Re:Injured Snout

Pete,

I am back for more advice. As I mentioned earlier, I did the freshwater bath and he seemed some better and could eat more, but was still not up to par. Last night I did the formalin bath. I am not sure if I made it strong enough. I used the Formalin 3 and used about a teaspoon per gallon. The bottle said two teaspoons per gallon but you mentioned less and I didn’t want to get too much. The guy at the LFS store said not to use too much to. I left him in for 35-40 minutes. He seemed a little lathargic, so I took him out then. He did not appear any better after this. He is still eating some, but he is struggling with it. The other seahorse in the tank seems to be eathing normal, but seems a little less enthusiastic. I really thought the dip would at least initially perk him up, but it didn’t. Should I try treating the tank? I put him back in his regular tank because I really don’t have a hospital tank set up and I don’t know if I can set one up quickly. Don’t want to use water from the old tank if there are parasites. Also, I think it would be very stressful for each seahorse to be alone in a tank. The health one was swimming back and forth when her tank mate was gone.

I do have one sexy shrimp in the tank that I can move. The only other things I have are snails and crabs. I do have some neat starfish in the rocks though (they have very thin string like legs). I also have many bristle worms that I have been fighting for a while. I could move the rocks if necessary to another tank that I have some of the rocks in trying to get rid of worms and put the other rocks that are now rid of bristle worms back in.

Sorry to be long winded, but I want to get all the details in and I really want to get him well!

Thanks.

Sharon