Floating male, fixed problem wanted to share

Well, I started with a mated pair of Orange Sunbursts from Ocean Rider. I made my custom 65 gallon octagon aquarium, and made my 25 gallon sump with refugium and then bought a nice protein skimmer. This was the home to my Orange Sunburst, sadly for only a few months.

They (unknowingly to me) were being attacked by my Blenny. The male got stressed, floated and died. The female started recovering, was eating and doing well but then came down with a infection from one of the bite areas. I moved her to a hospital tank, but she died 2 days later.

Well during the fiasco and moving and healing…..well my aquarium grew with new pairs, all male female pairs. A pair of Kuda’s, a pair of Erectus (male with elongated ceri), pair of Reidi’s too. The Reidi’s have been mated, several times. The Kuda’s and Erectus are juveniles but doing great.

At the pet store buying b.shrimp and such and noticed the counter tank had a beautiful Reidi female but she had a few sores on her tail and a beautiful lined Erectus, but he was floating. What was horrible was it was a new style tank with a glass top that has no air, the water is up against the top, the poor male was stuck there and could not move.

I talked with the help and found out a woman had dropped them off there, stating she just could not take care of them. Said the male had been floating for days and quit eating. The staff was doing nothing but letting them sit in the tank, nothing at all.

Well I called the owner and got both the seahorses for a very low price…yeah he got them for free, they were both dying a very slow death, but he wanted money. So for $100 I got them both and took them home.

Well an hour later the male was in a 7 ft tall cylinder decompression tank with diamox and antibiotics. The female was in the hospital tank with m. blue and antibiotics. I was pretty sure the sores would heal on the female but the male, not knowing how long since he had gotten GBS or how long without eating…..just worried for the next three days.

Well both are in the main tank now with the other six and doing well. The female is beautiful bright yellow and the male still stays at the surface a bit but much better than on his side. I will give him another day and then I will use a syringe to remove air from the swim bladder. When I took him out of the decompression tank he sank fine. I don’t see him struggle to swim down but if need be and I do manually deflate his swim bladder a bit he will go back into the hospital tank for more antibiotics…..

I just can’t believe the LFS would have let them just die….luckily I have two new beautiful seahorse!!!!!

Pics available, just email us.

David and Sheena
San Jose, CA