looks like dry peeling skin?

Dear sea lover:

I’m very sorry to hear that you are having a problem with another of your Hippocampus kelloggi seahorses. In this case, it sounds like your seahorse has developed a serious bacterial infection commonly known as white tail disease or simply tail rot. This is a very common problem when seahorses are subjected to heat stress, and, unfortunately, H. kelloggi seahorses are very vulnerable to heat stress when they are maintained at standard aquarium temperatures. It now appears that the H. kelloggi seahorses are more comfortable and do best when maintained under temperate conditions at water temperatures of 68°F or below. When maintained under tropical conditions, at typical aquarium temperatures, the H. kelloggi seahorses are very susceptible to bacterial infections.

White tail disease is highly contagious and you will need to treat the seahorse with broad-spectrum antibiotics in a hospital tank, keeping it isolated from the rest of your ponies. Gradually lowering the water temperature in your treatment tank (dropping it no more than 2°F daily) will also be very beneficial.

If you look up an earlier post on this discussion forum titled "Seahorse worry," which was posted 01/24/2010, you will find the detailed discussion of tail rot (i.e., white tail disease) and the type of antibiotics that are typically most effective in treating the problem. If you copy the following URL, paste it into your Web browser, and press Enter, it will take you to the proper discussion:

http://www.seahorse.com/option,com_joomlaboard/Itemid,219/func,view/id,11654/catid,2/

In short, I would treat this problem like an ordinary case of tail rot, sea lover.

Best of luck treating this infection and healing your ailing seahorse.

Respectfully,
Pete Giwojna