Seahorse Thrashing

[KudaDonkey]

We have a new Kuda, we got her a couple days ago and she seemed fine. Was eating and acting normally. She is now darkening and did not eat today. She was swimming around and thrashing side to side for a short time. She is also itching her head with her tail, and seems to have a couple white spots. She has been on frozen mysis. Please help, we don't want to lose her!

 

[btreyes]

It sounds like ectoparasites... you might want to try a freshwater dip.

here's an awesome guide with treatment info: http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/diseaseguide.shtml

 

[rayjay]

My first treatment would be a freshwater dip for 12 minutes.
Freshwater needs to be matched for pH and temperature first.
Place the seahorse in the matched fresh water (no chlorine) and it may thrash when first placed in, indicating the presence of parasites which you may actually see in the bottom of the container. If the seahorse stops moving, after a bit you can touch it to see if it responds. Leave it there for the full 12 minutes UNLESS it DOESN'T respond when you touch it in which case remove it immediately.

 

[KudaDonkey]

She also had been spitting out some of her food and today seems to be making a gagging motion with her head. She is swimming around and anchoring okay. She had been in the aquarium we bought her from for over a month and they had no problem with her. Is there any danger in giving her a freshwater dip?

 

[rayjay]

Very little danger at all, but the chance of a big improvement.
If there is no thrashing around when it is placed in the fresh water dip, it would indicate few if any parasites and that something else is wrong.
With those symptoms though, you should get results.
It's possible you made need follow up treatment with something like formalin though, depending on just how bad the infestation is.

 

[KudaDonkey]

We woke up this morning to a very stressed seahorse. She was laying on the bottom of the tank. I didn't know what to do, so I brought her to the fish store we got her from. Luckily the owner is a great guy and took over. He is going to try to get her back to health and will keep her there until we can determine the issue. The heat in our tank is fluctuating, which we weren't aware of because we had a stick on thermometer. I didn't realize how poorly these worked. We have fixed the thermometer issue and are trying to get the tank to the appropriate temp and stable. I'm hoping she pills through, but we went in to check on her this afternoon and although she looked better, she didn't look great.

 

[kudagirl]

Hi,

Do you know if your lfs has your sh on a different water supply (not the same one that goes to all his other tanks.

 

[JuicyJ]

That's good the fish store took her back but I'm just curious. With a couple comments to tell you to do something and do it rather quickly to try to save your seahorse and you completely ignored it for the most part. Hope she gets better, it just baffles me sometimes how people will just ignore treatment and let things worsen.