course I had a house full of people all admiring the pony tank and running to it each time they came in the room and asking where all the seahorses were. I had to get up each morning and check for bodies before the kids got up and remove them.
I noticed on the first morning that there were two dead snails. I knew this was bad and did a 50% water change. I also noticed at that time that some of the macro had died and the water quality was poor. I am not sure if the macro die off started the crash, but I think it did. I removed most of the macro and filtered the rest of the water to remove small pieces of stuff that were present. I had one seahorse dead the next morning, I thought I had escaped pretty good. I did another water change the next day with cycled water from the large tank. All this time I was keeping an eye on one particular male that was looking very regnant.
Day three after the crash, found two dead sea horses in the tank. I did another water change and removed more debris from the tank. I changed the filter material and said a little prayer.
Day four I found one more dead sea horse. I was happy to see that pregnant guy was still hanging in there.
Day five was both good and bad. I woke up to six baby sea horses and all three remaining adults alive and well. I stopped doing large water changes at this point because the babies were so small that I was afraid I would not see them and throw them out during a change.
I did small changes over the next few days to try to keep the water quality up, unfortunately all the babies but one died. I left for the weekend to get away for a few days, after the wedding and tank crash. I left my hubby feeding and topping off the tank, but not water changes.
I returned to all four alive and well. I did a major clean yesterday and decided to remove all living macro and replace with plastice stuff. It is ugly, but I do not have to worry about another macro die-off. The remaining adults are two males and a female. The baby is vey cute and black with a tiger striped tail. He seems very healthy and has doubled in size. I am not sure if I will add back any live corals to the tank, for now it is all plastic stuff. I want to see how the water quality does without the macro to foul it up.
I am very upset about the crash, but I am gratefull that I have survivors. With such a small tank, it could have been worse.
At this point I do not believe that I can keep any live macro in such a small tank and maintain water quality. I am still in the process of designing the ultimate dwarf seahorse tank. As I learn stuff, I keep modifying the idea. I do not want to start and then have to stop, so for now it is just on paper. I am working on a design with a cylindrical tank with a center divider with the horses on one side and the fuge on the other. I am trying to get the circulation from bottom to top to maintain water quality. I will scan some of my ideas and see if anyone has any input.
Jen
Even though I'll probably never do seahorses, it is cool for you to share the amount of time it takes to take care of these things. 
