weak snick worse

Dear Carol:

I’m very sorry to hear that your exhausted male is struggling so much that he cannot eat slurp up and swallow the soft-bodied adult brine shrimp.

You mentioned that he was eating out of your fingertips — unless you want to try tube feeding the seahorse, I think your best bet at this point is to continue to try handfeeding, Carol. By handfeeding in this case I mean holding one entire, intact (whole and unbroken) frozen Mysis that you have carefully thawed in your fingertips and then placing the tail of the Mysid directly in the mouth of the seahorse. Many times the seahorse will simply spit it out again, but often if you can insert the Mysis into her open mouth far enough, her feeding instincts will kick in and take over so that she slurps up the frozen Mysis almost reflexively. That’s a much less stressful and less invasive method of force feeding a seahorse that sometimes works well (especially if the seahorse is accustomed to being hand fed and doesn’t shy away from the aquarist). Force feeding the seahorse by hand sounds much more difficult than it actually is, and seahorses will often respond well to this method of feeding, Claire. Even the professional curators at the large public aquariums will use this technique when their highly prized (and very expensive) seadragons are experiencing problems with weak snick, as explained in the discussion thread below:

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Has anyone had problems with syngnathids having a problem
getting food into their mouths? Currently I have a few ribbon
pipehorses (seadragons) that have lost the ability to take in food,
either live or frozen when attempting to eat. It is as if they have
lost the suction power when they attempt to snap up the food. They
can see the food and chase it and attempt to eat but don’t have
enough snap to create the suction needed to get the piece of food
into its mouth. Even when putting the affected animal in a smaller
tank with lots of food, it still can’t get the food in.
This condition seemed to develop even though the ribbon
pipehorses were eating aggressively before the problem started. They
were mainly eating frozen mysis and occasionally were fed live mysis.
I was thinking that possibly the diet of mainly frozen mysis could
not be enough for them nutritionally as they were developing??? Not
sure.
I have occasionally seen this problem before in weedy and
leafy seadragons as well as some seahorses.
Has anyone else had this problem? Any ideas of what may
cause this problem? Any ideas on how to get them to eat again? Has
anyone had luck with force feeding seadragons to get them to eat
again?

Thanks,
Leslee Matsushige

Leslee Matsushige (Yasukochi)
Assistant Aquarium Curator
Birch Aquarium at Scripps
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
University of California San Diego

Hi Leslee,
Over the years, we have seen mouth problems develop in some of our dragons. Sometimes it’s attributed to injury. Sometimes we don’t know what causes it, but we are often successful in getting them to recover on their own with just supportive feedings until we observe that they are back to catching food normally. Sometimes this can take a long time…as in a month or two of force feedings before they are back to catching enough on their own to sustain themselves.
Although I have not had experience force feeding ribbon dragons, I have both force fed and tube fed leafy and weedy seadragons. Typically, we force feed numerous frozen mysids to a sick dragon up to 3 times a day. By force feeding, I mean that we very gently place a mysid in the mouth of the animal and then lightly hold a finger in front of it so that it can’t easily spit out the food. Usually they learn pretty quickly that they are getting food this way and start to slurp mysids up as soon as they are put in their mouth. I usually try to get 6-10 mysids in per feeding. It takes good eyesight and a steady hand to make sure you don’t injure their mouth with this method. We have also tube fed using a thick slurry of cyclopeeze or pulverized and moistened pelleted food…usually giving around .3cc per feeding…though it’s dependent on the size of the animal. I think we usually use a 2-3mm french catheter cut down to fit on a small syringe. Again we do this 3 x day. We find that the animals do better with the frequent feedings and usually they go right back to searching for food after being released.
Teryl Nolan
Aquarium Supervisor
SeaWorld Florida

Hi Teryl,
Thanks for your response to my posting. We are currently trying to tube feed one of our leafy seadragons. We have been feeding it 1x/day for now to see how it handles the feedings.
I was wondering what was the size of the seadragon that you feed .3cc of the food slurry to? Our leafy is about 10-11 inches in length. I am not sure of the amount to feed. Since we are feeding only 1x/day we are trying .6cc per feeding.
Do you find force feeding or tube feeding to be better in certain situations? Our leafy still attempt to get the food but can not snap its jaw with enough force to get the food into its mouth.
When you force feed the seadragon do you hold it upsidedown? What do you use to put the mysid in its mouth? If you could give more details about force feeding that you think might be helpful, can you pass this on?
Your response has been helpful!
Thanks,
Leslee

In a message dated 7/16/2009 1:20:44 P.M. Central Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
Hi Leslee,
We usually feed our full-sized leafies just .3cc at each feeding. I don’t know that you can’t go higher, we just don’t. I try to be conservative and part of my philosophy about having to force feed them is that since they naturally tend to graze on food all day long, I like to feed them smaller amounts more frequently.

In our experience, the dragons usually go back to their normal routine after a tube or force feeding. If they were actively looking for food, but just not following through and eating it, that’s what they go back to. If prior to the feeding, they were acting pretty lethargic…maintaining a stationary position on the water, usually facing a wall, and not showing any interest in feeding…then we’ve noticed that after they get a little energy from the force feeding, they often come out, act a little more normally, and even show signs of hunting for food. The reason we started force feeding the sick ones 2-3x a day years ago, is because we see such a dramatic turn around in their behavior after they have gotten some food. If we don’t follow it up with another feeding that day, then they seem to lose steam and go back to their wall-facing behavior.

I’ve come to the point that I believe it’s better to force feed than to tube feed (unless I need to tube with an oral medication or the dragon won’t take the force feeding). If you have the very small mysids available because you purchase live or culture your own, that’s what I prefer to use. We freeze our mysids prior to feeding them out. If you lightly restrain the dragon, in an upright position, but completely under the water, I find it’s easier to use latex gloves and very carefully insert a small mysid into the dragon’s mouth tail first using my fingers. We can usually get them to eat 10-20 per feeding. They will usually slurp it up pretty quickly. Sometimes they spit them out the first couple times though. In which case, I lightly hold my finger in front of their mouth until they’ve swallowed the mysid. That keeps them from spitting them out completely…usually. We have a few that we hold under water and pour mysids in front of, then we just move them directly in front of the food and they slurp them up. I think they probably get more from the whole mysids than from the gruel.

We don’t even move them off exhibit unless there are other health issues. We just lean over the side of our system and handle the dragons quickly beneath the surface. Then release them. I think it is much less stressful on the animals if you don’t have to move them. They tolerate this extremely well in my experience and we have had numerous that required supplemental feedings for awhile, but then recovered.

I hope this helps!

Teryl Nolan
Aquarium Supervisor
SeaWorld Florida
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In short, Carol, if you can handfeed your stallion as described above, he should quickly realize that he is receiving nourishment and has nothing to fear from the approach of your hand. If he refuses the handfeedings and does not respond to the methylene blue, then you do not want to attempt to feeding the seahorse, then it may be time to put him out of his distress.

If euthanasia should become necessary, the "clove oil and tank water" technique discussed below is a perfectly painless procedure that can be performed by the home hobbyist:

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Humane Euthanization
Article by Aquatic expert, BuddyHolly

http://www.aquariumcorner.com/euthanization.htm

Clove Oil and Tank Water Method

Buy pure clove oil. You can get it at a health food store. For a larger fish such as a goldfish, you’ll want to make sure you have enough on hand. Two ounces minimum. Put the fish in a medium to large sized mixing bowl (depending on the size of the fish) in his own water from his tank. In a small jar or or something with a lid (I use a cleaned out jelly jar – about 6 ounces) mix the clove oil with tank water. Use ? ounce for bettas, an ounce for larger fish, and have more on hand for really large fish such as goldfish, oscars, pacus, etc. Put the lid on and shake it like crazy over and over until the liquid in it is white. Then pour a little into the mixing bowl with the fish. Swirl it with your hand. The fish might fight it just a little bit and then slow down. Then pour a little more in and swirl again. He should just go to sleep and appear dead. If he doesn’t, try a little more of the clove solution, always shaking very well before an addition to the bowl. When he goes to sleep, leave him in the solution for a good 10 minutes and then put him in a small cup or ziplock baggie and put him in the freezer. Pain free death. Very humane. We should all go so easily.
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Generally speaking, when you have had to resort to force feeding and the seahorse is still does not respond, there is not much more that can be done to save the seahorse and it may be time to consider ending the seahorse’s suffering.

Good luck with the handfeeding, Carol. Here’s hoping everything works out for the best.

Respectfully,
Pete Giwojna