my die off....Help!

[Amber420]

I had a terrible die off in my 65 sehorse tank! It all started when my pregnant male did not birth all of his babies and I was not able to flush them out (not that I didn't try everything). He died and then his lady stopped eating and she died. I assumed it was broken heart and left it at that. A few weeks later another girl stopped eating and died and like a chain reaction one after another I lost all six (over a 3 week period). I looked for everything, there was no visual indications that they were sick, but I think it may have been an internal parasite.
My tank is set up with 6 or 7 types of calurpa and macro algae, a devils hand leather, a small frogspawn, cup coral, scolymia, some random button and star polyps, sea fans, grogonians, 2 peppermint shrimp, astrea and nassarius snails. There is 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, less than 20 on nitrates, temp 76, ph 8.3, and salinity 1.023.
What should I do now and how long should I wait to try again? P.S. the tank is about 15 months old.

 

[SSweet1]

Did you notice any white spots on them? I wouldnt keep frogspawn in there because it stings them if they latch onto it. It sounds like they got some kind of infection to me. Did you introduce any fish or pipefish recently? They can carry vibrio and cause your seahorses to come down with it. I learned the hard way when I purchased some wild caught pipes and they died within 48 hours then I lost one of my favorite seahorses. I am really sorry you lost yours. Neo 3 is great stuff to keep on hand in case you notice your seahorses not eating and notice any white spot or discolored area on them. I hope you have better luck with them next time, Carrie

 

[ReefNutPA]

I agree on the frogspawn, not a suitable tankmate. What species of seahorses were these? It's obvious some type of disease took them all out, but we need a bit more info. Was it a mixed species tank? Any recent additions? Any white patches/discolored area's?

Without being able to pinpoint an exact cause it's hard to determine when, if ever, the tank would be suitable for seahorses again. Depending on what they died of, some bacteriums can inhabit the rock, sand, inverts, etc and no syngnathid (seahorse/pipefish) would ever be safe.

Seahorses don't die of broken hearts and internal parasites would be noticable by the seahorses long/stringy/white "poop". Were there any signs of anything going wrong besides them not eating?

Tom

 

[Amber420]

I hadn't added anything but plants for at least 5 weeks and the only thing I could see was maybe a little white on the edges of the fin, but it didn't seem to spread. They were all Kuda and their color was perfect bright yellow. I'll remove the frogspawn and probably the scolymia. Any other tips of things I may have missed? I always fed frozen mysis and occasionally live brine. Could the live food have brought something?