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- - HIdden Treasures (http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2695855)

HIdden Treasures

I breed fish but I"m a hobbyist. I want my tank to be interesting. I have found that I actually enjoy a tank with hidden surprises. Small things. Things you can discover. So I've made a peaceful tank. I know that experts say that you shouldn't do seahorses with anything else but ..... I've had it for 1 1/2 years and it's going pretty well.

I have a chiller which I consider to be essential to keeping the bacteria under control.

Here is my tank a 75 gallon tank with a 30 gallon sump.

https://i1184.photobucket.com/albums...pshe5lvjx2.jpg

In this tank there are 4 erectus, 4 dragonface pipefish, 2 blue strip pipefish, 3 tangaroa gobies, 1 yasha, 3 pistol shrimp, 2 blood shrimp, 2 firefish, 2 coral crouchers, 2 babylonia formsa, several snails, some bristel worms, and lots of different kinds of algae. I also have a few ricordia, a manjano, 3 yellow sponges, a red mushroom, a few gorgorians.

Here's what happens when you go to feed them or sit patiently.

https://i1184.photobucket.com/albums...pskukjwep9.jpg

https://i1184.photobucket.com/albums...pslvcp6gwo.jpg

https://i1184.photobucket.com/albums...pslec4ckgl.jpg

https://i1184.photobucket.com/albums...pswygds15j.jpg

https://i1184.photobucket.com/albums...psfdmo3vyf.jpg

https://i1184.photobucket.com/albums...psrursfyl1.jpg

The big female seahorse is right in the middle. She is sticking her head our of the bottom of the tree stump in the middle of the 1st picture.
https://i1184.photobucket.com/albums...psdh80gnfc.jpg

https://i1184.photobucket.com/albums...pshtf9pyj5.jpg

Most of the corals are way up high where the fish don't really go up high except for the one of the small dragonface pipefish.

Despite the fact it is a big tank most the seahorses hang out in the fake tree stump. So do the blood shrimp and the catalina goby lives in the eye holes. The 3 tangaroa gobies, yasha and firefish all live in a small space on the left. 2 of pistol shrimp live in the yasha hole. I made a shelf on the right side of the tank and sunk a pvc pipe in front of it. You can see the cavern easily in the picture. They all that love that shelf / cavern.

I know catching the offspring are harder to catch this way but I love my tank. All the algae help keep the nutrients down and provides hiddng places so the amphipods can reproduce and the copepods have a little better time surviving. All the inhabitants are on frozen food. The only losses I've had are from hurricanes and I didn't quarantine a mandarin (I don't normally quarantine mandarins since they are resistant to disease and have finicky eaters but lost that dice toss) and I lost a firefish when these two decided 3 was too many. Beat up the third one.

Any updates on this? I used to keep seahorses (H. erectus), but not with this many other inhabitants. Really like the pictures, would like to know more.