Thanks, yeah. I've actually heard that also from people on Saltwaterfish.com, another message forum like this. So, I'm a little nervous.
Leslie-
Wow, so I guess cannabalism is a big issue with crabs. I'd really hate to lose any aquarium life. Actually, I think I'd prefer to have very few crabs, if any at all. Can I substitute something else for them? Perhaps more snails? Cucumbers? Nudibranches? Conches? Shrimp? There are just other critters I've seen in invert packages. Or micro stars? I can't find places that have them in stock.
Bubble algae is caulerpa? That's why I didn't find it then maybe. So will I have to trim it? Do I just cut off the longest branches? How often?
Anita
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Thanks, yeah. I've actually heard that also from people on Saltwaterfish.com, another message forum like this. So, I'm a little nervous.
Leslie-
Wow, so I guess cannabalism is a big issue with crabs. I'd really hate to lose any aquarium life. Actually, I think I'd prefer to have very few crabs, if any at all. Can I substitute something else for them? Perhaps more snails? Cucumbers? Nudibranches? Conches? Shrimp? There are just other critters I've seen in invert packages. Or micro stars? I can't find places that have them in stock.
Bubble algae is caulerpa? That's why I didn't find it then maybe. So will I have to trim it? Do I just cut off the longest branches? How often?
Anita
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All of the hermit crabs that Leslie listed are perfectly safe for seahorses. They are known as micro hermits because they start out small and stay small. The assortment of hermits that Leslie lists includes some crabs that are herbivores, some that are detritivores, and some omnivores that include meaty leftovers in their diet, so altogether they make a very nice complement to your cleanup crew.
However, even micro-hermit crabs are pugnacious little critters by nature. They will fight amongst themselves for shells and over food, and some of the little buggers have indeed been known to be hard on snails at times. Most of the time, micro hermits coexist perfectly well with their fellow janitors in the cleanup crew. But I've had more than a few tiny hermits with a taste for escargot that persecuted snails mercilessly. These cold-blooded little assassins would kill the snails in order to appropriate their shells. Once they had dined on the former occupant, they would take up residence in their victim's cleaned-out shell! It soon became clear that these killer crabs were driven not by hunger, but by the need for a new domicile. Once I realized they were house-hunting, I found I could curb their depredations but providing an assortment of small, empty seashells for the hermits to use. Colorful Nerite shells are ideal for this.. As Leslie said, providing a variety of extra seashells for the hermits cuts down the fighting amongst themselves and the trouble they cause was snails considerably.
In my experience, the hermit that's the least likely to cause any trouble is the Scarlet Reef Hermit Crab (Paguristes cadenati), which is a colorful micro-hermit that's a harmless herbivore. So cannibalism isn't a concern for these fellows, nor are they likely to develop a taste for escargot. As hermits go, most of the time the Scarlet Reefs are perfect little gentleman and attractive to boot. I even use them in my dwarf seahorse tanks.
None of the hermit crabs on Leslie's list will pose any risk to your seahorses at all. On the contrary, sometimes it may be the other way around. Over the years, I've had a few seahorses that were confirmed crab killers. These particular ponies were persistent hermit crab predators that specialized in plucking the hermits out of their shells and attacking their soft, unprotected abdomens, and they honed their skullduggery to a fine art. They were experts at extricating the crabs and would eat only their fleshy abdomens and discard the rest. Mind you, that was only a few individuals out of a great many Hippocampines, but I could never keep hermit crabs in the same tank with those specific seahorses.
So if you're inclined to play it safe and you want to eliminate hermit crabs from your cleanup crew altogether, Anita, you can indeed compensate by including more snails as sanitation engineers instead. In that case, you want an assortment of snails, some that are detritivores, some that are herbivores to control nuisance algae, and some omnivores truth when that will go after the meatier leftovers (i.e., Nassarius snails). The normal complement of sanitation engineers for an aquarium with lots of live rock is 1-2 cleaners per gallon. So for your 50-gallon tank, you should be shooting for a total of 50-100 janitors and all. This can be a mixture of micro hermits and snails, or consist entirely of various snails at your discretion. I have found Nassarius snails to be the hardiest, most active scavengers among the snails, so be sure you include plenty of them.
Cleaner shrimp are great as well so don't forget to include several peppermint shrimp (Lysmata wurdemanni) and/or a couple of big, beautiful Scarlet Cleaner Shrimp, a.k.a. Skunk Cleaner Shrimp (Lysmata amboinensis).
Green bubble algae can sometimes be a terrible nuisance, but the red grape Caulerpa or red bubble Caulerpa is good stuff that seahorses love and that makes a wonderful natural feeding station for them. How often you need to prune it back depends on how fast it grows under your aquarium conditions. To thin it out, just pluck whole strands and intact fronds from the colony.
Best of luck with your new seahorse setup and your cleanup crew, Anita!
Happy Trails! Pete Giwojna
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Anita
User Big Kauna
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Re:New to sehorses & I've got lots of questions! - 2005/11/04 02:43Wow, seahorses eat the crabs? I didn't think of that. Yeah, I think it's better for me, atleast to eliminate crabs completely. I suppose I can add 1 later when I get more comfortable.
I'll get: 50 Nassarius snails, 1 Super tonga Nassarius snail (they get bigger than other snails, ), 5-10 Cerith snails. I like conches, because there's really cute one in the show Spongebob Squarepents, lol. I know I'm 19 & I probably am too old for that show, but it cracks me up! Is it ok to get one?
And what are Nudibranches, they look really cool!
Anita
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It's uncommon, but every once in a while a seahorse will indeed develop the habit of attacking micro-hermit crabs and eating their soft-skinned abdomens once it has extricated them from their shells.
If you are going to go with a cleanup crew that consists solely of snails and avoid the micro-hermit crabs altogether for now, then you need to get a better assortment of snails than you have outlined above. The Nassarius and Cerith snails are omnivores that will do a good job cleaning up detritus, seahorse wastes, and meatier leftovers, but right now you have no herbivorous snails on your list to control nuisance algae. You'll need to correct that, Anita, or your cleanup crew will be inadequate.
That's fine if you want to get several dozen Nassarius snails for your 50 gallon tank, but I would add an equal number of herbivores to control diatoms, cyanobacteria, hair algae and other nuisance algae or you may have serious problems with those, especially with an aquarium that is located nearby a window where it may receive direct sunlight for part of the day. I would get at least a dozen banded Trochus snails, at least as many Nerite snails, and a dozen or so Margarita snails. In a tank like yours with lots of live rock, I would want at least one of these herbivorous snails per gallon to stay on top of potential algae problems.
I would avoid the Astrea Conehead Snails, however, Anita. Although they are good herbivores they have the unfortunate habit of tipping over and are unable to right themselves if they happen to land upside down. Consequently, the aquarist has to babysit them and turn them right side up again whenever they get flipped over or they will die. And from my experience, they always seem to get upended behind the rockwork or in crevices in the most inaccessible parts of the aquarium. I would avoid them because nothing can pollute your aquarium faster than a dead, upended Astrea snail rotting somewhere unseen amidst all your live rock.
Conchs are really cool little animals, but it might be best for you to pass on one. They are real little bulldozers and surprisingly strong, and therein lies the problem. They get pretty big for snails and just in the everyday course of their affairs, bumbling around and plowing through your sand, a good-sized conch is apt to knock over corals and live rock. Not only with this pose a risk to your seahorses if you're carefully arranged rock formations came tumbling down, but the falling rocks can also put some serious scratches in an acrylic aquarium. With the intricate caves and arches you have created in your aquarium, it would be a good idea to avoid bulldozing conchs.
Nudibranchs or sea slugs are essentially shell-less marine snails. They are often brightly colored -- even gaudy -- but have very specialized diets and as a result they cannot survive in aquaria as a rule.
The Lettuce Nudibranch (Elysia crispata, formerly known as Tridachia crispata, and still often sold under that name) is a showy herbivore that is an exception to this rule. It is green with lavender spots and is covered with extravagant frills and ruffles that look like flower petals on an exotic orchid, but in fact they are the ruffled flaps of tissue (parapodia) that outline each side of the back of this two inch sea slug that lives in the waters of the Caribbean and Florida Keys. It's an algae eater that dines on macroalgae such as Caulerpa sertularioides and is one of the few nudibranchs that do well in the aquarium if provided with a lush bed of Caulerpa on which to graze.
Best of luck assembling your cleanup crew, Anita! By all means get plenty of Nassarius snails but don't forget a plentiful assortment of herbivorous snails as well.
Happy Trails! Pete Giwojna
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Now that your Deluxe Sea Ranch is set up and running, here's that information on cycling I promised you:
The Nitrogen Cycle: Cycling Your Aquarium
The amount of nitrates that accumulate in your aquarium are related to how much nitrification and denitrification your system provides. Nitrification is the process by which aerobic (oxygen loving) nitrifying bacteria break down toxic ammonia to relative harmless nitrate in a series of steps. Nitrification thus ultimately causes nitrate to build up in an aquarium. Denitrification is the process by which anaerobic (oxygen hating) denitrifying bacteria then convert nitrate into completely harmless nitrogen (N2), which eventually leaves the aquarium. Denitrification thus removes nitrate from your system. This entire process is known as the nitrogen cycle.
Cycling simply means to build up a healthy population of beneficial bacteria in your tank that can carry out the nitrogen cycle and breakdown your fishes' waste products. Once you've rounded up the aquarium, equipment, and accessories you need, your next task is to prepare the tank for cycling. Until it has cycled, your aquarium will be unable to support life.
Ammonia (NH3), nitrite (NO2), and nitrate (NO3) are all nitrogenous (nitrogen containing) wastes. All living aquarium animals whether they be fish or invertebrates excrete these wastes, and they are also produced by the decay of protein-containing organic matter (uneaten food, detritus, dead fish or inverts, etc.). The nitrogen cycle breaks down these wastes in a series of steps into nitrogen gas (N2) which leaves the aquarium as bubbles.
The nitrogen cycle begins with ammonia, which is highly poisonous. In the first step of the cycle, Nitrosomonas bacteria reduce ammonia to nitrite, which is also very toxic. In the second step of the nitrogen cycle, Nitrobacter bacteria convert the nitrite to nitrate, which is relatively harmless but becomes harmful when it accumulates in high enough levels. In the third and final step of the cycle, denitrifying bacteria then convert the nitrate into completely harmless N2, which of course bubbles out of the tank as nitrogen gas. In this way, thanks to the nitrogen cycle, dangerous wastes are converted into progressively less harmful compounds and finally removed from the aquarium altogether.
When we set up a new aquarium, and wait for it to cycle, we are simply allowing a big enough population of these different types of bacteria to build up in the biofilter to break down all of the wastes that will be produced when the aquarium is stocked. If we don't wait long enough for the cycle to complete itself and the biofiltration to become fully established, and hastily add too many specimens to a new aquarium too soon, they will die from ammonia poisoning or nitrite toxicity. This is such a common mistake among us impatient aquarists, that when fish get sick and/or die from ammonia/ntrite poisoning, it is commonly called the "new tank syndrome."
When your aquarium has completely cycled, the ammonia levels will stay at zero because, now that your biofilter is fully established, there is a large enough population of aerobic (oxygen loving) nitrifying Nitrosomonas bacteria to reduce all of the ammonia to nitrite as fast as the ammonia is being produced. The nitrite levels will likewise stay at zero because there is also a large enough population of aerobic (oxygen loving) nitrifying Nitrobacter bacteria to convert all of the nitrite to nitrate as fast as the nitrite is being produced.
The nitrate levels ordinarily continue to build up, however, because there are simply not enough anaerobic (oxygen hating) denitrifying bacteria to convert all of the nitrate that's being produced into nitrogen gas (N2). Since nitrates are being produced faster than they can be transformed to nitrogen gas, the excess nitrates accumulate steadily in your aquarium. That's perfectly normal, since the denitrifying bacteria that carry out that final step, the conversion of nitrate (NO3) to nitrogen (N2), are anaerobes that can only exist in the absence of oxygen. For our aquariums to support life, and for the fish and invertebrates to breathe and survive, our tanks must be well aerated and well circulated so that there's plenty of dissolved oxygen in the water at all times. That means there are normally very few areas in our aquariums where anaerobic denitrifying bacteria can survive, limiting their population accordingly (which is generally good, since some anaerobes produce deadly hydrogen sulfide gas during the decay of organic matter and would poison our tanks if allowed to proliferate).
Consequently, most aquariums lack a sufficient population of anaerobic denitrifying bacteria to complete the nitrogen cycle and convert nitrate to nitrogen as fast as the nitrates are being produced. The only way to keep the nitrates from building up to harmful levels in such setups is with regular water changes and by harvesting Caulerpa or other macroalgae periodically after it has utilized nitrates for growth. Overcrowding, overfeeding, or under filtration exacerbate the problem by resulting in more nitrates being produced and more frequent water changes being required to control the nitrate levels.
Live rock helps because the oxygen-poor interior of the rock allows anaerobic denitrifying bacteria to grow and break down nitrates. A deep live sand bed (DLS also helps because anaerobic denitrifying bacteria can flourish and break down nitrates at a certain depth below the sand where oxygenated water no longer penetrates, but a DLSB can sometimes be difficult to set up and manage properly if you're inexperienced with live sand. Both live rock and deep live sand beds give aquaria denitrification ability -- the ability to complete the cycle and convert nitrate to harmless nitrogen. Ordinarily, about 1-2 pounds of live rock per gallon is recommended - that amount of LR will provide your aquarium with all of the biofiltration you need, as well as significant denitrification ability. You will keep nitrates at harmless levels by performing regular water changes, harvesting Caulerpa macroalgae periodically, and good aquarium management.
Prepare your aquarium for cycling by setting your system up with just freshwater at first, attaching the equipment and apparatus (filter, aeration, circulation, heater, skimmer, lighting, accessories) and testing it all for a day or so to make sure you have everything in place, and that it works. Once assured that everything's operating properly and there are no leaks, go ahead and add the substrate, salt mix, and aquarium décor, and leave everything running for a good week, allowing the various components and water to "settle in" before adding your microbes and "seeding" the tank with beneficial bacteria that will eventually establish your biofilter.
If you are using live rock, it contains all the bacteria needed to seed the tank, so all you have to do is position the live rock in attractive arrangements and wait for the population of nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria to build up and stabilize as you feed them with a source of ammonia.
If you are not using live rock, there are a number of different ways to seed the tank with bacteria and feed it with ammonia so cycling can proceed. Two popular methods are the fishless cycle, which I recommend, and the use of hardy, inexpensive (i.e., expendable) fish to produce ammonia and cycle the aquarium. Often used for this method are marine damselfish or mollies, which can easily be converted to saltwater. Both are very hardy and generally survive the cycling process. Although cycling with hardy damselfish is a time-honored technique and certainly works, it has a couple of drawbacks compared to other methods. For one thing, it can be needlessly hard on the fish; although hardy damsels and mollies usually survive the process fine, exposing them to the toxic ammonia and nitrite produced during cycling certainly causes them stress. For another thing, Damselfish are generally far too aggressive and territorial to leave in the aquarium afterwards as tankmates for seahorses, and it can be devilishly difficult to catch them when the time comes to remove them, especially in a tank with lots of live rock and hiding places. Damselfish or mollies from your local fish store may also be disease vectors for a wide range of pathogens and parasites you wouldn't want to expose your seahorses to...
So all things considered, I suggest you try cycling your tank without fish. It's really very easy. To use the fishless cycle, you need to add something else that will increase the ammonia level so the nitrifying bacteria can build up. I like to use a piece of cocktail shrimp (regular uncooked eating shrimp from the grocery store) and leave this in the tank to decay during the whole cycle. The decaying shrimp produces plenty of ammonia to kick-start the cycling process.
After about 3 days after you add the shrimp, you will notice a spike in ammonia levels until the Nitrosomonas bacteria build up enough to break down the ammonia. When that happens, you will notice the ammonia levels rapidly dropping.
The byproduct of ammonia is nitrite, and during this stage of the cycling process, as the ammonia falls, you will have a corresponding increase in nitrites until the population of Nitrobacter bacteria builds up. Nitrite levels will then fall as the Nitrobacter convert the nitrite to nitrate.
It is important to use your test kits every day or two when cycling your tank to monitor the progress of the process. As described above, at first you will see a rapid rise in ammonia levels with no detectable nitrite or nitrate. Then, as Nitrosomonas bacteria begin converting ammonia to nitrite, the ammonia levels will fall and nitrite readings will steadily rise. Nitrite levels will peak as the ammonia drops to zero. Next, Nitrobacter will begin converting the nitrite to nitrate, and your nitrite readings will fall as the level of nitrate rises. Finally, after the nitrites also read zero, you are ready to stock your tank. At this point, your ammonia and nitrite levels should both be zero, nitrates will be building up, and algae will usually begin to grow. This will tell you that your biofilter is active and functioning properly, and that you can now safely begin stocking the tank. It generally takes about 3-6 weeks to cycle a tank this way from scratch.
If you any more questions about cycling, the following link should provide you with answers: Click here: http://www.oceanrider.com/cycle.asp
Once the tank has cycled you can add your marine plants and macroalgae, and then your cleanup crew, and finally your seahorses. The plants and macros go in first in order to provide herbivorous snails and micro hermits with something to eat and in order to begin soaking up nitrates right from the beginning so that they never get out of control. Your cleanup crew goes in next to help keep diatoms, cyanobacteria, and nuisance algae from getting a foothold in your tank. The early edition of the macroalgae also help outcompete the nuisance algae and reduce the levels of nutrients that cyanobacteria and hair algae would otherwise feed on.
Best of luck cycling your new seahorse setup, Anita!
Happy Trails! Pete Giwojna
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), 5-10 Cerith snails. I like conches, because there's really cute one in the show Spongebob Squarepents, lol. I know I'm 19 & I probably am too old for that show, but it cracks me up! 
also helps because anaerobic denitrifying bacteria can flourish and break down nitrates at a certain depth below the sand where oxygenated water no longer penetrates, but a DLSB can sometimes be difficult to set up and manage properly if you're inexperienced with live sand. Both live rock and deep live sand beds give aquaria denitrification ability -- the ability to complete the cycle and convert nitrate to harmless nitrogen. Ordinarily, about 1-2 pounds of live rock per gallon is recommended - that amount of LR will provide your aquarium with all of the biofiltration you need, as well as significant denitrification ability. You will keep nitrates at harmless levels by performing regular water changes, harvesting Caulerpa macroalgae periodically, and good aquarium management. 
