Concerned about my seahorse

[Aquaticaustin]

Hello all new to this forum but hoping someone here can help me out. I have a 40g seahorse tank with the following stock: 2 H. erectus sea horses, 2 pipefish (dont know what kind they are just green/brown), a mandarin goby, and hermit crabs for CUC.

The tank has been running for a few months now and so far I have only had one fatality, the first seahorse I bought had a lesion on his tail and died soon after I purchased him from what I suspect was a bacterial infection as I had a pipefish and another seahorse in the same tank who are all still fine to this day.

To my current problem: I have had both of these seahorses for well over a month now, nothing has changed to the tank at all for about three weeks and normally both seahorses are out and about swimming all around and holding onto eachother/ dragging eachother around. One of my seahorses is about 25% larger then the other and is a MUCH better eater but I do get both sea horses to eat daily. I feed them grass shrimp which I crush the heads off and the sea horses eat them up as they drift to the bottom, feed frozen mysis occassionally although the seahorses dont really eat them (the pipfish and goby go to town on them though!), and live brine shrimp (again the seahorses dont really eat them but the pipefish and goby do).
The seahorses spend ALOT of time together usually latching tails and swimming around but today when I went to feed them I noticed the smaller seahorse is hanging onto one of the gargonias in the tank at the bottom and not really moving. He is not laying on the ground or anything (yet) but did not eat for me today despite dropping a shrimp right in front of his face. He/she seems to have appearing/disappearing patches of pale color along its back, more prominently then usual.
Another tidbit: when I bought the seahorses one was yellow and one was orange however both have since faded to a black/grey/ (orange one is now a reallly dark burnt orange color) but are seemingly healthy and I have read that this is normal.

Summary:
All other tank inhabitants are fine. The seahorse in question has no visible external lesions or other problems other than it is holding onto a coral at the bottom of the tank, not swimming around, and not eating (today). Was ok yesterday but I know how fast these things can go downhill. I do not know the sex of my seahorses.

 

[myfavoritereef]

I have kept H. Erectus for several years now with great success and I know how stressful it is when one is not doing well. The FIRST thing I would do is test the water and make sure none of your parameters are off. pH and salinity can get off quickly so this is a good place to start. I would also suggest a water change because it can't hurt and will probably help for starters. Since seahorses produce a lot of waste, I do a water change every 10-14 days or more often if needed.

I would not recommend feeding brine shrimp as it has very little nutritional value and can foul up water quality quickly. I feed frozen mysis exclusively. You may need to keep up the brine shrimp for a while to get the small seahorse interested in eating again but I would switch for frozen mysis asap.

As far as coloring, my horses change color on occasion and will often adjust to their environment. Sexing a seahorse is easy. The females have a sharp almost right angle under their stomachs to the tail where males have more like a 45 degree angle where their brooding pouch is located.

Hope this helps!- Jennifer

 

[rayjay]

Unfortunately, seahorse deaths when exhibiting no signs of bacteria or parasitic wounds can be very common.
IME, water quality is usually a cause, even though you can't test for the problem.
As mentioned, seahorses create very "dirty" water, even though you can't see it. In addition to bacterial problems this leads to, it also can lead to a chemical imbalance within the seahorse eventually leading to it's demise.
Stress is another possibility as they may be intimidated by the tank mates.
The great majority of hobbyists attempting to keep pipe fish with seahorses fail in the attempt. While it can be done, the majority end up with problems.
While it's a contentious issue, I still believe that it's possibly pathogens exposed to the seahorse from the other tank mates, especially pipe fish. I've never succeeded in keeping pipe fish with seahorses in my 12 yrs of keeping.
As mentioned, seahorses will change their colours based on what they feel they need to blend in with the decor as in the wild it's part of their survival mechanism.
Also as mentioned, the males develop a pouch starting at the anal fin and downward while the females remain D-shaped.
If sold too early, some apparent females end up being males.

 

[Aquaticaustin]

Thank you for your responses, I did a water change last night. The seahorse through out the day swam around the tank some and held onto other decorations which made me feel good but I still didnt get it to eat. I chose pipefish to go with them because of how similar they are and my research lead me to believe they are the best seahorse tankmates.

I will have water test done today at the store as my SW test kit is expired.

From other research I have done, I am curious, is it possible it could be a he and could he be pregnant? Its the smaller of the 2 seahorses, they have been holding tails etc, i have read that the male sometimes stop eating and stays still while pregnant but thats just me being hopeful.

Additionally theres nothing to intimidate the seahorse apart from the other seahorse and they appear to like eachother but im a noob.

I was very pleased to see this morning that the seahorse was still alive and not hiding in its usual spot. Couldnt tell the color since I turned the lights on and everyone in the tank is pale at that point.

Hopefully if water quality was the problem I fixed that with the WC (25% done).

Any other tips or advice for the coming days? I will discontinue brine shrimp and stick to the mysis. Is a diet of grass shrimp and mysis shrimp complete and balanced for longterm health of the seahorses and pipefish?

 

[rayjay]

First, the water quality is probably still bad even though any test your LFS can do shows good. The water problem causing the bacteria or chemical imbalance does not show up on any test made for the hobby.
If the male is now carrying eggs, his pouch will be much fuller than before and you would have noticed a difference.
The seahorse ID page shows male female diagrams for each species so you can look at that to see what your male and female should look like.
http://seahorse.fisheries.ubc.ca/sites/seahorse.fisheries.ubc.ca/files/uploads/documents/pdfs/Seahorse_ID_Guide_2004.pdf (slow to download)
You can google for pictures of pregnant male seahorses.
As for stress by intimidation, it's not how YOU perceive things to be, but rather how each individual seahorse sees it. Some may be intimidated by something that others are not, or, they can both or all be intimidated and just take differing time periods for it to show.
A 25% water change may only temporarily help the situation.
Seahorse tanks create much "dirtier" water than a normal marine fish tank does, and, the seahorses are MUCH more susceptible to problems due to the dirty water than almost all other marine fish.
When the seahorse snicks the food it adds to the problem as it masticates the food and passes particulate matter out through the gills and into the water. Sometimes you can see this in the form of a "cloud" emanating from the gills upon snicking.
Ideally, IMO, seahorse tanks should have far better filtration than a normal marine tank, with MUCH better husbandry and more frequent water changes, and can be helped by using a much oversized protein skimmer to remove as much of the dissolved organics as possible before it fuels the "dirty" water conditions. Any mechanical filter pads should be cleaned AT LEAST once a week, but more often works better. Trapped matter decays rapidly and fuels nasty bacteria growth.
I feed enriched ADULT brine shrimp, after peroxide treatment, once or twice a week to boost their intake level of the necessary DHA component.
Most larger juveniles and adults will not pay any attention to the young nauplii of the brine and even if they did, because of their small size it would take an inordinate amount to be of any value.
My basic food is Hikari and PE mysis.