Help! What's wrong with my seahorse

[reefman66]

I have 4 of my tiger tail in this 29g bio-cube since Oct. Everything was fine until today. I notice one of the female has something wrong with her snout. She has some kind of gel covering it. Not sure if it cover the entrance of the mouth since I can't see it and she is not eating anything I feed. I feed mysis shrimps and sometimes brine shrimps to them. All others are eating except her. I've been researching for the solution to the problem, but can't find anything on it.

Also, I notice a long white about half an inch, seems like some kind of a worm wiggling on the side of her body. Is this some kind of a parasite? I can see it from the other side of the tank, but I can't take a picture of it.

By the way, all my water parameter are good. Nothing is out of balance.

Please help, I don't want to lose her.



Pictures of other tank mates.

 

[reefman66]

Update. She finally turned around for me to be able to take picture of what looks like a worm on her midsection. Can anyone identified? thanks

 

[DanU]

It looks like, at least from the pics provided, that she has had some snout erosion. This is most commonly caused by bacterial infection and the tip of the snout erodes away. Once it is eroded enough, the seahorse looses the ability to eat properly. The bacterial infection can sometimes be stopped, but if the snout is eroded enough, there is little hope without continuous tube feeding. I am not sure what the worm thing is about. I would have isolated her immediately which is generally good practice as it is as much to protect the other fish as it is to help her.
The decision you have to make is whether to treat and hope she can eat or put her down.

Dan

 

[rayjay]

In the past, I've had some luck using BioBandage on the wound, and using Furan 2. Of course, it needs to be done in a hospital tank.
See if the worm can be picked off with some tweasers, or, dipping the lower part of the seahorse in fresh water to see if that makes it drop off.
I'd be getting a larger tank and improving the tank husbandry to lessen the chances of this happening again.
Recommended tank size for a pair of these seahorses is 30g with an additional 15g for each additional pair.
It's important to clean out any trapped uneaten food and detritus from around rocks, decor, and trapped in hitching or plants or decor before it fuels the nasty bacteria. Keeping temperatures in the 68° to 74°F slows up the rate of growth of the nasty bacteria which multiply exponentially with each rising degree, especially above 74°.
While you say all your parameters are good, there ARE NO TEST KITS to tell you that your water quality is degraded to the point the nasty bacteria are getting out of hand. All you can do is increase the cleaning and vacuuming and do larger/more frequent water changes in appropriately sized tanks to start with.

 

[reefman66]

Thank you for your advice guys. Apparently she has some sort of bacterial infection on her. I already have a hospital tank set up and ready to go now. Guess I'll try the Furan 2 route and see if she'll come out of it, I hope.

Meanwhile, I'll look into getting a larger tank for them and hopefully this bacterial stuff will not transfer. Thanks again.

 

[rayjay]

The bacteria are ALWAYS present in any tank. It's just that seahorses, by being such picky eaters usually, leave a lot of food that can be trapped unseen in and around tank contents, and therefore provide food and bedding for the spread of the nasty bacteria. i.e. vibrio types
It's not something that occurs suddenly but rather over a period of time, often after we've become a bit complacent and let up on a water change or cleaning or vacuuming a little longer than normal, resulting in a problem down the road a bit.
In addition, when they DO chose to eat a specific piece that looks ideal to them and snick it up, they masticate it and pass particulate matter out through the gills and into the water column, further degrading water quality and fueling the bacteria. This gill expulsion looks like a small cloud emanating from the gill area upon snicking.