The other seahorse who I first wrote about still does not look good. It still stays on the bottom, doesn't move much, and I haven't seen it eat since I first posted to this thread which I think is over a month ago. Tonight I was able to feed him without the clove oil. I tried this since it was worth a shot not putting the seahorse in a coma if possible. I actually was successful with this seahorse first, and then tried to feed the other seahorse mentioned above. As I said, he is very listless, and will basically only make an effort if I am trying to reach in for feeding time. He stays at the bottom of the tank. The side of this seahorse looks caved in, and makes me wonder if its digestive system is ok. It has stayed alive for a lot longer than I originally expected (knock on wood). I am afraid that it is no longer interested in feeding for itself.
has he eaten on his own at all or have you been tube feeding him the entire time?
From what I understand, seahorses do not like to be alone, but I was considering moving the thin seahorse back to the fuge tank in case the lesion or anything else was contagious.
they do pretty well on their own
*as i look over at my male in solitary confinement*
Do you think I should move the seahorse?
well, he's been with the other horse with a lesion for a while now so he's pretty much been exposed to whatever it is the horse with the lesion is suffering from. it's possible he wasn't on the antibiotics long enough to kick whatever it was that was originally affecting him. i generally go 10 days minimum, sometimes you need to go a little longer than that.
Aside from crushed mysid, algae mac and sometimes some cyclopeze, has anyone here tried some liquid seahorse foods?
Is the beta glucan liquid and have you had good results? Dan from SeahorseSource said that it is hard to find real good quality betaglucan and it can be pricey. any recommendations here?
Is neosporin just as good as wound control? I am using the neo 1x a day, is it safe to do more?
i personally don't know of anyone who's had success feeding adult horses anything other than mysis(d), possibly krill and sometimes teeny tiny fish. i did have a small female that ate cyclopeeze until she realized it was much easier to eat frozen mysid then those little, itty bitty, red things that occasionally floated her way
i haven't been able to get the liquid beta glucan, the company that manufactures it told me it was available here in the u.s. but when i asked where i could purchase it, they never got back to me. this is the powder version and it's quite pricey
http://www.zoolife.org/store/home.php?cat=252 until last month my horses were all on live food only so any extra money went to that. i currently just use one from a health store, solgar is the brand.
the Wound Control is hard to find, the company who made it went out of business. it's an old mercuracrome based liquid that is easy to apply, you just wash it over the wound making sure to stay away from snout, eyes, and gills. you can flush the wound with the diluted betadine wash as well. you can apply the neosporin, biobandage, or diluted betadine more than once a day. does the wound appear to be healing at all?
here's what i'd like to recommend. since the thin horse seems to be in the worst shape we can try one round of deworming and see how he does. normally you need to treat with a couple of different dewormers as each is generally specific to a certain type of worm (nematode, cestode, tape worm). i'm not certain if his current problem is still a bacterial infection or if there is some underlying condition (worms, parasites) that is affecting him. i'm really interested in hearing if he's eating on his own at all. i can tell you that my wild caught seahorses were infested with worms so here's my proposition for him. pick up some prazi pro, you have three ways of administering it: 1) in a 10 gallon tank, add 2 ml of prazi pro and treat for 24 hours. this is repeated once a week for a series of 3 baths. 2) in a 10 gallon tank dose per label. 3) either inject into live feeder shrimp or administer via tube feeding. i've used all three methods but for method number 3 to be effective, i believe it's best to know you horses weight and ask someone smart (not me, i sought professional help) to calculate the dosage accordingly. keep your eyes on him, it's possible that, depending on the parasite load, he may need to be treated for a secondary bacterial infection.
now that i'm thinking about it, we may want to treat both of them with the prazi pro at the same time.
make sure you have plenty of aeration in the QT tank.
no more than 4 degrees a day and slowly over 24 hours. don't know what the temp in long island is right now but frozen water bottles work great or my personal favorite - the little ice probe chiller.
i lost track....at least he's looking. he hasn't been on the antibiotics long, hopefully he'll keep perking up.
