Ocean Rider Seahorse Farm and Tours | Kona Hawaii › Forums › Seahorse Life and Care › upside down swimming › Re:upside down swimming
Dear sea lover:
Okay, if your stallion’s pouch is not swollen or bloated, then you will not need to perform a pouch flush or to manually release the gas from his pouch. It sounds like he is suffering from forms of gas bubble disease (GBD) other than pouch emphysema. The gas bubbles on his tail are subcutaneous emphysema, which is a manifestation of external GBD, and it’s quite possible for the seahorse to have an overinflated swim bladder as well. Compressing the seahorse in a homemade decompression chamber can indeed be helpful for both of these conditions.
Under the circumstances, sea lover, your best procedure will be to try the recompression-decompression cure while you attempt to obtain the Diamox from other sources. You may be able to obtain some excess Diamox tablets from another seahorse keeper who has a supply on hand, or you can order some of the Diamox online without a prescription. It would take a week or two to receive the Diamox through the mail, but you can be treating the seahorse with decompression while you are waiting, and subcutaneous emphysema (i.e., tail bubbles) responds wonderfully well to treatment with the Diamox.
If you look over the post on the first page of this forum titled "GBD," it explains how to carry out the recompression-decompression procedure and also outlines other potential sources for obtaining the Diamox.
Best of luck resolving your H. kelloggi seahorses’s problems with GBD, sea lover. Please do make an effort to reduce the water temperature so that your H. kelloggi ponies will be more comfortable.
Respectfully,
Pete Giwojna