Help setting up a seahorse/pipefish tank

plant thier tank with macro algae, maybe use a 20g long for them and the hard corals probably are'nt a good idea for any tank younger than a year, acording to garf. rocks and fake corals should be just as good for them in my opinion. And, if you can, get tank bred fish, they'l be a LOT easier to get eating, and are always worth the extra money no matter what the species.

pipefish and seahorses

First of all, seahorses need a lot of attention that most people aren't prepared to give.
Almost all need cooler water than a reef tank is best set up at, need a tall tank, as well as a lot of specific situations, including possible tank mates, specific types of coral etc.........
Best to go to the seahorse web sites and read the archives, search the older threads, and then you can ask questions about specifics.
http://www.seahorse.org/
http://www.syngnathid.org/

If the above posts sound discouraging, I suppose it's because keeping seahorses is not a trivial matter.

As rayjay said, you have to be willing to devote the time to these guys, no matter how you set the tank up. CB seahorses need to be fed frozen mysis daily, preferably twice a day. That's something I'm up against as I think about going on vacation next month. Wild caught SH, and almost all pipes need live food.

They are also messy eaters, so you will need to be fairly fastidious about keeping the tank clean. That combined with low flow make the tanks very prone to algae.

For a pair of a middle-sized species, like erectus or reidi, 20 gallon is bare minimum, and a 25 tall or 29 would be better. They don't care that much about decor, as long as they have plenty of things, either real or artificial, to hitch on. I prefer the natural approach, with seagrasses, macroalgae and gorgonians (you might have a look here to see some photos of my tank), both for aesthetics, and because the plants are good for dealing with the nutrients generated by the SHs. I am using 250 watts of metal halide, but you could have macroalgae like caulerpa, gracilaria and so on with quite a bit less.

Tankmates? I like snails, porcelain crabs, maybe a few small shrimp. SHs are slow eaters, and most fish can outcompete them.