4 month old babies dying off...

[sugartooth]

I'm very upset. I have taken care of babies for 4 months now and starting the beginning of this week, one and then two a day they have been dropping off.

I don't know if it's nutrition? They are a difficult size right now, I was trying to switch them to a bigger food, they were eating bbs and cyclopeeze...but not 100% sure,
I was trying to get them on artic pods and shaved mysis....

I was also wondering if there may be something going on with the water? I change 25% everyday. The ones that died started to look like they were frozen. The tail is curled, head arched foraward, and sometimes there was white around the eyes.
This I'm not sure if happened after they passed or if it is directly related to their death.

Anyone have tips how to get the babies on bigger food?
I have 2 left and I bought live mysids. I have seen one eat them, the other I'm unsure.

Currently, I'm giving a little bit of:
-artic pods
-live mysids
-cyclopeeze
-baby brine
-reef food

in hopes that they will eat something out of it. Then I blow it around every 15 minutes for about 45 minutes. Then I siphon off the detritus twice a day.

Maybe this is the contributing factor? I'm so sad that they have made it this far, they just need to start eating bigger food!

 

[dexterd]

I would mix life food(5 day old enriched bbs) with frozen bbs. I find the biopure brand the best. It has bbs of about 5=6 days old in it. I would also try artic pods mixed w the live. That seems to move them over to dead food. And gives them the variety they need to change.
Teresa

 

[cmsargent]

I don't know what species these are but at 4 month most should be big enough to eat mysis and adult brine. The smaller foods, like pods, may to small for them to even pay attention too. But I guess it depends somewhat on what they are use to eating. Sounds like they might not be getting enough nutrition. Are they skinny? What species and how big are they?

Are you enriching the brine? With what? Heavily enriching the brine should help until you can get them on frozen. Training them over can be tricky. A couple of things to try.

1. Feed them a mix of their regular food with the same type of frozen food mixed in. If they're eating brine start them on frozen brine. Then move them onto other types of frozen.
2. Start using garlic on thier food. Use in on the live so they associate the smell of garlic with food. Then soak the frozen in garlic so it smells like food to them.
3. Feed only frozen in the morning when they are the hungriest. Only give them live later on if they don't eat the frozen.
4. Let them get a bit hungry. Don't give them any live for a day or two. Make eating frozen thier only option.
5. Put them in with an adult who eats frozen and let the young learn by example.

Use a varity of trick progessing for one to another. What works for one horse might not work for others. Good luck!

 

[sugartooth]

Thank you very much. You both make very good points. I think I should have asked here a long time ago.

The babies are Reidi, and I feel that I have been underfeeding them, or not feeding nutritionally sound food because you are right, they should be much bigger.

They are only an inch and a half, and not able to take Hikari Mysis.

I will try your methods on the brood I have that are 2 1/2 weeks old.

- I thought bbs were only nutritious for 24 hours, so that's what I was feeding them mostly for live food. Then I switched them over to tigger pods in order to get them eating cyclopeeze.
Some of them coverted over to cyclopeeze, but from there I couldn't get them to grow or eat anything else.

-I tried to soak the food in selcon, and I also cultured bbs that are >12 hours w/selcon added to the water before feeding.

- Every morning and every night, I siphon out detritus and do a water change at the same time as feeding.
When I feed, I dump in the bbs, cyclopeeze, etc. in hopes they will snatch something.

- When they got bigger (just before dying) I tried to put smaller amphipods in there to stimulate. Then I tried live mysids, which remain in the tank with them.

I crumbled and put live in there because I realize I need them to eat first and worry about converting them later.

My bet is it was not enough nutrition that led to their death. Horrible.

I didn't culture brine farther than one day because I thought it wasn't good for them. Next time I will culture for 5-6 days.

I also had a small CB disease free erectus in there with them to show them frozen mysis was edible. They didn't learn. I then put him in my main tank.

Thank you for your tips, they are very good and I will try it. I hope it leads to better success, these poor babies deserve to live and I don't want to mess it up.

 

[ann83]

Mixing the erectus with the Reidi babies could have caused them to catch a disease as well, although I think their biggest problem is that they are less than half the size they ought to be at 4 months old. Cmsargent gave you good advice on feeding.
However, I would keep a close eye on your adult Reidi after mixing them with the erectus. Erectus have the worst track record for mixing with other species of sygnathid... there is a very good possibility that your Reidi will get sick in the next couple of weeks if the erectus was just introduced. All seahorses, even captive bred, carry dormant strains of bacteria, and seahorses of different species or different sources carry different strains of bacteria, so mixing can cause a disease in one species that was dormant in the other. Erectus are notorious for carrying bacteria without showing symptoms, likely because they are such a hardy species.

 

[sugartooth]

Oh no. Should I separate them? The erectus has been in the main system for less than one week. Is it too late?

 

[sugartooth]

Also, I want to mention....I have the juvie erectus, 2 barbouri, and 5 Reidi in that tank.

The Reidi and Barbouri have been together for months. Erectus was just recently added....it's a long story, but I inherited it from a LFS.
I've been hesitant to mix, of course, emotions got the best of me and I'm afraid of this mistake that you have just mentioned ann83.

Is there anything I can do as preventative? Should I set up another tank just for the erectus asap and hope it wasn't too late?

Thank you again for the advice.

 

[ann83]

I'd setup a new tank, but it could already be too late, only time will tell. Leaving him in there longer only gives him more of a chance to spread something though. I'm not an expert on mixing species, so I can't tell you for sure what to do. UV sterilizers on slow settings help, as does keeping the water temperature under 74 degrees. If I were you, I'd bring the temp all the way down to 70 for a month or two. Bacteria grows slower and is less dangerous at temperatures under 74 degrees. Above 74, it reproduces faster and actually mutates into more dangerous strains. Other than that, its just stocking up on seahorse meds and then wait and see what happens. If your barbs and reidi are from the same source, that probably helps, but the erectus being from a different source will only increase the likelihood of a problem.

 

[sugartooth]

Thank you ann, if the temp is down (72 I have it) does this allow other seahorses build up strength against each other's strains by slowing down the introduced strain? Or does this never happen..... Once exposed, they don't survive? I have Neo, triple sulfa on hand.

 

[ann83]

I don't know, I'm not sure if anyone does know. If there is someone out there who could give you a decent answer to that question, you can probably find them on seahorse.org. There is a pathologist on those forums as well as a few people who have tried mixing with varying degrees of success. However, most people on the org keep their tank temps under 74 degrees, and still very few people have had success mixing species, so I'd say the anecdotal evidence is against that theory. At the very least, it is a gamble with the seahorses lives to try it.

 

[cmsargent]

Mixing different species or even the same species from different breeders is always a crapshot. Noone really knows what bacteria they might be carrying and if it'll cause harm or not. Most people recommend not mixing because why take the risk. It could be fine but it could also result in the death of all the horses.

I've read some threads where people who plann to mix species set up a lenghty QT period. They start with the species in seperate tanks and slowly mix the water from each tank. So durring weekly water changes you might start adding one cup of water from one tank into the other. The next week add two cups. Continue increasing the amount of water you mix for a couple of months untill you build up to mixing so much water that they're basiclly in the same water in both tanks. The idea is that you'll slowly introduce the different bacteria and give the horses time to build up an immunity. Before you try this though make sure you have the meds on hand to treat and bacterial infections just in case it doesn't work.
I've never done this so I can't really tell you any more than that. Since you're have already been exposed either removing the erectus and finding it a new home or trying this and hoping for the best is about all you can do. Read up on bacterial infections so you know what to look for and what to do if your horses get sick.

As for feeding bbs. The bbs are only nutritious right after hatching becuase they still have the egg yolk attached to them. The yolk is what actually provides the nutrition. The bbs will use up the yolk within 6-12 hours (depending on temp of hatching water). After this they provide very litte nutrition so they have to be enriched. The bbs develop stomachs after about 24hrs and can be feed then.

When I'm feeding tiny seahorse I keep multiple batches going so at each feeding the fry are getting bbs that are only a couple of hours old. After I've gotten past the point where the seahorse can take slightly larger bbs here is what I do. I hatch out a large batch of bbs once or twice a week. The day after they hatch I move them into greenwater. Each feeding I take out a protion and enrich it with Nutrarose, beta glucan, and selcon. I give them 2-4 hours to ingest this and then feed to the young seahorse. I continue this until I'm getting low on bbs (try to paln to have about a weeks worth) and then start a new batch. I keep two batchs at slightly different ages going. I figure that way if one crashed I have a backup and I can alternate feeding so the fry have a slightly different sized food. Just in case the smaller fry can't take the older bbs yet there are still some smaller ones for them.