Help! Seahorse trouble

[Jetdrvr]

Hello All,

4 1/2 months ago my wife purchased 3 seahorses from another member on RC. I think they were called "chocolate" seahorses but don't know the correct technical name. Everything went well for the first 3 1/2 -4 months and then we started having trouble. There were 2 females and a male, one of the females got a tail bubble, we tried to put here in a QT tank and give her a diamox bath but it didn' work, in 2 days she died.
Then the male started getting gas bubble in his pouch, we have been clearing it every few days for the last 2 weeks with success.
Now the most recent problem is some form of skin rot, the last female has it bad and now the male is showing a small amount of it. We are treating them both in a QT tank with neomycin, triple sulfa and have applied biobandage directly to the area. The male is repsponding well, the female is responding but seems to have lost control of her swim bladder. Both are eating but I am concerned, what is going on in their tank and how long will they be able to fight this? Tank info is as follows:

40gal high

72F
0 Ammonia and nitrite
nitrate around 20
1.24 SG

The tank has a bakpak skimmer/filter
40lbs LR
There is a large candy cane coral
1 open brain
1 closed brain
1 finger leather coral
1 scooter blenny
various snails/crabs

Everything else in the tank appears to be doing well and the seahorses were doing the mating dance frequently before this trouble began.

Sorry for such a long post but does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks

Joe

 

[ReidiLoverLinds]

You should do a diamox pouch flush for the male with the pouch trouble. sounds to me like you are doing the best you can with the right meds. All i would reccomend is to get your temp down to 68 deg f until this all clears up. That might be the best move you could make at this point. rule number one- if something is amiss with a seahorse get the temp down!! good luck!!!!

 

[ann83]

Gradually bring the temperature down to 68 degrees in the hospital tank and add an extra airline or two.

Can you get pics of the problems?

 

[Jetdrvr]

I am working on getting the temp down to 68. I have one airline already. I am most concerned with the fact that all of these things are happening one after the other. Do you think they are all diffrerent problems or are the stemming from something else wrong in the tank? I will try to get some pics tonight.

 

[ann83]

Did you add anything (livestock, equipment, etc.) to the tank recently?

Did you have a temperature spike above 74 degrees recently?

Power outage? Loss of flow or airation? Recently closed off the top of the tank? Anything else out of the ordinary?

Were the air bubbles on the tail causing the seahorse's tails to float?

 

[ann83]

Any pics of the seahorses (preferably side views like the one in my avitar) so that we can confirm species?

 

[Jetdrvr]

H. E.'s are the S.H's in question.

Yes, I did add a scotter blenny to the tank, on May 16th. At the same time, I rearranged some of the rock work on the 17th. Could this be the cause? By the way the scooter blenny is fine, fins and all. The only other thing I changed, was adding a power head to the bottom of the tank. In doing some of the research, I read that more flow would help.

May 12th is when I seemed to have all the problems. The female with the TBD, was swimming upside down, and had problems controlling her movement/direction.

Back when all this started I believe the temp was around 78 to 76. I tried very hard to keep it down to 74 or 72. I have always tried to maintain a water change schedule (every other week, or so). My parameters have been the same, no major spikes there.

I will say, on May 28th I was really excited because the Male and Female started courting (the female that died , was his partner). He was opening his pouch and they were doing their normal seahorse dance. Then on Friday I noticed her white spot along her body, and then noticed the Male showing signs of a greyish outline last night. I might have over-reacted, but at this point I don't want to risk anything.

We are working on getting some pics, however the camera's battery died. Timing could have been a little better.

Thank You,
Becca

 

[Jetdrvr]

OK, I managed to get one pic of the area with the skin rot.

She is still eating and appears to be getting better but she still cannot contol her swim bladder.

Thanks

Joe

 

[Jetdrvr]

Wait this is better

 

[seacraze]

The areas that look like white patches is that the skin rot areas - sorry to ask but the pic is not coming in well here

 

[Jetdrvr]

The skin rot (area in question) is on her belly/side (the middle). You can't tell from the picture, but her snout is good. The solid white patch in the middle, actually is starting to have her original skin color outlining the white patch, come back around it.

The area is not swollen, or pink. The picture does show a little pink around the patch, however when the biobandage stuff is applied it turns pink.

Only the area in the middle, is white. The outlining area, is more a greyish color. I keep applying the biobandage around her body anywhere discoloring occurs.

 

[ReidiLoverLinds]

How much of everything are you dosing? Having a high enough dosage of the neomycin is very critical. also be sure to run the full course of the meds before you think about trying anything else.

 

[Jetdrvr]

The biobandge enough to cover the white patch area.

per 5 gallons

One capsule Triple sulpha

1/8 tsp of neomycin sulfate.

She ate a lot of live brine shrimp today. I was reading today about gut loading live brine shirmp. Has anyone loaded live brine with neomycin, or injected neomycin in mysis/frozen food, or would I be doing too much at one time?