New Seahorse Keeper

K

KDS

New member
My siblings and I purchased a six inch seahorse from our local pet
store yesterday. I had my water tested before we bought him and everything was zero; PH was at 7.9 (I put buffer in 3hrs. before I put him in); temp. was 74F.; salinity was.0123. We acclimated him for three hours. When we put him in he swam around the tank (20 gal) exploring everything, then he settled down and has not swam much since. He has sort of a washed out whitish color to him today. I fed him frozen mysis this morning; he only ate one or two, but he seemed interested in the rest. He is upright sometimes and other times he is kind of streched out. I am new to seahorses and do not know what is normal. If anyone can give this very worried 17yr old some advise she would greatly appritiate it. Currently he is the only thing in the tank.
Thank you,
KDS
 
Okay, I have a couple of questions for you that will help me figure out if there is anything wrong with your seahorse. Seahorses change color, so the color change isn't necessarily an issue, or it could be stress, and as for not moving around much, he could be hunting or just hanging out, but just in case, answering the questions below will help figure out if you need to do anything.

Is your specific gravity 1.023 or 1.0123? If it is 1.023, you are okay, if it is 1.0123, that is much lower than seawater and your seahorse could be reacting to the drastic change in salinity from the store to your home. In that case, you will want to slowly bring your salinity up.
The pH is also low, but this is also probably a function of salinity. Do you use RO/DI water or tap water? You want it at 8.3, but this is something that needs to be changed VERY slowly.
Do you know what species of seahorse you have?
Is it captive bred or wild caught?
Could you tell me a little bit more about your setup:
- what kind of filtration do you have?
- what kind of turnover/flow do you have?
- do you have live rock? How much?
- what do you have for it to hitch to?
- any corals?
- what is your clean up crew (snails, hermits, etc.)?
- how long has the system been set up?
- what method did you use to cycle the system?
Also, it would be helpful for you to check your water today, now that he is in the system, and make sure that adding him didn't cause an ammonia spike. The important parameters to know are ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate, but also check pH and salinity since they have been low. Keep the water at 74, and don't let it get above 74 degrees, that would put him at higher risk for illness.
If you could post a picture, that would also help.
There is a disease pictures forum on www.seahorse.org that also might be helpful to look through.
 
i dont know what the problem is with seahorsesource.com. everytime i try to click on a post i get errors, same thing when i try and click the pipefish forum
 
Hi, KDS. It is always better to research first, buy second. I'm hoping you did this... Also, is the horse in QT?
Other than that, I have nothing else to add to what Ann said/asked. Please take some time in answering ALL of her questions. I am especially interested in the current salinty, pH, other params (ammonia, nirtate, nitrite) cycling method you used, species, and CB or WC. Thanks.
 
Hi! Thanks for answering so quickly and sorry about the typo; the salinity is 1.023. I put PH buffer in before I put the seahorse in, so th PH should have gone up to 8.3 (I don't have a PH test, but that is what usually happens when I put buffer in). I buy my water (RO) from the pet store and they mix the salt in there for me. I do not know what species I have, but they told me that it came from the Atlanic. As for my set up, it is very basic. Filter is a Fluval 3; water flow is low; I do have live rock, it covers the entire middle part of the tank, which would be about a two feet long and maybe a bit more than a foot high. there are lots of places for him to hang on to; I don't have any corals or a clean up crew (I was considering moving my hermit crabs and brittle star from the 55gal into this tank). I cycled it using live sand and rock and a damsel fish (I took the damsel out before putting in the seahorse). I am going back to the pet store tomorrow for some crickets and was planning on getting my water tested. I did research before I bought this little guy even though it does not seem like I did, considering all my questions; and no it is not in QT;however, he is currently in the tank alone.
Is it normal for seahorses not to eat when you get them? I offered him some frozen brine this evening, but he didn't eat?
He swam around a lot today! Every time I checked on him he was in a different spot.
Thanks,
KDS
 
Did you watch the seahorse eat frozen mysis in the store before you bought him? Sounds to me like he is wild caught by the fact that he was 6" when you bought him and they couldn't give you a species name. Wild caught seahorses often don't eat frozen food, although sometimes you can train them to frozen. Ditch the frozen brine, it doesn't have any nutritional value. Mysis is the way to go if you are feeding frozen. But, it sounds like you need to get him some live food. Live mysis shrimp, ghost shrimp, glass shrimp, volcanic shrimp, etc. are what you are looking for (not brine). George at www.seawaterexpress.com can get you some appropriately sized live shrimp if your LFS doesn't have any.

While you are at the LFS tomorrow, pick up a saltwater test kit that tests for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and pH. You don't want to have to rely on the LFS for your testing, especially if you suspect there is a problem.

Because your seahorse is wild caught, you are going to have to give it some treatments. This includes a freshwater dip and de-worming. Ideally, this would have been done in a quarantine tank, before putting him in the display, so that you didn't contaminate the display. At this point, you could put him in a QT for 6 weeks, while you leave the display fishless and just feed it to keep it cycled. A good resource for caring for wild caught seahorses is the wild caught forum on seahorse.org http://forum.seahorse.org/index.php?showforum=32 I would especially suggest that you read through the pinned threads at the top. The library on seahorse.org also has good resources on where to find live foods and how to culture them at home.
You can find many of the medications that you are going to need to use at seahorsesource http://www.seahorsesource.com/cgi-bin/shop/search.cgi?&category=Medications

I would definately suggest you get a cleanup crew. No hermit crabs, even the most docile have been known to grab a seahorse tail. I'd go with a few nassarius snails and a few algae eating snails like nerites or astreas. Depending on the kind of brittle star you have, I wouldn't add it either, they've been known to prey on slow moving fish like seahorses. The only brittles I would use are micro brittles.

Also, FYI, if your seahorse is from the Atlantic and was caught in the US, it is probably Erectus. Reidi is also a possibility in the Atlantic, but they aren't found off the coast of the US.
 
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How in the world is he going to eat ghost shrimp? They don't look like they will fit in his mouth. I am currently trying to hatch baby brine for him, as I thought he would eat live food. Should I still feed them to him even though they are brine shrimp?

Also, are snails the only things I need; I was thinking about getting pepperment shrimp to eat the left over food. My brittle star is green with bristles on the arms; is this one OK?

As for the QT, I don't have one and don't have the money to set one up; wouldn't moving him to another tank stress him out (besides, wouldn't I have to cycle the QT as well).
Thanks again
KDS
 
If he is already at 6", I think it is highly unlikely that he will recognize any brine as food, much less baby brine. You can try feeding the brine, but you will need to enrich it first, something with HUFAs and vitamins. You'd need small ghost shrimp, but you'd be suprised what a seahorse can suck down. Sometimes it might not go down all in one piece but they can still get it down. Mysis and volcano, as well as the snickin shrimp at seawaterexpress are probably better, but they are hard to find at the LFS, so sometimes on short notice, small ghost shrimp (freshwater or saltwater) are the only thing you can get. Brine is high in fiber and low in fat and protein, and with the seahorse's simple digestive system, they can't get much out of it before they pass it.

Peppermint shrimp is a good idea, green brittle star is a bad idea.

For a QT, you can usually get a 20 gallon for pretty cheap at petco or petsmart, and a 10 gallon usually only costs $10. you don't need lighting or a stand or anything. you can even use a rubbermaid container or a large bucket (provided it hasn't ever had chemicals in it). People will usually use a sponge from their main tank for some extra bio filtration. What you can do now is set up a basic quarantine tank with a basic filter (tip: if you print out the Petsmart online price, you can take it to the store and get that price in the store and avoid shipping) and some fake plastic plants for hitching. Cycle it using pure ammonia or by putting a large table shrimp in it and letting it decompose (don't use a live fish for the ammonia source). Once its cycled, then you can take your SH out of the display to let the display sit fishless for 6 weeks and in the meantime you can treat the SH for worms and such in the display. It may be helpful to buy marine biospira to help speed up the cycle in the quarantine tank, and/or treat the seahorse in the display and then again in the QT, so that the seahorse doesn't have to wait too long before it is treated.

The problem with treating your seahorse in the display, is the fact that by having already put him in the display untreated, parasites may currently be carrying out their lifecycle in the aquarium, and some stages don't require a host. So, if you treat your seahorse for parasites in the display, those that are in the fishless part of their lifecycle can reinfect your seahorse after it is treated. You need to get the display fishless for long enough that you get outside the window of the parasite lifecycle so that whatever he brought into the tank has died.

To be honest, I am not sure what to direct you to do next, since you have already put the WC seahorse in the display and don't have a quarantine ready. I suggest posting in the Wild Caught Seahorses forum on seahorse.org and asking for direction from there.

Your other option, since you aren't ready for a WC seahorse, and since this is your first seahorse, is to return the seahorse to the LFS and order an aquacultured captive bred seahorse instead. Captive bred seahorses eat frozen mysis and don't typically bring in the problems with parasites that you get with Wild Caught. www.seahorsesource.com and www.dracomarine.org both offer healthy captive bred seahorses. You will want to let the tank sit fishless for at least 6 weeks before you add a new seahorse, and you may also want to take measures to sterilize the tank. The library on www.seahorse.org is an excellent place to do some additional reading.
 
Sorry I have not updated you guys. Good news, he is eating!!! We went to Petsmart and got the smallest ghost shrimp we could find. The minute we put them in, he ate one. We noticed him hunting the rest down later that day. I realize, though, that ghost shrimp should not make up the bulk of his diet. I will be ordering mysis, but I have not found any volcanic shrimp on line. Does anyone know where I can find some?
Thanks,
KDS
 
List of Live Food Sources:
http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/LiveFoodSources.shtml
You are looking for sources of various kinds of shrimp (other than brine), the red shrimp/volcanic shrimp are listed at the bottom. You will also want to look into an enrichment for the shrimp to give it more nutritional value, like Selco or Vibrance.
You are planning on de-worming your seahorse, right? In order to not re-infect your seahorse with worms and parasites, I would focus on getting freshwater species of shrimp, and shrimp aquacultured by seawater express, and/or raising your own shrimp. Shrimp collected from the ocean have a tendency to carry parasites and worms that can infect your seahorse.
 
I covered a lot of this in my second post in this thread. Look in the pinned thread on quarantining in the wild caught forum on seahorse.org http://forum.seahorse.org/index.php?showforum=32, it should list some of the de-worming and anti-parasitic medications and dosages. I'd also do a search for "de-worming". There are three typically used medications, you do one feed out of medicine gutloaded shrimp once a week for three weeks for each of the medications, so 9 weeks total. You can find lots of the meds that you'll need at www.seahorsesource.com If you open your own thread in the wild caught seahorses forum on seahorse.org, you can probably get someone with more experience with wild caughts to walk you through the process.
 
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