Sad Day Yesterday

[joes_bunnee]

Yesterday, I awoke to find one of my girls dead and later that evening another one died. I have two left.

One seems to be quite happy and lively. The other just hangs about. She does hitch to things, but doesn't do much other than sit on the bottom or sit hitched to her greenery.

In terms of eating, the lively one chases food and eats many shrimp when I feed her. The other sits at the bottom and will eat a couple that I get right under her nose. On a good note, her snick(?) is strong; it's just that she won't chase her food and only eats three or so shrimp to the other's eight. Of course, that's only what I wait around to see them eat; I know the lively one eats a lot more.

So we moved the lethargic ones (the above and the one that subsequently died) to the QT tank after we found the first one dead, so now we have the lively one in the seahorse tank and the not-so-lively one in the QT. I know no one has a crystal ball, but are some seahorses just less active than others? Is there a chance that the two remaining horses will live?

I think I posted this earlier under my Newby Questions thread, but the LFS owner didn't know anything about the horses, and the last horse left a couple days after we bought ours, that had been in the same tank as ours, was really sick (and we assume it died). We have definitely learned about purchasing horses from serious seahorse sources and won't do what we did before. But does anyone hold out any hope for the two that are left? Is there anything we should do? None of them look(ed) sick, have/had weird spots, nothing out of the ordinary -- I posted pics at http://joesseahorses.tripod.com/Seahorses.

Thanks,
Martha

 

[joes_bunnee]

Does the lack of responses mean there is nothing I can do?

How long do I keep the horse quarantined before I figure she's just a really calm, quiet horse and not sick? How long til I know the one in the regular tank is healthy?

 

[Fredfish]

I am no expert with diseases because I have never had to deal with any in seahorses, but your one horse sure seems like it has a problem.

Can you give any more details? Did you notice any change in behavior before the other horse died or was this all very sudden?

Are there any external signs of infection/disease. Things to look for would be: discolored skin (or damage/lesions), cloudy eyes, rapid gill movement, swelling.

That your sick horse is still feeding is a good thing. Keep putting food in front of it to encourage it to eat and give us more info.

I am sure one of those more experienced with disease and infection will come along shortly.

Fred

 

[joes_bunnee]

Actually, she has been like this since the beginning, except I think she chased her food a little at the beginning. Now she doesn't eat much and unless she's waiting for me to leave to eat, she's not chasing it at all. She's leaving a lot of it uneaten at the bottom of the QT (which we clean up at the next feeding) -- a lot more than the lively one.

This horse is the only one of them that was yellow when we brought the four home. The rest were varying shades of black. I was worried about her when we got home because she was very clingy and not very active, and I was reading about horses just sitting at the bottom possibly being sick. The others had no signs at all -- they just suddenly stopped moving around and then stopped eating and then died.

There is nothing external except that she's turned almost black like the others. I thought she was breathing a little heavier than the others, but that's kind of subjective. I mean, I can't be sure it's not just my paranoia since I was already wondering if she was sick.

From what I've read, you shouldn't treat when you don't know what is wrong, and I don't see anything that obviously matches any disease descriptions I've read. So ...

I was reading on seahorse.org about diseases similar to this -- lethargy, light eating, etc. and I wondered if it could be just as simple as low 02. We just added a bubbler to the hospital tank to see if that perks her up. Maybe she stressed out during the move to our home and isn't recovering from it well?

I'll update the water specs and everything in the morning. In the meantime, maybe the bubbler will help. I think if she starts eating more, I will chalk the lethargy up to her personality?! I just hope she keeps eating.

Thanks for your reply. I feel really helpless ...

 

[whatnot45]

Your female is probably suffering from anxiaty from being alone. Seahorses are social animals that need to be kept in groups. If you say that there are no signs of external infection, and her breathing and everything is normal, then i would move her out of the hospital tank and back into the main tank with the other horse. I would however, do a 2-5 minute freshwater dip before makeing the transfer just incase. (it cant hurt). From past experiences, I know what hapens to seahorses that are left alone.... they just whither away and die. They may slow down eating, and eventually stop altogether. I had a similar situation, but my male died, and my female just stopped eating shortly after. She starved herself. Here are some tips to get her back to tip top shape:

1. If you havn't already implimented a feeding station, i highly suggest you do so! That way the female wont have to wait for the food to pass under her nose because it will already be there. If you dont already know the ins and outs of feeding stations, there is a ton of information at seahorse.com in their help pages

2. What kind of mysis are you feeding? is it Piscien energetcis? If not, then i recomend you switch ASAP. Their mysis are much higher quality than any other brand, and seahorses love them. My horses wont eat anything else.

3. Try feeding the female some live food before you put her in the main tank. I would recomend volcano shrimp from hawii. Most horses cant resist them. You can get 400 of them for a hundred dollars at seahorse.com they are great to have on hand. You can keep them in a bucket w/ a heater and a small peice of live rock, and feed them to your horses when every you see fit. You can also get white feeder shrimp from liveaquaria.com for about 25 dollars. I have no experience with these guys, so i cant give you an opinion on them.

Maybee try some of these things and see how they work. I hope this helps

 

[Fredfish]

I understand how you feel. Its hard not to be able to do anything because you don't know what is going on.

I wonder if your horses had/have some sort of internal parasite or disease that they brought with them. I suppose it is also possible that this is normal behavior and feeding for this particular horse, but given that two have died, I do not think so.

Since you had 4 horses together and they exhibited this behavior, I do not think it is a social issue. As a side note, horses in the wild are not social. They live as solitary pairs in a defined territory. Apparently cb horses are very social (this from an Ausie breeder), so the source of your horses may affect its 'social' requirements.

One thing you can start doing is to enrich your food with beta glucan. This stuff kick starts the imune system so it may help with whatever the problem is, and it certainly can't hurt.

I am still hoping that Dan or Dianne B will chime in here as they are much more experienced with this sort of thing than me.

Hang in there.

Fred

 

[joes_bunnee]

Update on my girl is that we put her back in the regular tank after a quick freshwater dip. The bubbler line we put in last night seems to have done something for her because she is swimming more now and seems like she's also eating a little more (?). I don't know. It's subjective -- since I don't sit and stare at her constantly. She also seems to be less black and slightly more yellow.

She seems to be happy to be back with the other horse because they are basically staying near each other in the tank.

Also, I got a feeder installed. Now I have to figure out how to lure them to it. I'm working on leading with a trail of mysis to the bowl of mysis at the end. I need to find an appropriate turkey baster or eye dropper. So far nothing I found was right.

Anyway, so far so good. Thanks for the helpful ideas!!

 

[whatnot45]

luring them to the feeder is quite difficult just to let you know lol i have never had any luck with it. I eventually gave up, and gently moved the horses to the feeding station prior to their meal. I also tap the glass when I do this so that they know its feeding time. Eventually, they started to get the hang of it so now when I tap the glass they go over. Luring them just takes way too long lol

 

[joes_bunnee]

Thanks. They did not seem interested in following me, but everything I've read said they'd eventually find it. I didn't have the confidence that my one (should I name them for ease?) had the time to handle that. Anyway, I will gently put them there tomorrow and see if it helps.

Thanks again!!

 

[whatnot45]

good luck

 

[Swanwillow]

on a side note: WHAT type of shrimp are you feeding them?