Treatment Suggestions

[roguemonk]

I have a female erectus who is sick. She is having trouble swimming and I found her this morning on the bottom, twisting about. I am not terribly hopeful that I can save her but I have hospitalized her, she is hitched for the moment, and I'm treating with amoxicillin. I don't see any other physical signs such as lesions, discoloration (she and the other female have been changing color slowly over time, and she seems generally pale, but I'm not sure that wasn't just her "night" coloration), bulging eyes (though once you start to look for that you notice that their eyes do stand out from the head!).

Should I treat for parasites as well, just prophylactically? Which treatment do you recommend? I'll pick up whatever you suggest this evening on the way home from work.

Thanks,

Brad

 

[ann83]

Brad,

Can you get a picture of her?

Bring the temperature in the hospital tank down to 68 degrees (by 2 degrees every 12 hours). If the problem is bacterial, this should significantly slow the progression enough that the seahorse's immune system can fight back.

Also, add an extra airline to the hospital tank to increase oxygen saturation and reduce stress; again to allow her to better fight the problem.

Also, could you answer the following questions:
Where did she come from? Is she CB/TR/WC? What are her tankmates (fish, corals, and inverts)? What are the parameters on the tank (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, temperature)? Have you added anything new to the tank in the last few months? How long have you been treating with the amoxicillin and at what dose? Is it possible she could have been stung by something (coral, aiptasia...) or burned by a heater?

 

[roguemonk]

I can get a picture this evening. She's about three inches plus, mostly dark brown with some cream-colorde markings. I'll work on getting the temp down as you said.

I got her from LiveAquaria.com, and they advertized her as CB. Tankmates are:

1 photosynthetic gorgonian
1 peppermint shrimp (so no aiptasia)
another female erectus from the same source (who so far shows no signs of distress)
1 small ricordea

The seahorses were the newest additions, with the peppermint shrimp and a sea hare who died a few weeks ago (sucked into a powerhead through a slot on the side that I didn't know was there, so I hadn't screened it off). I had a male erectus at the time, and he developed pouch emphysema which I did not recognize until too late. I suspect that was the source of this infection, perhaps spurred by stress that might have eventuated a few days ago when I had a problem with topoff that may have resulted in a swing in temperature and/or salinity as I tried to restore the balance (long story). I didn't notice any other signs of stress throughout the system among shrimp and other fish that live in the same ecosystem. I will take more readings tonight, but the system has been rock solid for over a year, with no ammonia or nitrite and minimal nitrate in any reading. The tank temperature fluctuates from 74.5 to 76 during the course of the week in the winter, and the pH is always 8.2 - 8.4. S.G. is 1.026 as of the last reading (again, hasn't varied except that when my topoff failed it rose to about 1.028 and I brought it down to 1.026 fairly quickly and it might be that the seahorse tank had a short-term excess of fresh water flowing through it. The temp never dipped very much, and the shrimp in the tank next door showed no signs of distress, and he would have had the same experience (more so because he's in a smaller tank).

No heater in her tank.

I followed the instructions on the amoxicillin package which called for one pill's worth of medication in ten gallons. She's in a 2 1/2 gallon container so I cut it down to 1/4 the dosage.

Thanks,

Brad

 

[roguemonk]

I got home a little early, but unfortunately she has already died. She does have popeye, now that I can look at her closely. Only one eye is obviously swollen, but clearly she was very sick. I think it came on fairly quickly since she was eating well two days ago. I did test my parameters again:

ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 0
pH 8.4
temp 76.1 F
SG 1.026

According to my research there was little hope that I could save her if it was mycobacterium. Amoxicillin probably would have no effect. But it could be parasites internal or external. I don't think supersaturation is the problem.

Do you recommend treating the one surviving seahorse prophylactically, or am I better off leaving her in a stable environment until I have quarantined some healthy companions?

Thanks,

Brad

 

[ann83]

I would not treat the remaining seahorse, however, I would bring the display temperature down as close to 68 degrees as you can get it for the next several weeks to prevent any problems. Then, after that, I would keep the display tank under 74 degrees. Vibrio sp., the bacteria that seahorses most often fall ill to, mutates to produce more aggressive and virulent proteins at temps above 74 degrees, and also reproduces at a much quicker rate at those temps. I believe you are much more likely to have success with seahorses if you keep the temperature under 74; and the rest of your livestock should be fine with it.

Also, whenever mixing different sources of seahorses, I would recommend taking the temperature as close to 68 as you can during the first several weeks after introduction, and then maintaining a temperature under 74 degrees.

 

[roguemonk]

Just to be clear: You're talking about the temperature range for tropical seahorses? The literature I'd consulted in the past recommended 74 - 78 degrees for them, so I had targeted that range. You're saying that the common experience tells us that even the tropical species do better at a lower temp?

Thanks,

Brad

 

[ann83]

Thats right Brad. Subtropical and Temperate species need to be kept even lower. While tropical seahorse can handle higher temperatures in the wild, there are several factors involved, including an incredibly large water volume for dillution of bacterial pathogens, and the ability of seahorses to swim to deeper waters (which they often do) where waters are actually cooler. In the home aquarium, temperatures under 74 degrees are necessary to prevent bacterial infection in tropical seahorses. Seahorses are demersal, and in constant contact with surfaces carrying benthic bacteria, and they are scaleless, but not protected by a slime coat like other scaleless fish (i.e. gobies). This makes them more prone to infections. It has been mentioned a lot in this forum if you look back through old threads (or my old posts).

 

[roguemonk]

I am taking your advice. I was just surprised that this information has not yet percolated to the informational sites I have been consulting, and I wanted to be sure. I am glad to be better informed!

Thanks,

Brad

 

[ann83]

Brad, what sites have you been visiting? It is pretty well known on the two main seahorse hobbyist forums; seahorse.org and syngnathid.org. The articles posted on the sites are a bit out of date, but they are in the process of being revised. One of the problems is that the seahorse keeping hobby is relatively young and people have only been successfully keeping seahorses on large scale, and sharing their experiences to build on the collective knowledge of the hobby, for less than a decade. For that matter, there isn't a lot of research on seahorses in the wild either. So for that reason, what we know about seahorses is constantly changing. The "outdated" articles in the libraries on the forums are only 5 years old! So you can see why its easy to get misinformation.

 

[roguemonk]

I was looking mostly at seahorse.org documents, and some of what is on WetWebMedia. It didn't occur to me that there would be better information in the forums than in the up-front documentation. I know that in other forums I frequent there is about an equal distribution between good, solid information and stuff that is, to put it politely, not so solid. I don't know how to know the difference when I'm looking at unfiltered information that I can't corroborate elsewhere.

Thanks for setting me straight on this topic!

Brad