While many aquarium hobbyists keep seahorses as pets, seahorses collected from the wild don’t usually do well in a home aquarium. They’ll only feed on live foods such as brine shrimp and are prone to stress in an aquarium, which lowers their immune systems and exposes them to diseases.

Recently, captive breeding of seahorses has become more popular. These seahorses tend to do much better in captivity, and they are less likely to carry diseases. These seahorses will accept frozen foods such as mysid shrimp, and they are not exposed to the shock and stress of being taken out of the wild and placed in a small aquarium. Captive-bred seahorses are more expensive, but are a better investment as they are much hardier and don’t take a toll on wild populations.

Seahorses should be kept in an aquarium to themselves. Seahorses are slow feeders, and in an aquarium with fast, aggressive feeders, the seahorses will be edged out during feeding. For this reason, they should be maintained by themselves and special care should be given to assure that all individuals obtain enough food during times of feeding.