Seahorse Sick - Tail Turning Black?

[vertwake]

We have 4 seahorses that we've had for about 3 months now. They've been doing great. Eating frozen mysis. We recently picked up one an additional male from LiveAquaria. Unfortunately it died after about 10 days. Eating fine, just never seemed to move around much. The day it died it's tail appeared to be turning black.

Today our orange one seems to not be interested in food, and is kind of laying at the bottom of the tank. Still has it's tail wrapped around an anchor, but seems like the tail is turning dark/black? This is highly unusual for her as she usually swims up to your hand when it's time to feed.

Is there a known sickness that turns their tail black before death? Anything specific I can do to try to prevent another casualty?

 

[rayjay]

First I would place it in a hospital tank and lower the temperature to 68°F.
No more than about 2° a day.
If there appears to be erosion of the flesh you will have to treat with biobandage and Furan II.
Try feeding it live food like mysids or adult brine or even small ghost shrimp or cherry shrimp if nothing else is available.
It's possible that you introduced pathogens by adding the last seahorse if it wasn't from the same breeding source as the original seahorses.
If there is no erosion then you might try a 12 minute fresh water dip matching pH and temperature to the water it comes from.
If there is immediate thrashing around then that is a sign of parasites.
If parasites are causing it to not eat, this might be a temporary measure to allow it to begin eating again.
Is it possible to get a detailed close up picture?

 

[vertwake]

Is it possible to get a detailed close up picture?

Thanks for the info. I'll put it in a hospital tank. Doesn't appear to be having any erosion, just seems lethargic, laying around. It finally ate some mysis again today, but not with it's usual vigor.

I did the freshwater dip. Didn't thrash about wildly, but did start swimming around a TON more than it was in the main tank. It then proceeded to swim about vigorously in the hospital tank once I placed it in there for about 5 minutes, and then it laid on the bottom of the tank.

Below are a couple pictures, not great, but you can kind of see how the tail has turned a darker color. When I first got it, it was very vibrant.

On a side note I didn't QT the one I got from LA (dumb...I usually QT all my fish...). You mentioned pathogens...would a QT have prevented this? Or would the pathogens the seahorses carry have come through the QT with the horse anyway?

 

[mtc1966]

i dont see anything wrong looking except thats either a very young seahorse or its suffering from malnutrition.

 

[rayjay]

Yes, I can't tell anything either by the picture. And, it doesn't sound like it has parasites either as there was no violent thrashing when dipped.
I think I would still get some live food and then enrich it before feeding to the seahorse. Can you get any probiotics of any kind to help?
Dans Feed from seahorsesource.com is an excellent enrichment for brine/shrimp to feed to seahorses. It has probiotics included in it.
When mixing seahorses from different breeding sources, more often than not, one batch or the other, or both can be lost.
The only way the Q tank would be of any help is if the new seahorse died before you put it in the display tank with the others.
If it doesn't die, and you put it in to the display, then again, you may lose them from pathogen transfer because Q tank doesn't do anything for that.
Seahorses are quite prone to loss when mixing species or breeding sources and I think most feel that the cause is pathogen transfer. Seahorses are only exposed to the pathogens in their breeding area and can build up some capability to handle them, but when exposed to new pathogens, they often, but not always, end up with problems.