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