seahorse tank/refugium?

[Melina]

Hello,
I've been thinking about plumbing a refugium into my 65g (20g sump) reef set up. I love seahorses and would love to keep them. Would a seahorse tank, (with a deep sand bed, planted with seagrasses & macroalgae), give my reef tank the nutrient-exporting benefits of a refugium? I'm thinking the minimum size for a seahorse tank would be about 30g or so? Is it a good idea to plumb the two tanks together? Has anyone done this?

[Salmon King]

Don/t know the answer to that question but the trick to keeping seahorses is a uv sterilizer

[Melina]

Good to know about the UV sterilizer. I just learned that seahorses do best with temps around 73-74F, cooler than my reef tank, so plumbing them together is not an option. Maybe I'll set up a dedicated tank for them in the future...

[Snappy]

In my experience sea horses are slow & sloppy eaters and will likely create enough pollution for a planted tank/refugium to stay busy trying to export the nutrients just from them let alone the bioload from the main display. Be prepared to get used to having cyano. That said, if you set up a feeding station you can eliminate the excess food they won't catch. So my answer is yes and no .....it depends how you set it up.