She's scratching her head!!!!

[RockinSmall]

My kellogi is scratching her head with her tail. is that normal...

She is still soo skinny and i have been breading and feeding live baby brine for a couple weeks and she igrnores frozen mysis and shrimp. I've got to get her to eat more. what can i do to fatten her up.?

 

[ReefNutPA]

Baby brine is not an adequate foodsource for an adult seahorses. Gut-loaded live adult brine would be a bit better.

Unfortunately Kellogi has a dismal survival record as they are net-pen raised and should be treated as wild caught seahorses. The head scratching is most likely caused by parasites within the gills. Did you give her a FW dip? de-worm? Also, check the ammonia level in the tank if this is a QT tank. That can cause scratching as well.

But, based on the past history of Kellogi - parasites would be my first guess.

Tom

 

[namxas]

also, as you can tell, the refusal to take frozen food is another hurdle one needs to deal with. sometimes the "net pen" SH eat, sometimes they don't, sometimes they start off eating then go off their food.

as Tom mentioned, your best bet for the short term would be to get ahold of some adult BS and gut load them with Selcon, spirilina, beta glucan (this is an important one as it boosts immune levels), etc. if you can find some larger foods like live mysis, even better.

Dan at http://www.seahorsesource.com carries live mysis.

good luck

 

[RockinSmall]

wow.. what have i done? i figured id do whatever i had to in order to keep her healthy, but looks like i missed a step ot two. tomorrow i will add all new water, dip her, and buy some live foods.... but how long will live foods stay life if i buy a ton??

 

[namxas]

the trouble with mysis is they're VERY cannibalistic, so they tend to eat each other. it's less of a problem if they're well-fed.

your goal here is to fatten the SH up with the live food so you can train it to frozen. you can try mixing some frozen with the live mysis you feed out, and the SH will likely eat some by "mistake" and decide frozen is good stuff. i recommend either Hikari or PE mysis as the mysis are generally "whole" as compared to "pieces", and the SH will more easily recognize them as food.

 

[RockinSmall]

so the $65 bottle of live mysids will last a single sea horse how long???