Sea Horses and Tube Fish

Sea horses and their other tube fish relatives – pipefish, leafy dragons and trumpet fish – are fascinating creatures. With bodies that wouldn’t look much out of place in a science fiction film, the appeal of these delicate fish is easy to understand, but unfortunately their success rate in captivity is dismally poor.

Although sea horses in particular are collected in sizeable numbers for sale as pets, mainly from the Indo-Pacific region, especially around Indonesia and the Philippines as well as from the Caribbean, keeping them in an aquarium tends to prove remarkably difficult.

They clearly aren’t fish for a beginner, so no matter how appealing they may seem in the pet shop’s tank, the challenges of keeping these unique animals alive is undoubtedly best left to experienced aquarists.

The Sea Horse Aquarium

Sea horses are naturally shy creatures that tend to live fairly close to the shore, amongst underwater plants, which they attach themselves to by curling their tails around a suitable anchor point.

For such small animals, they need a surprising amount of space to thrive – a water depth of at least 18 inches (45cm), and an aquarium that holds around 25 gallons (110 litres). A tank of this size can accommodate up to four or five specimens, but it’s important not to overcrowd them, since sea horses are particularly susceptible to a range of bacteria and seem to pass on infections very easily if there are kept too closely together.

The aquarium should have suitable plants to recreate the sea horses habitat in the wild. Both real plants and plastic ones are suitable, but whichever you choose, try to pick tall ones with lots of stems to give the fish plenty of places to grab. It also seems to be a good idea to add rocks and other decorative items to produce a range of hiding places, since many keepers have found that this appears to reduce their pets’ stress levels by allowing them to remain out of sight. For the same reason, it’s probably also worth putting an aquarium background around three of the tank’s sides, to make them feel even less exposed.

Water quality is important, so a filtration system of some kind will be needed, but it is vital not to install anything which could cause too much movement in the tank. These fish naturally tend to drift in the current rather than swim – and could be hurt if they get battered against rocks or the glass sides of the aquarium.

Sea horses are not good in community tanks, since they are often disturbed by faster and more aggressive fish and can be badly stung by anemones or corals, so they are best kept alone, or with small, inoffensive species such as gobies and mandarin fish.

The Pipefish Aquarium

Pipefish are very similar to sea horses in their aquarium needs, the major difference being that these animals do swim far more effectively and consequently need an aquarium which will allow them to do so. They are also more sensitive than sea horses to changes in salinity and temperature, so care needs to be taken with their tank, especially when carrying out water changes, to ensure they are not stressed unnecessarily by avoidable fluctuations.

The actual temperature required depends on the species being kept, but in general most tropical varieties of sea horses and other tube fish are kept at around 25 – 30C (77 – 86F).

Feeding Sea Horses and Pipefish

One of the commonest cause of deaths amongst aquarium sea horses and their other tube fish relatives is starvation. Sea horses and pipefish have good appetites and in the wild consume any edible prey that they can suck into their tube-like mouths. In captivity, the main problems are being able to guarantee sufficient quantities of food – and a wide enough range to keep them healthy. Sea horses will take frozen food, but often reluctantly, much preferring a stream of small but very much alive food items, which can be a major challenge for most fish-keepers. Anyone hoping to keep sea horses or pipefish needs to ensure a ready and varied supply of suitable food from the very start.

Although they are certainly not the easiest fish to keep in the aquarium, sea horses and their relatives can thrive, given the right conditions. Even breeding them in captivity is not impossible – an interesting prospect in itself, since male sea horses brood the eggs in a special pouch until they hatch and the new babies leave his body, looking for all the world as if he’s giving birth. It’s no wonder that these creatures have such an enduring appeal.

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