OK, a quick update.
I killed off (or greatly shrunk) most of my aiptasia anemones by injecting them with Joe’s Juice. Seems to have been effective.
Last night I hand-caught my ailing seahorse, and put her in a 10-minute freshwater dip (with buffer for pH, 1hr water circulation for oxygen, RO/DI water, and temp equalization). I did get the "laying on the bottom" for awhile. Actually kind of funny, as she forced herself up a few times, and clearly gulped air from the surface of the water. I realized in hindsight that seahorses must be able to control buoyancy this way. By the end of ten minutes, she was floating kind of normally. Then I put her back in the main tank, and she bobbed like a cork at the surface! Until, about 5-10 seconds later, she seemed to take a huge gulp of saltwater, and then started sinking normally. Kind of interesting to observe an animal adapt so consciously to the difference in buoyancy between saltwater and fresh water.
Anyway, that was last night. Checked again this morning, and unfortunately there’s basically been no change. She’s still breathing rapidly. She’s basically lying horizontal in a single location, near the bottom of the tank. I put a huge collection of frozen mysis right under her nose, about 1cm away, and she showed zero interest — or even awareness. Eventually bristleworms wandered over the sand and started dragging the shrimp off, and the seahorse basically never moved.
I’m disappointed that her breathing and activity haven’t improved at all after the freshwater dip, and a night of "rest". It does seem that starvation is the biggest threat.
I’ll see what I can do about setting up a hospital tank. But getting the live food before she starves to death (and whether she’ll even try to hunt the live food) seems like the biggest worry.
Anyway, thanks for all your advice.
Ocean Rider, Inc. is an Organic Hawaiian-Based Seahorse Aqua-Farm & Aquarium that Follows Strict Good Farming Practices in Raising Seahorses and Other Aquatic Life.
