Emergency please help

[fish2see]

We have a kudo seahorse. She is captive bred and had been eating for 3 weeks at the LFS. She has been home in our 35 gallon tank for about 2 1/2 weeks she is the only occupant other than small hermit crabs. She was eating frozen mysis at the fish store. At first in our tank she was mostly eating cocopods or whatever was on the live rocks. She has eaten some frozen mysis shrimp but not many. The past 3 days she has not been eating. Today she quit holding on to the seagrass and her other posts. We bought some live mysis shrimp and she watches them but doesn't eat them even when they land on her head. We have tried putting the food right at her head with tweezers-she panics and spins agains the sand and rock. What else can we try she looks very thin.
We the temp is 74 nitrate and ammonia are 0. our live fish store tested the water tonight and verified our numbers.
Please help she is our seriously ill daughter's first seahorse. We have other reef tanks.

 

[Wink]

I know how hard that is. My best suggestion is to post in the emergency forum at www.seahorse.org - be sure to give all the info including your location.

I wish you the best of luck.

 

[pledosophy]

What is your PH at ?

How much flow is in the system?

Can you post a full body profile and a picture of her snout?

Have you noticed any change in markings, or growths?

Do you have a hospital tank ?

What meds do you have on hand ?

What country do you live in?

Sorry for the slew of questions but I need more info to help.

Truthfully I will try, but Wink had the best suggestion.

 

[fish2see]

update to emergency please help

update to emergency please help

She died early this morning. thank you for your suggestions. We did post it at seahorse.org. We think maybe it was a parasite, in looking online at pictures of diseases her abdomen looked like the picture shown for tapeworms.
What we need to know now is, if it were a parasite-what do we need to do to the tank before we get another seahorse. We purchased her from our LFS because we wanted to select her and because we wanted to make sure she ate etc. However the LFS in our area does introduce the pipefish directly into the seahorse tank with only a few days quarantine. So it maybe she caught something. We will do the purchase differently the next time.
We have 20 pounds of live rock in the tank. A filter and protein skimmer and 1 inch of live sand and some crushed coral for the bed of the tank.
thanks for your help.

 

[pledosophy]

Sorry to hear about your horse. I hope you daughter took it well.

If it is a parasite the easiest remedy is time. A parasite cannot live without a host. There are some parasite meds, but I am not sure if you can dose an entire system with them.

I wouldn't buy seahorses from that LFS again. YOu can try seahorsesource.com , most of there seahorses are bred at there facility and are in great health.

Normally parasites are not a problem with CB speciments, it is very possible that the seahorse you received was bred in a net pen in the ocean. One of the benifits of geting seahorses at an aquaculture facility with closed systems is the health of the horse. While it may be a little bit more cash up front, it is definetly cheaper in the long run.

 

[luvabunny]

I don't want this to come across as harsh, because it certainly isn't meant that way, but it sounds to me like you did everything right, there was just something wrong with your pony.
Unfortunately, as lovable as they are, seahorses are still just fish, and fish die. Most of the time we are only left guessing as to why.
Don't give up, it wasn't anything you did. Let the horse tank lay dormant for a couple of weeks, and try again. Maybe this time you should go for 2-3 ponies. Seahorses are very social, and may pine away from loneliness in a very short time span. If she had friends at the LFS, and was alone in your tank, it could have thrown her off her feed enough to weaken her.
I'm sorry to hear of your loss - don't give up, they are wonderful pets!

 

[Fredfish]

fish2see. You ask a very good question re: what to do before getting another seahorse.

I do not remember seeing any advice on this in all the reading I have done. Your best bet for a good answer is to talk to one of the comercial breeders out there. You can try posting your question on the fish breeding forum as there are a lot of very knowlegable people there. DanU is a comercial seahorse breeder and will probably have a good answer for you. He does post on this forum regularly, but if he dosn't post here you could try sending him a pm.

I think it is a good bet that your horse caught something from the wild pipes at the LFS

Fred

 

[Swanwillow]

AND, instead of putting the horse straight into the tank (I also advise to get 2-3 at a time) use a QT system. a ten gallon bare bottom aquarium works great, and on the plus side, you can see what they eat and what they poo out... which sounds horrible, but is VERY VERY good.

that would be a 6 week QT (I got anxious and mine were only in for half the time) and since your going to have to let the tank be fallow for awhile, its possible that you can get more horses sooner, and get used to them BEFORE putting them in the tank. I'd probably shoot for a 3 month fallow tank period. adding NOTHING to the tank except for food (too keep the bacteria up, and so it doesn't spike when you add 2-3 fish at the same time. feed as much as you would 3 horses.)