Ocean Rider Seahorse Farm and Tours | Kona Hawaii › Forums › Seahorse Life and Care › Another sick seahorse! › Dear FishFace:
Dear FishFace:
Yes, sir, I think that you must plan at this point. You can transfer Hershey to a treatment tank and administer antibiotic therapy as soon as possible, that’s what I would recommend.
Your hospital ward or treatment tank does not need to be elaborate at all. A 5-10 gallon aquarium set up as explained below will work nicely:
Basic Hospital Tank set up
Live sand and live rock are not necessary in a hospital tank. A bare-bottomed aquarium with plenty of hitching posts will suffice for a hospital ward or Quarantine Tank (QT). Ideally, the hospital tank should have one or more foam filters for biofiltration along with a small external filter, which can easily be removed from the tank during treatment but which can hold activated carbon or polyfilter pads when it’s time to pull the meds out. It’s important for the hospital ward to include enough hitching posts so that the seahorse won’t feel vulnerable or exposed during treatment. Aquarium safe, inert plastic plants or homemade hitching posts fashioned from polypropylene rope or twine that has been unraveled and anchored at one end are excellent for a hospital tank. No aquarium reflector is necessary. Ambient room light will suffice. (Bright lights can breakdown and inactivate certain medications and seahorses are more comfortable and feel more secure under relatively dim lighting.)
So just a bare tank with hitching posts is all you need for your hospital ward. No heater. No reflector. No lights. No substrate. You can even do without the sponge filters or external filter in your case, just adding a couple of airstones to provide surface agitation and oxygenation. That’s it.
In a pinch, a clean 5-gallon plastic bucket (new and unused, NOT an old scrub bucket!) can serve as a makeshift hospital tank. It should be aerated and equipped with hitching posts and perhaps a heater, but nothing else. This makes a useful substitute when the Quarantine Tank is occupied or in use and a seahorse needs treatment.
Stay on top of water quality in the hospital tank/bucket with water changes as often as needed during treatment, and and when you are treating the occupants for a health problem, re-dose with the medication(s) according to directions after each water change.
Okay, FishFace, that’s how to prepare the simple hospital ward or treatment tank for pony.
I say mentioned in my previous post, you can obtain the antibiotics I recommended from National Fish Pharmaceuticals (a.k.a. the Fishy Farmacy).
It would also be helpful for me to know how long your seahorse tank has been up and running, sir.
Best of luck returning Hershey to good health again.
Respectfully,
Pete Giwojna, Ocean Rider Tech Support