Pete Giwojna

Okay, please do keep me informed.

If your male’s brood pouch is significantly enlarged and he is not having any buoyancy problems, and is in good appetite and behaving normally otherwise, then in all likelihood he is either pregnant and carrying developing young or he is performing pouch displays to impress the female and trying hard to get himself pregnant. If the pouch remains enlarged for more than three or four days with no sign of buoyancy problems or a tendency to float, then it’s usually safe to assume that the male is pregnant.

There are a couple of obvious tip offs that indicate mating has occurred you should keep in mind.

First of all, when a female ripens a clutch of eggs in preparation for mating, her lower abdomen becomes noticeably swollen, particularly around the area of the vent. When she subsequently mates and passes her eggs along to the male, she may then lose up to 30% of her body weight as a result. So if you notice that one of your females has slimmed down dramatically at the same time one of the male’s pouches has become enlarged, that could be an indication of a successful egg transfer.

As I mentioned briefly, the other rule of thumb to keep in mind is that if a stallion’s pouch remains enlarged for more than three or four days in a row, there is a good chance that an egg transfer may have taken place rather than that the male is simply showing off for the females by pumping up his brood pouch.

In addition to these obvious signs, there are also some more subtle behavioral changes that can alert and attentive aquarist to the fact that his male seahorse may be pregnant. Gravid males often behave somewhat differently; as their pregnancy progresses, they are less mobile and become real home bodies, since they cannot expose their developing brood to any unnecessary risks. They often tend to hole up and may even go into hiding; in the later stages of their pregnancy, they may go off their feed and may even miss a meal or two or fail to show up at the feeding station now and then.

Here are some other indications to look for which indicate mating has occurred and that the pregnancy is progressing normally:

Indications of Pregnancy.

If you witness the copulatory rise and exchange of eggs there is no doubt that mating has occurred and, knowing the date of conception, you can confidently begin the countdown toward the maternal male’s delivery date. Knowing approximately how long the gestation period will be allows plenty of time to prepare nursery tanks, set up a battery of brine shrimp hatcheries, and culture rotifers and ‘pods for the insatiable fry.

But what if you missed the big moment? How do you proceed if you missed the actual mating and transfer of eggs, and you’re not sure if you will soon be dealing with a gravid male and hordes of hungry newborns?

There are no aquatic obstetricians, underwater ultrasounds, blood tests or over-the-counter pregnancy tests to perform, and I shudder to think how one might go about collecting a urine specimen to dip! No worries. Fortunately, there are subtle signs and suggestions that indicate a pregnancy is underway. There are number of changes in the parents’ appearance and behavior to look for. For instance, the male and female will still continue to flirt, but the nature a their displays will change from full-blown courtship to regular greeting rituals.

After mating, in subsequent days the couple will continue to change colors and brighten up when in close proximity and dance together in an abbreviated version of courtship known as the Morning Greeting or Daily Greeting. The pair exhibits the same basic behaviors and maneuvers as when they were courting with one big difference — the male never “pumps” and the female does not “point.”

In addition, as the pregnancy progresses, the male’s pouch darkens due to the proliferation of epithelial and connective tissue and the placenta-like changes taking place in the wall of the marsupium, and the pouch gradually swells and expands according to the number of young developing within. The latter is not always a reliable indicator, however. Inexperienced couples often spill eggs during the exchange and a male’s first few broods are often inordinately small. The brood pouch of a male that is carrying only a few fetal fry is hardly any larger than normal, and hobbyists have often been surprised by unexpected births under such circumstances.

On the other hand, an experienced male carrying a large brood can be easily distinguished by his obviously expanding pouch. These mature breeders may carry broods numbering over 1600 fetal fry, depending of course on the species. A stallion incubating hundreds of fry will have an enormously distended pouch by the time his due date approaches.

Gravid males often become increasingly reclusive and secretive as their pregnancy advances. When the onset of labor and birth is imminent, the male will begin to shows signs of distress and his respiration rate will increase to 70-80 beats per minute. The fully developed young become very active and shake loose into the lumen of the pouch shortly before delivery. In some cases, the writhing of the young can be detected through the stretched membrane of the pouch, which causes the male considerable discomfort. He may become restless and agitated as a result, swimming slowly to and fro and pacing back and forth like, well — an expectant father. The fry are usually born in the early morning hours between midnight and dawn, arriving all at once or in multiple batches 24 hours apart.

So if you happen to miss the exchange of eggs, watch closely for the following indications that mating has occurred:

(1) A change in the physical appearance of the parents. The gravid male’s pouch will change from a light opaque color to a dark brown due to the elaboration of the internal structures and thickening of the walls of the pouch. It will enlarge steadily over the next few weeks as the young grow and develop, and the aperture will change from fully dilated to a tightly closed vertical slit. The female’s trunk will change from rotund, full with ripe eggs, to noticeably shrunken and pinched in immediately after the exchange of eggs.

(2) A change in the seahorses’ courtship displays. The pair will continue to flirt and dance and brighten in coloration as part of their Daily Greetings, but the male will no longer pump (no pouch displays) and neither the female nor the male will point. The pair will make no more copulatory rises.

(3) A change in the behavior of the male. He may become increasingly shy and reclusive. Gravid males may go off their feed as the delivery date approaches, missing meals or even going into hiding. When birth is imminent, he will become agitated and distressed and his respiration will increase markedly.

When you notice these telltale signs of pregnancy, it’s time to kick your brine shrimp hatchery into high gear and start some microalgae and rotifer cultures brewing.

Respectfully,
Pete Giwojna, Ocean Rider Tech Support

Dear Eric:

It sounds like your Hippocampus barbouri has developed a tail condition, a problem which is commonly known as white tail disease or tail rot. Heat stress is one of the factors associated with such infections, so check to see that your aquarium temperature is not creeping up into the 80°Fahrenheit range, sir.

I recommend a three-pronged treatment procedure for treating cases of white tail disease or tail rot: (1) broad-spectrum antibiotics added directly to the aquarium water in a hospital tank or treatment tank to combat the infection externally, (2) oral antibiotics to combat the infection internally, and (3) topical treatments of the affected area, it indicated.

The topical treatments should be attempted only if the seahorse is strong enough to withstand handling and tolerates the application of the topical medications well. Otherwise, the stress associated with handling the seahorse to administer the topical treatments can do more harm than good.

The topical treatment I find to be most helpful, especially when the tail rot has been detected in the early stages, is Debride Medicated Ointment, which can be especially beneficial when there has been tissue erosion or an open sore has developed.

Debride Medicated Ointment may be useful as a topical treatment for marine ulcer disease, tail rot or snout rot. It contains corticosteroids to reduce swelling and a local anesthetic to reduce pain and tenderness, as explained below in greater detail.

Debride Medicated Ointment

Debride is a medicated ointment that promotes prompt and complete healing of ulcers, mouth rot, fin rot, and tail rot, all symptoms of Aeromonas and Pseudomonas. Koi Care Kennel conducted extensive field trials on this product in 2001. We sent samples of Debride to over 100 hobbyist and dealers who had requested these samples and who had sick fish. The user’s evaluation came back at a 90% success rate.

Debride is safe to apply to the fish’s mouth and will not harm the gills. Debride contains Corticosteroide and topical anesthetic in a butylester copolymer Petroleum distillate carrier. Debride comes in two sizes, a 12 gram tube for approx. 20 applications and a 1 oz. (28.3 grams) tube for approx. 45 applications.

Suggested Retail Price: 12 gram tube $25.95 , 1 oz. (28.3 gram) $44.95

For best results, I would also recommend treating your seahorse with a good antiparasitic that is administered orally (by pretreating frozen Mysis with the meds). The reason for this is that tail rot is often the result of a mixed infection involving ciliates (certain protozoan parasites) as well as a bacterial or fungal infection. I recommend Seachem Metronidazole combined with Seachem Focus and Seachem Garlic Guard for this purpose, as discussed below:

Medicate your seahorses’ frozen Mysis with a good antiparasitic (Seachem Metronidazole) used together with an antibiotic (Seachem Focus) and then soak the medicated Mysis in Seachem Garlic Guard, which acts as an appetite stimulant. Your seahorses will ingest the medicated frozen Mysis and receive protection from potential bacterial and parasitic infections this way, which are possible contributing factors in any tail rot infection. The following information will explain how to use these products (Seachem Metronidazole, Seachem Focus, and Seachem Garlic Guard) properly to medicate the frozen Mysis.

<open quote>
Seachem Metronidazole Aquarium Fish Medication – 100 g

Product Description:
Parasitic and Bacterial infections don’t stand a chance with Metronidazole. When you find your fish infected with such nasty bugs as Ich or Hexamita, grab the Metronidazole and say goodbye to infection. This fast and effective treatment is safe for biological filtration and is easily removed with carbon after treatment. For freshwater or marine fish.

Specifications:
PACKAGE SIZE 100 GRAM
TREATS UP TO 265 TO 530 GALLONS
TYPE OF DISEASE BACTERIA, PARASITE
AQUARIUM TYPE FRESHWATER, SALTWATER
ACTIVE INGREDIENTS METRONIDAZOLE
FORM POWDER
INVERT SAFE WITH CAUTION

Instructions:
Do not use UV, ozone or chemical filtration during use.
Use 1-2 measures (each about 100 mg each) for each 10 gallons. Measurer included. Repeat every 2 days until symptoms disappear.

To feed, blend 1 measure with about 1 tablespoon of frozen food paste.
<close quote>

Okay, that’s the rundown on the Seachem Metronidazole, which comes in powder form and includes a little scoop for measuring the doses.

And here is the corresponding information for the Seachem Focus, which also comes in powder form with its own measuring scoop:

<open quote>
Seachem Laboratories Focus – 5 Grams Information

Focus ™ is an antibacterial polymer for internal infections of fish. It may be used alone or mixed with other medications to make them palatable to fish and greatly reduce the loss of medications to the water through diffusion. It can deliver any medication internally by binding the medication to its polymer structure. The advantage is that the fish can be medicated without treating the entire aquarium with medication. Fish find Focus™ appetizing and it may be fed to fish directly or mixed with frozen foods. Focus™ contains nitrofurantoin for internal bacterial infections. Marine and freshwater use. 5 gram container.

Types of Infections Treated:

Bacterial

Focus
DIRECTIONS: Use alone or in combination with medication of your choice in a 5:1 ratio by volume. Feed directly or blend with fresh or frozen food. Feed as usual, but no more than fish will consume. Use at every feeding for at least five days or until symptoms clear up.

Contains polymer bound nitrofurantoin.

Active ingredient: polymer bound nitrofurantoin (0.1%). This product is not a feed and
should not be fed directly. Its intended application is to assist in finding medications to fish food.
<close quote>

That’s the rundown on the Seachem Focus.

Here is the corresponding information for the Seachem Garlic Guard (pay special attention to the “Directions for Use,” which explains how to use the Garlic Guard together with Seachem Metronidazole and Seachem Focus properly):

<open quote>
Seachem Garlic Guard

* For fresh and saltwater fish, planted and reef aquariums
* Contains allicin, the active ingredient in garlic
* Contains ViSaran C for enhanced health benefits

Whet your fishes’ appetite with the natural healthful properties of garlic. Contains allicin, the active ingredient in garlic with powerful antioxidant properties that can lessen free radical damage to cells – plus ViSaran C for enhanced health benefits. For fresh and saltwater fish, planted and reef aquariums.

Directions for Use: Shake well before use. Soak food in Garlic Guard before feeding. For enhanced effectiveness against Ich and other parasites use Seachem’s Focus and Metronidazole as follows: Add 1 measure of Metronidazole to 1 measure of Focus per tablespoon of frozen food. Completely soak this food mix in Garlic Guard, refrigerate, and feed once or twice daily for 1-2 weeks.

Guaranteed Analysis
Garlic Extract 9900 ppm
Allicin 130 ppm
(active ingredient)
ViSaran C 1000 ppm
<close quote>

Okay, as you can see from the information above, it is actually quite easy to medicate the seahorse’s frozen Mysis using these products: You just use one scoop of the Seachem Metronidazole together with one scoop of the Seachem Focus for each tablespoon of the frozen Mysis you will be medicating, and then thoroughly soak the resulting mixture in Seachem Garlic Guard. The medicated frozen Mysis and then be fed directly to the seahorses and any excess can be frozen for later use.

Feed the affected seahorse(s) twice a day using Mysis that you have medicated as explained above for at least five straight days and that will help the healing process.

The metronidazole will eliminate any protozoan parasites that may be contributing to this tail problem, while the nitrofuran antibiotic in the Seachem Focus helps to combat secondary infections after being absorbed into the bloodstream from the seahorse’s gut. This will allow you to fight infection internally at the same time the neomycin sulfate and sulfa drugs in the aquarium water are combating the infection externally.

Call around to your local pet shops and fish stores to find one who carries products from Seachem Laboratories, and they should have all of the products above. If not, they are all readily available online from many different sources.

Here is some additional information tail rot for future notice that you may find helpful:

White Tail Disease or Tail Rot:
Ulcerative Dermatitis of the Tail Tip

Tail rot, a.k.a. white tail disease or ulcerative dermatitis of the tail tip, can result from a number of causes. It can develop when a mechanical injury to the tail, such as a cut or scrape, becomes infected. Certain ciliates and protozoan parasites can attack the skin of seahorses, and when their integument is compromised, secondary bacterial and fungal infections may set in, resulting in tail rot. Likewise, cnidarian stings or the embedded spicules from a bristleworm can become infected and lead to tail rot. Many times an underlying bacterial infection (Vibrio, Pseudomonas or Mycobacterium) may be the primary cause of the tissue erosion and ulceration that’s so characteristic of tail rot. It is often associated with heat stress, particularly in temperate seahorses that have experienced a temperature spike during a summertime heat wave.

The tip of the tail is especially prone to infection because blood-oxygen levels are often deficient in the extremities — oxygen tension is lowest in the most distal part of the tail — and the bacteria that are responsible for tail rot prefer a low oxygen environment. A dirty substrate can be a contributing factor in some cases, and stress is almost always involved. The seahorse’s tail is prone to scrapes and abrasions as well as injuries such as stings from anemones or bristleworm spicules because it is used to grasp objects and often in contact with the substrate.

Disease-causing (pathogenic) bacteria such as the ones that cause tail rot are opportunistic invaders that are normally present in low numbers but don’t cause problems until the fish is injured, stressed, infested with parasites or otherwise weakened (Indiviglio, 2002). They will then take advantage of the overtaxed seahorse’s impaired immune system and reproduce extremely quickly, causing a variety of illnesses and problems (Basleer, 2000). Some of these are specific to seahorses, such as snout rot and white tail disease, and others are common to all fishes (e.g., Mycobacteriosis).

A progressive loss of prehensility and increasing discoloration beginning at the tip of the tail are the initial stages of tail rot or white tail disease. As I mentioned, it often affects the most distal portions of the tail first, where the oxygen tension is lowest and the blood circulation is the poorest, which seems to make the tail tip particularly susceptible to such infections.

Here is an excerpt on tail rot from my new book (Complete Guide to the Greater Seahorses in the Aquarium, unpublished):

White Tail Disease (Tail Rot)

As you might expect, this problem is due to an infection that attacks the tails of seahorses. The tip of the tail typically turns white and, as the infection spreads, the whiteness moves progressively up the tail and ulcers or open sores begin to form where the skin peels away (Giwojna, Oct. 2003).

Hobbyists usually refer to this problem as Tail Rot or White Tail Disease, but the disease is already well advanced by the time whitening or tissue erosion occurs (Giwojna, Oct. 2003). Early detection makes it much easier to get these infections under control. Some of the early indicators of a tail infection to watch for are discussed below.

The disease begins with a loss of prehensility in the very tip of the tail (Giwojna, Oct. 2003). At this stage, the seahorses can grasp large objects just fine, but cannot take hold of slender objects with a small diameter (Leslie Leddo, pers. com.). Next the loss of prehensility spreads further up the tail and the seahorses begin to act as if their tails are very tender and sensitive. They will drape their tails over objects rather than grasping onto them and begin to drag their tails behind themselves, often arching the end of their tail upward in the shape of “U” (rather than the usual “J” or tight coil) as if to lift it off the ground and keep it from touching anything (Leddo, pers. com.).

This is usually when the tip of the tail becomes white and the loss of coloration starts advancing further and further up the tail (Giwojna, Oct. 2003). At this point, the discolored skin begins to flake or lift up and open wounds and ulcers develop on the most distal portions of the tail (Giwojna, Oct. 2003). The infection attacks the underlying tissues, and the tail is gradually eaten away, often all the way to the bone, exposing the vertebrae (hence the name Tail Rot). Survivors may end up missing the last few segments of their tail (Giwojna, Oct. 2003).

White tail disease is highly contagious disease. I have seen it often in temperate seahorse species suffering from heat stress, as well as in crowded nursery tanks where it spreads through the fry like wildfire (Giwojna, Oct. 2003).

Infected seahorses should be treated with antibiotics in isolation at the first sign of a loss of prehensility in the tip of their tails (otherwise the antibiotics may harm the biofilter in your main tank, creating more problems). There are a number of treatment options to consider, and the following antibiotics have proven to be effective in treating tail rot in seahorses in some cases:

Enrofloxin (brand name Baytril) — a potent prescription antibiotic that can be difficult for the home hobbyists to obtain;

Tetracycline or oxytetracycline (but ONLY when administered orally);

Minocycline (e.g., Maracyn-Two Powder Saltwater by Mardel or a combination of MarOxy + Maracyn-Two);

Sulfa 4 TMP (four different sulfas plus trimethoprim) — National Fish Pharmaceuticals;

TMP Sulfa (trimethoprim and sulfathiazole sodium) — Maracyn Plus by Mardel; National Fish Pharmaceuticals;

Neosulfex or Neo3 (neomycin + sulfa antibiotics) — unfortunately, no longer available

Neomycin sulfate + triple sulfa (both available from National Fish Pharmaceuticals)

Kanamycin sulfate + triple sulfa (both available from National Fish Pharmaceuticals)

Furan2

Nitrofuracin Green (equivalent to Furan 2) — National Fish Pharmaceuticals

We’ll discuss each of these medications and how best to administer them to your ponies in some detail below. Hopefully, you will be able to obtain one or more of them in your area:

Enrofloxin (brand name Baytril)

Baytril (Enrofloxacin) is a powerful new broad-spectrum antibiotic that increasingly used to treat infections of the urinary tract, skin, prostate, gastrointestinal system, liver, ears, and lungs in humans. It is affective against both gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria and is widely used in aquaculture to treat marine fish. It belongs to a relatively new class of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones, which are effective against a wide variety of bacteria, and is now being used in the aquaculture industry to treat bacterial infections in valuable fish. Baytril is a more potent antibiotic than aminoglycosides such as kanamycin or neomycin, but you will probably have to obtain it from your veterinarian. In liquid form, enrofloxin (Baytril) can be administered either by injection at around 10mg/kg bodyweight every other day or administered orally.

In order to determine the proper dosage for the intramuscular injections, you need to be able to weigh the seahorses accurately, and you must obtain the injectable form of the medication.

Due to their bony exoskeleton, injections are particularly challenging with seahorses. Seahorses store their limited fat reserves primarily in their tail, which is the most muscular part of their body. The meaty part at the base of the tail is best suited for IM injections. If you attempt the intramuscular injections, I would suggest targeting the base of the tail a short distance below the pouch using a ventral approach with a shallow angle of attack. The needle should be directed between the scutes/plate margins for ease of penetration through the skin. The external area can be rinsed with sterile saline or a drop of a triple antibiotic ophthalmic solution applied prior to needle penetration.

The Baytril can also be administered orally by tube feeding it to the seahorse, which is helpful when the seahorse is not eating, but it is a stressful procedure for the seahorse. Here are the instructions for administering the Baytril orally, courtesy of Ann at the org:

ENROFLOXACIN Oral Dosage and Preparation Instructions
Active Ingredient: Enrofloxacin
Indication: bacterial infection
Brandnames: Baytril
The following information is based on the most commonly available tablet sizes for Enrofloxacin/Baytril
available in the US and abroad and an average sized seahorse of approximately 10 grams.
Tube feed the seahorse 0.1mg of Enrofloxacin once a day for 10 days.
Day 1 – 10 of Treatment
• Crush 1/4 of a 68mg or 50mg tablet into a fine powder.
• Use a mini-blender or small hand-blender to thoroughly mix the powder with marine water. Mix 1/4 of a
68mg tablet with 85mL of marine water. Mix 1/4 of a 50mg tablet with 62.5mL of marine water.
• Fill a small syringe with 0.5mL of the solution.
• Tube feed the seahorse just as if you were force-feeding the pony to provide nutritional support.
• Throw out the unused Enrofloxacin and marine water solution. You will need to make new solution daily because Enrofloxacin breaks down quickly in saltwater causing it to become completely ineffective by the next day.

Important Notes:
Enrofloxacin is available only by prescription from a veterinarian.

Enrofloxacin International Version – Tablets are produced in 15mg, 50gm, 150mg, & a 2.5% injectable solution

Enrofloxacin US Version – Tablets are produced in 22.7mg, 68mg, 136mg, & a 2.27% injectable solution

If you are able to ascertain the exact weight of your seahorse you may want to adjust the dosage as necessary to get the most benefit from the medication. In such an instance you would dose Enrofloxacin at 0.01mg of the medication per gram of body weight.
A veterinarian who works regularly with small exotics will be familiar with the proper way to dilute injectable Enrofloxacin solution to fit your needs.

Here are the instructions for adding the Baytril directly to the hospital tank, rather than injecting it or giving it orally:

If you obtain the tablet form of Baytril rather than the liquid, just add one 90.7 mg tablet (or the equivalent) per 10 gallons to the filter box on the treatment tank each day for 3-5 consecutive days. The circulation of the water through the filter will dissolve the antibiotic tablet and dispersed throughout the aquarium. If you don’t have an external filter on your hospital tank in which to dissolve the Baytril tablet, then just crush it into a very fine powder and dissolve it in the treatment tank as thoroughly as possible. Repeat the procedure for three consecutive days.

The tablet dosages are recommended by Dr. Peter Hill, DVM for the Newport Aquarium, and were intended for a 10-gallon hospital tank. In other words, the dosage of Baytril he recommends is one 90.7 mg tablet per 10 gallons of water (or ~45 mg Baytril/5 gallons if you are using a five-gallon hospital tank or a 10-gallon tank that’s half filled with water). This dosage should be repeated for 3-5 consecutive days. In short, the treatment regimen for prolonged immersion in your hospital tank would be as follows:

Day 1: Baytril — one 90.7 mg tablet/10 gallons
Day 2: Baytril — one 90.7 mg tablet/10 gallons
Day 3: Baytril — one 90.7 mg tablet/10 gallons

Note: enrofloxin/Baytril is most effective when injected or administered orally; the bath treatments are less effective and typically must be maintained for at least a week or more in order to be helpful in treating tail rot.

Tetracycline Antibiotics

Unlike enrofloxin, tetracycline and oxytetracycline are widely available to home hobbyists over the counter, without a prescription, and are relatively inexpensive. They can be very effective in treating infection such as tail rot in seahorses, but ONLY when they are ministered orally after bioencapsulation in feeder shrimp. This means they are only helpful in cases where the affected seahorse is still eating normally, which is often the case with tail rot in the early stages. (The tetracycline antibiotics are useless when added to the aquarium water in a saltwater tank, because calcium and magnesium bind to the medications and deactivate them when the pH is 7.6 or above.) So the only way tetracycline antibiotics can be used effectively with seahorses is to gutload feeder shrimp with the medication or, alternatively, to soak frozen Mysis in the proper concentration of the medication, and then feed the medicated Mysis to the seahorses.

If you can obtain live adult brine shrimp, the feeder shrimp can be gut loaded with the tetracycline antibiotics and then fed to the seahorses. In that case, the best way to administer the tetracycline would be to bioencapsulate it in live adult brine shrimp and then to feed the medicated shrimp to the ailing seahorse.

Many times the most effective way to administer antibiotics orally is by bioencapsulating or gutloading them in live shrimp, which are then fed to the seahorses. The easiest way to gutload antibiotics is to bioencapsulate them in live adult brine shrimp (Artemia spp.), as described below. The recommended dosage of antibiotic for this varies between 100-250 mg per liter or about 400-1000 mg per gallon of water. Stay within that range and you should be all right.

In the case of tetracycline, I recommend using 500 mg per gallon of freshwater for bioencapsulating the antibiotic in adult brine shrimp. Tetracycline is a photosensitive drug, so keep the container of freshwater covered to shield it from the light or in a relatively dark area of the room while you are gutloading the brine shrimp.

If the antibiotic you are using comes in tablet form, crush it into a very fine powder (you may have to use a household blender to get it fine enough) and dissolve it in freshwater at the dosage suggested above. Soak the adult shrimp in freshwater treated with the antibiotic for 30 minutes and then feed the medicated shrimp to your seahorses immediately. (Don’t let your pumps and filters “eat” all the brine shrimp!)

The brine shrimp are soaked in freshwater, not saltwater, because in theory the increased osmotic pressure of the freshwater helps the antibiotic solution move into their bodies via osmosis. But in fact nobody knows for sure whether the antibiotic is diffusing into the brine shrimp or they are ingesting it in very fine particles (brine shrimp are filter feeders and will take in whatever is suspended in the water with them) or whether the brine shrimp merely become coated with the antibiotic while they are soaking in it. But that’s not important — all that really matters is that gut-loading adult brine shrimp with medications this way is effective.

The antibiotics I would recommend for gutloading in most cases are tetracycline or oxytetracycline. Tetracycline is widely available for aquarium use, so you should easily be able to get a product at your LFS in which the primary ingredient is tetracycline, such as Maracyn-TC by Mardel Labs or Tetracycline MS by Fishvet. These products generally include 250 mg capsules or tablets of tetracycline, or packets of 500 mg tetracycline powder, which would make it easy for you to determine the right amount to add to 1 gallon of freshwater in which to soak your brine shrimp to gutload them with the antibiotic. (Just add two of the 250 mg capsules or crushed up tablets — i.e., 500 mg worth — of the tetracycline to a gallon of water.) Or in the case of the Tetracycline MS, use one 500 mg packet per gallon of freshwater.

Although tetracycline and oxytetracycline generally work very well when administered orally, they are all but useless when used as bath treatments for marine fish. This is because the calcium and magnesium in hard water or saltwater bind to tetracycline and oxytetracycline, rendering them inactive (Yanong, US Dept. of Agriculture). In addition, tetracycline and oxytetracycline are photosensitive drugs and will decompose when exposed to light. So these drugs are very useful for seahorses when they are administered via bioencapsulation, but they are utterly ineffective when added to the water in a saltwater aquarium are hospital tank (Yanong, USDA). This is another reason why you must soak the live adult brine shrimp in freshwater when gutloading them with tetracycline or oxytetracycline.

Gutloading the adult brine shrimp in freshwater has several advantages. First of all, it disinfects the brine shrimp (the osmotic shock in going from concentrated saltwater to freshwater will kill off any protozoan parasites the brine shrimp may have been carrying). Secondly, the freshwater increases the effectiveness of the gutloading process by allowing some of the medication to enter the body of the brine shrimp via osmosis. And gutloading the adult brine shrimp in freshwater saves the hobbyist from having to mix up fresh saltwater every day in order to medicate the adult Artemia. Just use dechlorinated/detoxified freshwater as described above, and everything should go smoothly. But the most important reason that you gutload the adult brine shrimp in freshwater when you are using tetracycline or oxytetracycline is that these medications will be deactivated in saltwater and rendered useless if you attempted to bioencapsulate the medication in adult brine shrimp that are in saltwater.

I would feed your seahorses their fill of adult brine shrimp gutloaded with tetracycline once a day for 7-10 days. Gutload a new portion of the adult brine shrimp each day for the seahorses’ first feeding of the day when they are the most hungry. So that would be a total of 7-10 feedings, one per day, using adult brine shrimp gutloaded with the tetracycline. Give the seahorses a second feeding of frozen Mysis enriched with Vibrance later in the day. The Vibrance includes beta glucan as an active ingredient, which is in an immune stimulant that will help the seahorses to fight off any infections.

It is impossible to determine precisely what dosage of medication each individual fish ingests when gutloading, but the tetracycline antibiotics are very safe to use for this application and you really cannot overdose a seahorse using this method of treatment. Feeding each seahorse its fill of shrimp gut-loaded with tetracycline for 7-10 days assures that they receive an effective dose of the medication. As long as each seahorse is getting its share of the medicated brine shrimp every day during the treatment period, you needn’t be concerned if one of the ponies is eating more than the others.

As I mentioned above, tetracycline in oxytetracycline can be effective treatments for tail rot when they are administered orally. However, they are useless as bath treatments for marine fishes. This is because calcium and magnesium bind to tetracycline and oxytetracycline, rendering them inactive (Roy Yanong, US Department of Agriculture). Adding tetracycline or oxytetracycline to saltwater in a hospital tank is therefore completely ineffective (Yanong, USDA), but administering the antibiotics orally can produce good results.

Minocycline Antibiotic

Minocycline is another helpful antibiotic for treating white tail disease (i.e., tail rot). It is the active ingredient in Maracyn-Two Powder Saltwater by Mardel Labs (Maracyn-Two consists of minocycline together with a complex of B-vitamins). Maracyn-Two is readily available over the counter from aquarium stores and pet shops that carry fish.

Maracyn-Two Powder Saltwater by Mardel Labs
Active Ingredient
Each powder packet contains 20 mg Minocycline activity. 15.00 Pantothenic Acid, 8.60 mg Riboflavin, 2.60 mg Thiamine Mononitrate, 2.60 Pyridoxine Hydrochloride.
NOTE:
Be sure to treat for the full duration recommended, even if symptoms disappear after a few days. DO NOT overdose. Follow dosage directions as detailed on the product packaging.
Dosing Instructions
First day, add 2 packets per 20 gallons of water. On the second through fifth day, add 1 packet per 20 gallons of water.
Repeat this 5 day treatment only once if needed.
Special Notes on Diagnosis
Diagnosis of bacterial infections and parasitic infestations in salt and freshwater fish is very difficult, even for the most advanced aquarist.

For best results, consider combining Maracyn-Two with MarOxy by Mardel Labs. It can be difficult to determine whether tail rot is due to a bacterial infection, a fungal infection, or a mixed infection, and the combination of Maracyn-Two plus MarOxy will be helpful regardless of the nature of the underlying infection:

MarOxy by Mardel labs
Safe, stable and non-staining, MarOxy treats fungal as well as bacterial diseases, such as clamped fins, swollen eyes, and patchy coloration. Use of a hospital tank is recommended. Active ingredient: stabilized chlorine oxides. 1/2 teaspoon per 10 gallons daily, for no more than 5 days. 1 oz. treats 25 gallons for 5 days. For fresh and saltwater.

Sulfa drugs combined with trimethoprim can also be very helpful for treating tail rot. The most potent of these synergistic combinations are Sulfa 4 TMP and TMP Sulfa.

Sulfa 4 TMP Powder

USE: this is a special blend of four different sulfas that all have different absorption rates and solubility. The sulfas are combined with trimethoprim, which potentiates each other’s ability to kill bacteria. The result is a wide spectrum antibiotic with less chance of resistant strains developing.

DOSAGE: 1/4 teaspoon per 20 gallons of water. (1/2 pound treats 3640 gallons of water.)

TMP Sulfa (trimethoprim and sulfathiazole sodium)

USE: for treating bacterial infections, both gram-negative and gram-positive. The combination of trimethoprim plus sulfathiazole sodium retards resistant strains from developing. It exerts its antimicrobial effect by blocking 2 consecutive steps in the biosynthesis of the nucleic acids and proteins essential to many bacteria.

DOSAGE: add 1/4 teaspoon per 10 gallons of water every 24 hours, with a 25% water change before each daily treatment. Treat for a minimum of 10 days.

(1/4 pound treats approximately 940 gallons of water.)
*More effective than triple sulfa.

Both Sulfa 4 TMP and TMP Sulfa can be obtained online without a prescription from National Fish Pharmaceuticals at the following URL:

http://www.fishyfarmacy.com/products.html

As an alternative, Maracyn Plus by Mardel Labs is another effective medication that combines a sulfa drug with trimethoprim to combat tail rot, and which is commonly available at pet shops and fish stores:

Maracyn Plus by Mardel labs
Directions for Use:
Add one capful (10ml) per 10 gallons of water. Treat on days 1, 3, and 5. Use as soon as the first signs of disease are noted. Treated water may appear cloudy at first due to the presence of the microscopic spheres. All cloudiness will be gone within 30 minutes to 1 hour after treatment. Maintain normal filtration and air during treatment.
Active Ingredients: Sulfadimidine and Trimethoprin
General Information:
Maracyn Plus is a broad-spectrum antibiotic for controlling the bacteria that cause mouth fungus, fin and tail rot, Popeye, dropsy and ulcers.
Benefit: Maracyn Plus makes use of a revolutionary technology that delivers the antibiotic directly to the fish. Multi-layered micro-spheres attach to the fish and break down one layer at a time releasing the antibiotics in a controlled regulated manner. A filming agent, Chitosan, which has a molecular structure similar to the natural mucous coat of a fish, seals the treatment in contact with the tissue surface.
Use: Contains two powerful broad-spectrum antibiotics that are effective against the bacteria that cause Fin and Tail rot, Popeye, Dropsy, Ulcers, and “Mouth and Body Fungus”. As the bio-spheres attach to the fish, they form a protective medicated layer over the fish’s skin that kills the infecting bacteria and prevents re-infection. The healing properties of chitosan speed up the regeneration of damaged tails, fins, mouths and skin. For use in fresh and saltwater aquariums.

Neosulfex and Neo3 — both broad-spectrum antibiotics consisting of neomycin combined with sulfa compounds to produce a potent synergistic combination of antibacterials — are the antibiotics home hobbyist choose to rely on most often for treating tail rot. Unfortunately, neither of these combination medications are available any longer.

However, many hobbyists have been getting similar results by creating their own version of these medications by combining neomycin sulfate with various sulfa compounds. One that seems to work well is combining neomycin sulfate with triple sulfa. You may be able to get neomycin sulfate and triple sulfa compound at a well-stock LFS. If not, you can obtain both neomycin sulfate powder and triple sulfa powder from National Fish Pharmaceuticals without a prescription. You can order them online at the following site:

http://www.fishyfarmacy.com/products.html

Kanamycin sulfate used alone or in conjunction with neomycin sulfate would also be an excellent choice for treating tail rot, both of which can be combined safely with triple sulfa.

Kanamycin sulfate powder

USE: Gram-negative bacteria for resistant strains of piscine tuberculosis and other bacterial infections. Works especially well in salt water aquariums.

DOSAGE 1/4 teaspoon per 20 gallons of water. Treat every 24 hours with a 25% water change before each treatment. Treat for 10 days. For piscine tuberculosis, use for up to 30 days.

This is a potent broad-spectrum, gram+/gram- antibiotic. It is
wonderfully effective for aquarium use because it is one of the few
antibiotics that dissolves well in saltwater and that is readily
absorbed through the skin of the fish. That makes it the treatment of
choice for treating many bacterial infections in seahorses. Kanamycin
can be combined safely with neomycin to further increase its
efficacy. Like other gram-negative antibiotics, it will destroy your
biofiltration and should be used in a hospital tank only.

Neomycin sulfate powder

USE: Gram-negative bacteria (Pseudomonas), piscine tuberculosis and other bacterial infections. Works well in freshwater or saltwater aquariums.

DOSAGE 1/4 teaspoon per 10 gallons of water. Treat every 24 hours with a 25% water change before each treatment. Treat for 10 days. For piscine tuberculosis, use for up to 30 days.

Neomycin is a very potent gram-negative antibiotic. Most of
infections that plague marine fish are gram-negative, so neomycin
sulfate can be a wonder drug for seahorses (Burns, 2002). As
mentioned above, it can even be combined with other medications such
as kanamycin or nifurpirinol for increased efficacy. For example,
kanamycin/neomycin is tremendous for treating bacterial infections,
while nifurpirinol/neomycin makes a combination that packs a heckuva
wallop for treating mixed bacterial/fungal infections or problems of
unknown nature. Keep it on hand at all times.

Neomycin will destroy beneficial bacteria and disrupt your biological
filtration, so be sure to administer the drug in a hospital tank.

Triple Sulfa Powder

USE: for treatment of gram-negative infections, fin and tail rot, mouth fungus, collapsed fins, columnaris.

DOSAGE: add 1/4 teaspoon per 10 gallons of water every 24 hours, with a 25% water change before each daily treatment. Treat for a minimum of 10 days.

You can get both kanamycin sulfate and neomycin sulfate, as well as triple sulfa, from the following vendor:

http://www.fishyfarmacy.com/products.html

Furan 2

Furan2 is a good combo medication that consist of two nitrofuran antibiotics (nitrofurazone and furazolidone), often combined with good old methylene blue. That gives it both bacteriostatic and bactericidal properties, and makes it active against various gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria. The methylene blue stains the water in the treatment tank as and prevents the photosensitive nitrofuran antibiotics from being deactivated by light. Methylene blue is effective in preventing fungal growth, and it has antiprotozoal and antibacterial properties as well, by virtue of its ability to bind with cytoplasmic structures within the cell and interfere with oxidation-reduction processes. This makes the combination of methylene blue, nitrofurazone and furazolidone very broad spectrum and quite potent. Furan2 is especially effective for treating mild skin infections.

However, you have to take special precautions when administering nitrofuran antibiotics such as Furan2 because they are photosensitive and can be deactivated by light. That means you’ll need to darken the hospital tank while you treat the seahorse(s). Do not use a light on your hospital tank, cover the sides of the tank with black construction paper or something similar, and keep an opaque lid or cover on the aquarium during the treatments. Remove this cover from the aquarium only long enough to feed your seahorses.

Furan2 can be administered either as a bath (less effective) or orally via gutloaded feeder shrimp (best). Here are the instructions for both methods (again, courtesy of and at the org):

FURAN-BASED MEDS (immersion) Dosage and Preparation Instructions for a 10g/38L Hospital Tank
Active Ingredients: Nitrofurazone and Furazolidone
Indication: bacterial infection
Brand Names: Furan-2, Furanase, Binox, BiFuran+, Fura-MS, Furazolidone Powder
Dose daily for 10 days. Disregard package info concerning dosing frequency and water changes.
Replace the medication in ratio to the amount of water changed daily as needed to control ammonia.
This product is best administered by feeding it to adult live brine shrimp, then in turn. feeding those animals to the Seahorse. If this is not an option, it may be administered as follows.
DAY 1 of Treatment
• Thoroughly mix the medication with about 1 cup of marine water.
• Pour the mixture into a high-flow area of the hospital tank.
DAYS 2 – 10 of Treatment
• Perform a 50% water change.
• Thoroughly mix the medication with about 1 cup of marine water.
• Pour the mixture into a high-flow area of the hospital tank.

Here are the instructions for gut loading live adult brine shrimp with the Furan2, (courtesy of Ann):

FURAN-BASED MEDS (oral) Dosage and Preparation Instructions for a 10g/38L Hospital Tank
Active Ingredients: Nitrofurazone and/or Furazolidone
Indication: bacterial infection
Brand Names: Furan-2, Furanase, Binox, BiFuran+, FuraMS, Furazolidone Powder
Feed adult brine shrimp gut-loaded with medication to the Seahorse 2x per day for 10 days.
• Add a small amount of the medication to one gallon of water and mix thoroughly.
• Place the amount of adult brine shrimp needed for one feeding into the mixture. Leave them in the mixture for at least 2hrs.
• Remove the adult brine shrimp from the mixture and add them to the hospital tank.
• Observe the Seahorse to be certain it is eating the adult brine shrimp.

A very effective technique for gut loading live adult brine shrimp with Furan2 is to set up a clean, plastic pail or bucket filled with 1 gallon of freshly mixed saltwater, and then to add one packet of Furan 2 to the bucket of water. Next, add a generous portion of well-rinsed adult brine shrimp and let them soak in the bucket of medicated water for at least two hours, in order to bioencapsulate the antibiotics in the brine shrimp.

You will be performing a 50% water change in your 10-gallon hospital tank daily to maintain good water quality, and you should be sure to include the 1 gallon bucket of medicated water and all of the live adult brine shrimp that have been soaking in it as part of this water exchange. (In other words, the bucket of medicated water will account for one of the 5 gallons of newly mixed saltwater you add to the 10-gallon hospital tank daily.) This way, you will be adding the excess Furan 2 from the medicated bucket of water to the treatment tank as well as the gutloaded adult brine shrimp, thus helping to assure that the affected seahorse receives a good dose of the medication.

Nitrofuracin Green (equivalent to Furan2)

This is National Fish Pharmaceuticals’ special formula of nitrofurazone, furazolidone, methylene blue, and sodium chloride.

USE: anti-microbial, anti-protozoan, antibacterial, and anti-fungal. Wide spectrum. Good for newly arrived fish in quarantine situations. Also be good for healing wounds and ammonia burns on newly arriving fish. Widely used for shipping or packing water. Works well for sores on fish in Koi ponds.

DOSAGE: add 1/4 teaspoon per 20 gallons every 24 hours, with a 25% water change before each daily treatment. Treat for 10 days.

Okay, those are good antibiotics to consider when treating a case of white tail disease or tail rot, and hopefully one of them will be in your fish will medicine cabinet are readily available from one of your local fish stores.

At the same time, begin treating the seahorse with metronidazole and a nitrofuran antibiotic orally by feeding them frozen Mysis that have been medicated using Seachem Metronidazole, Seachem Focus, and Seachem Garlic Guard, as we discussed previously in this post.

Best of luck resolving this tail problem and restoring your seahorse to good health again.

Respectfully,
Pete Giwojna, Ocean Rider Tech Support

©Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. Permission to reproduce is granted by the author (Peter Giwojna) for your personal use only and is not transferable without written permission by Ocean Rider and the original author.

Dear Desa:

Yes, a 30 gallon aquarium meets the minimum size requirements for a large pair of Mustangs (Hippocampus erectus), and tall tanks like your hexagonal aquarium are a good choice for seahorses because the increased depth and hydrostatic pressure can help keep them healthy.

In short, Desa, your 30-gallon hex tank has good dimensions and has very nice water depth to help protect the ponies against gas bubble syndrome, which is very desirable. However, because the surface area in a tall, vertically oriented tank like yours is minimal, you’ll have to be extra careful to make sure the tank has plenty of surface agitation as well as good top-to-bottom water circulation in order to be sure that the tank is well oxygenated and that you don’t have any problems with gas stratification, as explained below in more detail:

The Importance of Surface Agitation

Because the height of the aquarium is an important consideration for a seahorse tank in order to allow the seahorses to mate comfortably during the copulatory rise and to protect them against depth-related conditions such as gas bubble syndrome, many seahorse keepers opt for tall hexagonal or column tanks rather than the usual rectangular aquarium setups. That’s just fine and hex tanks and column tanks can work very well for seahorses providing they are large enough and the aquarist is careful to provide them with good surface agitation in order to assure good oxygenation.

That’s important, because the amount of dissolved oxygen in an aquarium is dependent primarily on three factors: the surface area of the tank, the water circulation in the aquarium, and the amount of surface agitation in the tank. Gas exchange takes place only at the air/water interface or surface of the aquarium, which is where clean oxygen enters the aquarium water and dissolved carbon dioxide is off-gassed, leaving the aquarium. The greater the surface area of the aquarium, the more efficient this gas exchange will be, and the higher the dissolved oxygen levels and the lower the dissolved CO2 levels will be as a result. Not only does keeping the levels of dissolved oxygen high and the levels of dissolved carbon dioxide low make it easier for the seahorses to breathe, it also helps to stabilize and maintain the pH and prevent it from falling. Likewise, good circulation throughout the aquarium will prevent dead pockets or stagnant areas, assuring that all the water in the aquarium passes over the surface for gas exchange on a regular basis. Surface agitation is important because no gas exchange can take place unless the surface tension of the water is broken. Therefore, the better the surface agitation, the more efficient gas exchange becomes and the better the aquarium will be oxygenated.

This is where vertically oriented aquarium such as hexagonal tanks and column tanks are at a disadvantage. The surface area of such tanks is restricted, much reduced from the surface area of a standard rectangular tank of equal water volume. Hex tanks and column tanks thus have less surface area for gas exchange to take place, and it is very important for such tanks to have good aeration and surface agitation to compensate for this drawback. This is especially vital for the seahorse keeper, because our seagoing stallions are very vulnerable to low levels of dissolved oxygen (and high levels of dissolved carbon dioxide) because of their primitive gills structure. So if you will be using a hexagonal aquarium or column design for your seahorse tank, it’s especially important to you to provide good water circulation and surface agitation.

Employing wave makers, devices that automatically alternate the direction of the water flow, and using small powerheads to supplement water movement are all the more important when you are using a tall column tank or hexagonal aquarium. Ordinary airstones and bubble wands can also be helpful for providing surface agitation and improving water circulation, and they will do your seahorses no harm whatsoever as long as they produce relatively coarse bubbles and are positioned where the bubbles cannot be drawn into the intake for the water pumps or filters. Just keep the airstones, air bars, or bubble wands relatively shallow in tall tanks – no more than 20-30 inches deep, and they will help to maintain high dissolved oxygen levels while helping to prevent gas supersaturation.

Without devices such as these to maintain good water circulation from the top of the tank to the bottom of the tank in a vertically oriented aquarium (e.g., hex tanks or column tanks), the dissolved gases in the aquarium can become stratified. When the aquarium water cannot mix efficiently from the bottom of the tank to the surface of the aquarium, stratification will occur, with the highest levels of dissolved oxygen and the lowest levels of dissolved carbon dioxide near the top of the tank, where gas exchange takes place, and the lowest level of dissolved oxygen and the highest level of dissolved carbon dioxide building up near the bottom of the aquarium, where the seahorses tend to hang out. That is not a healthy situation for the aquarium or for the seahorses and their primitive gills, which makes efficient circulation crucial for a tall tank with a restricted surface area.

For these reasons, it’s important for the seahorse keeper who uses a hex tank or column tank to monitor the levels of dissolved oxygen on a regular basis to make sure they remain nice and high. Don’t just sample the water at the top of the tank – be sure to test the dissolved oxygen levels in the water at the bottom of the tank where the seahorses will be spending most of their time as well! We will discuss the use of test kits to monitor dissolved oxygen in more detail in Lesson 4 of the seahorse training manual.

In your case, Desa, I would suggest making sure the 30-gallon tax tank has vigorous surface agitation and then I would position a very small powerhead at the bottom of the aquarium with the water flow directed upwards, so that the powerhead provides continuous water movement from the bottom of the tank towards the top. That will help to assure that the entire aquarium is well oxygenated, and that there are adequate levels of dissolved oxygen at the bottom of the tank as well as at the surface. Just make sure that the intake for the powerhead is well shielded or screened off so that it will be safe for the seahorses.

In general, it’s a very good idea for seahorse keepers to take special precautions when using powerheads or internal circulation pumps in a seahorse tank in order to assure that a curious seahorse does not get its tail injured or damaged by the impeller for the powerhead/pump. Basically, this just means that whenever the intake for a powerhead pump is large enough to allow an unsuspecting seahorse to get its tail inside, it’s a good idea to shield or otherwise screen off the intake, regardless of how strong the suction may be, just to be on the safe side. Often this merely involves positioning the powerhead amidst the rockwork or anchoring it in place with the suction cup where there’s no possibility for a seahorse to perch on the powerhead or wrap its tail around the inflow/intake for the unit.

When that’s not possible, you may need to take more elaborate measures in order to screen off the intake from the pump are powerhead to make it safe for the seahorses, Desa.

For example, here’s how to proceed when using the Hydor Koralia powerheads, which are relatively safe compared to other types of powerheads. For one thing, since they are not impeller-operated, the intake or suction is fairly weak compared to a normal powerhead, and there is therefore no danger that a curious seahorse will have its tail injured by an impeller. Secondly, the “egg” or basket-like structure that covers the powerhead often offers sufficient protection so that an adult seahorse really cannot injure its tail. For example, the gaps in the Koralia 1 are only 1/8 of an inch wide, which is too small for grown seahorse’s tail to fit to the gaps.

Just to be on the safe side, some seahorse keepers will encase the entire egg for a Koralia powerhead in a veil-like material, especially if they have smaller ponies, as explained below:

<Open quote>
“I have a Koralia that works great in my anemone tankI have a Koralia that works great in my anemone tank(no seahorses). Just in case I bought a piece of Tulle (bridal veil material) to cover it. I got the purple tulle that looks just like coraline algae. Just cut it into a square and put it over the Koralia and secure the ends with a zip tie. Think of it like a lollipop wrapper-if the pump is the lollipop the tulle is the wrapper and instead of twisting the paper at the bottom like a lollipop you secure with a zip-tie. I have H. fuscus and H.barbouri and they could definetly hitch on the Koralia (and I have the nano) The pump still works great and nothing can get in it.”
<Close quote>

The Tulle trick will work just as well for screening the intakes of other types of powerheads or circulation pumps as well, and the bridal veil material is not so fine that it will easily get clogged up or impede the flow through the device.

Finally, Desa, since it has been a long time since you have kept seahorses, I would recommend that you read through the Ocean Rider Seahorse Training Manual before you actually purchased your ponies.

The seahorse training program is very comprehensive, consisting of several hundred pages of text with more than 250 full-color illustrations, and it will explain everything you need to know in order to keep Ocean Rider seahorses successfully in a home aquarium, Desa. We provide a free copy of the seahorse training manual to all first-time buyers and customers to assure that home hobbyists are well prepared to give our ponies the best possible care before they make a purchase. There is no charge whatsoever for this service.

If you would like to receive a free copy of the seahorse training manual, just send me a brief note offlist via e-mail at the following address, and I will send your copy of the Manual to you as an attachment right away:

[email protected]

Best wishes with all your fishes, Desa!

Happy Trails!
Pete Giwojna, Ocean Rider Tech Support

Dear Eric:

Congratulations on the batch of newborns!

I’m sorry to hear that your first brood of seahorse fry didn’t fare better, sir, but that’s not unusual. There is always a steep learning curve when it comes to rearing the newborns, and it’s quite common — perhaps even the rule — for the home breeder to lose the entire brood during his first few attempts at rearing.

So you are doing well to have saved three of the newborns from an unexpected brood of babies, Eric. As you refine your methods and become more proficient at providing suitable live foods for the newborns and work out the feeding regimen that’s most efficient for your particular circumstances, your results will get better. You will have more of the fry surviving for longer periods, until eventually you are able to raise a few of the fry from a few of the broods to maturity. It’s just a matter of patience and hard work, Eric — there simply are not a lot of shortcuts that are helpful when you’re trying to raise baby seahorses.

Be prepared for additional broods of babies, Eric. Once a pair of ponies begin breeding, if conditions are favorable, they will often continue to churn out brood after brood of young every 3-4 weeks or so.

I have the wealth of information on rearing newborn seahorses that would be useful for you, sir, but the bulk of the material is way too extensive to be posted on this discussion forum. However, if you contact me via e-mail at the following address, I will be happy to send you the additional information as an attachment to an e-mail, sir.

Once you get your brine shrimp hatcheries cranked up and running in high gear, Eric, you’ll need to maintain frequent feedings in order for the newborns to do well. I’ve outlined the recommended fry feeding schedule for you below, which is based on Tracy Warland’s fry feeding regimen as a professional breeder. When looking over these recommendations, bear in mind that the home hobbyist almost always needs to be more concerned about underfeeding than overfeeding (it’s ordinarily only the pros that worry they might be feeding their fry too much). The humble home breeder will have his or her hands full just trying to keep up with the endless appetites of all those fry.

With that in mind, here are some suggestions and information to serve as guidelines when getting your rearing program started, Eric:

Fry Feeding Schedule

When feeding baby brine shrimp (bbs) or Artemia nauplii to seahorse fry, you want to avoid overfeeding (feeding them too much at a single feeding) as well as feeding them newly hatched bbs which have depleted their yolk supply and are nutritionally barren. The best way to do that is provide the fry with many small feedings throughout the course of the day, each of which they can clean up fairly quickly, rather than one or two massive feedings.

I suggest feeding the fry 3-5 times daily, at least 2-3 hours apart. When you are feeding the right amount, the fry should consume most of the nauplii within the first 20-30 minutes, but give them 3 hours to finish the rest and digest it fully before you feed them again. Ideally some brine shrimp will remain throughout each 3-hour feeding session, albeit at a greatly reduced feeding density after the first half-hour.

In other words, your ideal fry feeding schedule should go something like this: 8 AM feed, 11 AM feed, 2 PM feed, 5 PM feed, 8 PM feed, lights out at 11 PM. Harvest the baby brine shrimp for each feeding session in succession from each of the jars you started hatching at 3-hour intervals. This will assure that the Artemia nauplii you are feeding to the fry are no more than 3 hours old and thus at the peak of their nutritional value.

Like all babies, seahorse fry exist only to eat and poop. To say they are voracious is a gross understatement — at this stage of their development, the newborns have but one mission in life: to eat and thus to grow. Researchers have found that a single seahorse only a few weeks old can consume 3000-4000 newly hatched brine shrimp in a single day! Milligram for milligram, a great white sharks feeding habits appear downright dainty and positively anorexic compared to a baby seahorse on the prowl for live prey. And as you can imagine, when well-fed fry eat that much, defecation is amazingly rapid, with each newborn producing an average of one fecal pellet every 25-30 minutes.

One of the many quirks of seahorse anatomy is that they lack a true stomach like ours with the capacity to store food between meals (Bellomy, 1969). Rather, they are endowed with a rudimentary “stomach” that is little more than a pouchlike expansion of their intestine with no distinct separation between it and the rest of their digestive tract (Tamaru, Aug. 2001). Food passes continuously through this simple stomach instead of being stored therein. This is an adaptation to a sedentary lifestyle in which seahorses feed while at rest (as ambush predators that wait for their prey to come to them) more or less continuously throughout the daylight hours, rather than storing food or stockpiling energy in fat reserves (Tamaru, Aug. 2001). And like other carnivorous fishes, their intestinal tract is also relatively short (Tamaru, Aug. 2001).

Therefore, think of their digestive tract as a short continuous tube. When a seahorse is full, nothing more can be taken in at one end of its digestive tract without something being passed out of the other end. Seahorse fry don’t stop eating once they are full — the feeding instinct of these seagoing gluttons is so strong it compels them to keep eating as long as suitable prey is present. Baby seahorses, not sharks, are the ocean’s “remorseless eating machines!”

When they are overfed, particularly on hard-to-process Artemia nauplii, food passes through their system too fast to be digested properly. Because they swallow their prey whole and intact, this can actually reach the absurd point where they are passing live Artemia in their fecal pellets (Warland, 2003)! When that happens they are getting virtually no nourishment from their food and are literally starving in the midst of plenty. Here’s how Tracy Warland, a commercial seahorse farmer in Port Lincoln, Australia, describes this feeding dilemma and how to deal with it:

“We feed by looking closely at the ponies feces under a microscope, (a cheap dissecting microscope is ample); we breed 5 different species and all the ponies are the same, in as much as they are total gluttons. Baby seahorses (ponies) will eat so much instar 2 Artemia that they will pass out live Artemia in their feces, and they will of course not get any nutritional value from any feeds, so by over feeding you will starve them to death. We have done this. So if you feed them too much you will just love them to death as they will starve due to inability to digest. We look at the feces to determine the level of digestion and feed accordingly. Usually a feed is what the biomass of the tank can clean up in a 20-minute session, after which we leave them alone for about 2 hours and then feed them again. As soon as they defecate, we use a pipette to gather up the droppings and examine them under the microscope to check digestion levels and adjust our feeding accordingly. This is not necessary for every feed as you can soon learn the quantity required for each feeding; just make sure that the Artemia is digested fully (Warland, 2003).”

So if you have a microscope, you can easily verify that you are feeding enough but not too much at any given feeding by visual examination of the fry’s fecal pellets. Otherwise, you will eventually learn the right amount to feed and how often to feed from experience. The right feeding regimen varies according to species, the size of the brood and the size of your nursery tanks, as well as the type of food you are providing, so it is difficult to make generalizations in that regard. But Tracy Warland recommends the following:

“You need to add enough food for your fry to eat for about 15-20 minutes (75%
of the food should have been consumed within that time). If it is not, then you have added too much. The fry then should have some time to digest this food, about 2 – 3 hours is plenty. Provide at least 3-5 feedings daily. Only feed during daylight hours and turn off lights at night (Warland, 2003).”

As I said, Tracy’s feeding regimen may not be the best option for the home hobbyist, however. The average hobbyist has his hands full just trying to keep up with the demands of a brood of fry, doesn’t have access to a microscope to monitor the fecal pellets of the fry, and generally needs to be far more concerned about underfeeding than overfeeding. The salient point is that when rearing fry, many small feedings daily are vastly preferable to one or two large feedings. Most hobbyists are more successful at rearing when their goal is to assure that the fry have access to at least some food throughout the day. Many breeders accomplish this by adding small amounts of newly hatched Artemia to their nurseries whenever they walk by. For the sake of hygiene and water quality, its important to siphon off the bottom of the nursery tanks between feedings, whether or not you are able to do a microscopic examination of the fecal pellets.

It’s imperative that you work out the most efficient feeding regimen one way or another, since overfeeding is not only bad for the seahorse’s digestion, it also debilitates the fry because it is very energetically demanding for them to pursue prey and eat nonstop all day long (Warland, 2003). With a little experience, you will soon work out the feeding regimen that works best for you.

Many home hobbyists find an alternating 2-hour feeding schedule works well during the day. The fry are allowed to feed for 2 hours, then fasted for 2 hours, then given another feeding and fasted for 2 hours, and so on. The nursery is then darkened overnight and the seahorses are rested.

The general idea is to set up multiple hatching containers so that you can harvest the newly hatched brine shrimp nauplii from a different hatchery for each feeding. Thus, if you’re going to be feeding five times a day (i.e., every three hours throughout the day), then you would set up a battery of five separate brine shrimp hatcheries, and you would start the brine shrimp cysts hatching in each of them at three hour intervals.

The reason you stagger the hatching jars that way, adding the eggs to each at three hour intervals, is to assure that you are feeding the fry newly-hatched Artemia nauplii that have just emerged from their eggs, and therefore are at the peak of their nutritional value, for each of the feedings. Right after the first instar Artemia nauplii have emerged from their shells, their yolk supply is completely intact and they are more nutritious, since when the seahorse fry eat them, they get the benefit of all the nutrients in the rich yolk supply. Several hours after the Artemia nauplii have hatched out, they will have consumed much of their yolk supply and have relatively little nutritional value as a result. So it is very desirable to feed the newborns seahorse fry first-instar Artemia nauplii that have just emerged from their shells, because the nauplii are the smallest at that stage and therefore the easiest for even the undersized fry (i.e., runts) to swallow and more importantly because the newly emerged nauplii retain their maximum nutritional value at that point.

Once the Artemia nauplii undergo their first molt and becomes second-instar nauplii, they have exhausted their yolk supply and develop mouthparts so they can begin feeding on their own. Baby brine shrimp at this stage are larger and and may be too large for the smallest newborns to eat, and the second-instar bbs must be fed or enriched (i.e., gut-loaded) at this stage or they have very poor nutritional value. So the idea is to assure that you are always feeding the newborn seahorses first-instar Artemia nauplii that have just hatched and retain their full supply of yolk.

That’s why it’s important to stagger the start of the hatch in each of the hatcheries. If you started the brine shrimp hatching at the same time in all five of the hatcheries, by the time you did your second feeding of the day, some of the brine shrimp would be three hours old. Likewise, some of the brine shrimp you fed for the third feeding would be six hours old, and some of the brine shrimp you offered at the fourth feeding that day would already be nine hours old, and so on. The older brine shrimp nauplii would have used up more and more of their yolk supply, or already entered the second-instar phase before they were fed to your seahorses, and not have been nearly as nutritious as the brine shrimp you offered for the first feeding that day.

Staggering the start of the hatch in each of the hatching containers therefore allows you to offer primarily newly-hatched first-instar Artemia nauplii with complete yolk supplies at each of the feedings throughout the day. In other words, for the first feeding of the day, you harvest the Artemia nauplii from the hatchery you started first. You harvest the nauplii for your second feeding from the hatching jar you started hatching three hours later, and you harvest the nauplii for the third feeding from the hatchery you added the Artemia cysts to six hours later, and so on.

In short, if you will be feeding your seahorse fry five times a day, your ideal fry feeding schedule should go something like this: 8 AM feed, 11 AM feed, 2 PM feed, 5 PM feed, 8 PM feed, lights out at 11 PM. Harvest the baby brine shrimp for each feeding session in succession from each of the jars you started hatching at 3-hour intervals. This will assure that the Artemia nauplii you are feeding to the fry are no more than 3 hours old and thus at the peak of their nutritional value.

Mustangs and Sunbursts (Hippocampus erectus) readily accept newly hatched brine shrimp as their first food, Eric, so it isn’t strictly necessary to raise copepods for them. However, there is considerable evidence that providing larval copepods for the first few days of life will increase the survivorship of newborn seahorses, so here are some suggestions for culturing copepods if you want to go to the extra trouble and effort.

Culturing Copepods

Marine copepods are the ideal food for rearing seahorses fry. They are a natural prey item that constitutes a large portion of the diet of fish larvae in the ocean, and many marine fishes have evolved efficient feeding strategies for preying on them as their primary foods. This includes seahorses, whose tubular snouts are adapted specifically for feeding on tiny crustaceans such as ‘pods, and which have developed a sedentary lifestyle as ambush predators that allows them to capture them with maximum efficiency and a minimum expenditure of energy. The tiny size of the copepod nauplii allows even the smallest seahorse fry to eat them, and they are a feed-and-forget food that will survive in the nursery tank until eaten. The distinctive swimming style of copepod nauplii triggers a strong feeding response from seahorse fry, and ‘pods have naturally high levels of essentially fatty acids. They are superior to rotifers in all these respects (seahorse fry often reject rotifers because they don’t move in the “right” way and simply don’t trigger their feeding instincts) and I recommend that aquarists who are raising pelagic fry concentrate on culturing copepods.

Seahorse fry alter their diet as they grow (Vincent, 1990). This may be due to the fact that they change microhabits as they develop (e.g., when pelagic fry complete their planktonic stage and begin to feed at the bottom as they begin orienting to the substrate). Or it may simply be due to the fact that they become better hunters and perfect their feeding skills as they grow, thus enabling them to tackle larger, more active prey (Vincent, 1990). Whatever the cause, one good way to keep up with the fry’s changing dietary requirements is by providing them with cultured copepods at progressively later stages of development.

Step 1: Providing Marine Microalgae (Phytoplankton).

Marine microalgae or phytoplankton is available from many sources. It can be cultured at home, and if you have a green thumb and are experienced with such greenwater cultures, that may be your best option. However, home culturing may not be for everyone. Greenwater cultures can be tricky to maintain. They are easily contaminated and are prone to “crashing” suddenly and unpredictably, which can have dire consequences if you are relying on the phytoplankton to provide food for your seahorse fry.

Alas, I am one of those unfortunates who cannot seem to maintain a decent greenwater culture for any length of time no matter what I try. Consequently, I now much prefer to obtain live marine phytoplankton from other sources rather than attempting to culture my own. Commercially available phytoplankton tends to be more concentrated than homegrown cultures as a rule, and I find purchasing it to be far more convenient, efficient, and productive. Given my repeated failures and the time I spent for naught on my own greenwater cultures, I’m certain that buying live phytoplankton is more economical for me in the long run as well. If you are inexperienced with greenwater culture or simply lack the time to culture your own, I recommend buying your live phytoplankton instead (see the Resources page for suppliers). Whichever source you decide to use, home grown or store bought, make sure you use it strictly according to instructions to prevent contamination and spoilage of the phytoplankton.

The type of phytoplankton or microalgae you use is not that crucial. Chlorella is one of the most popular microalgae used in mariculture (Wilkerson, 1995), but Dunaliella also works extremely well and is recommended by Dr. Amanda Vincent (Vincent, 1995c), an authority on the breeding habits of seahorses. Serious breeders often use a mixture of different types of phytoplankton to feed copepods or rotifers, rather than a microalgae monoculture, with the goal of enhancing the nutritional profile of the ‘pods or rotis as much as possible (David Warland, pers. com.).

There is a great deal of merit to that approach, but in the past, maintaining separate cultures of different species of microalgae was beyond the capabilities of most home hobbyists, myself included. I prefer to keep things simple and I have always used Nannochlroposis as the phytoplankton I feed to copepods, both because it produces good results and because it is commercially available from a number of sources. To simplify things all the further, I purchase my Nannochlroposis in quantity as needed, rather than struggling with phytoplankton cultures.

The product I like best at the moment for this now includes a concentrated mixture of live marine phytoplankton (two species of Nannochlroposis, N. oculata and N. salina, as well as a Chlorella sp.) in every bottle (DT’s Live Marine Phytoplankton, 2003). That makes it a simple matter to provide my ‘pods with a diversified diet to maximize their nutritional value as fry food — I just unscrew the cap on the bottle and pour the requisite amount of this phytoplankton mixture into my culture tank whenever it’s losing its greenish tinge, and I’m in business (DT’s Live Marine Phytoplankton, 2003)! No muss, no fuss. Quick, easy and effective — just the way I like it!

Step 2: Culturing Zooplankton (copepods and/or rotifers).

We will be using standard 10-gallon glass aquaria as our batch culture tanks. It’s a good idea to run at least 2 such tanks simultaneously; that way, if one of the cultures falters, the other tank can pick up the slack and you won’t miss a beat. Depending on how many seahorse fry you are rearing, you many need to operate several such tanks to assure you will be producing sufficient food for them all.

Fill each of these culture tanks slightly less than half full with synthetic saltwater, adjust the salinity of the culture tank to match the salinity of your nursery tanks, and maintain the pH at 7.9 or below (Rhodes, 2003). This will assure that the copepods (or rotifers) we are culturing do not experience any salinity shock when we feed them to our seahorse fry. No heater is necessary — the cultures will do just fine at room temperature (24C-28C is optimum). Provide very low aeration (Rhodes, 2003). Airstones are unnecessary — a naked bubbler stem is sufficient. Adjust the airflow so it produces a slow, steady stream of coarse air bubbles (slow enough so that you can count the individual bubbles). Ambient room lighting is adequate or you may provide low wattage fluorescent lighting if you prefer.

Add enough greenwater (either commercially produced phytoplankton you’ve purchased or your own homegrown microalgae) to tinge the culture tanks green, and you’re ready to start culturing copepods. All that remains at this point is to “seed” the culture tanks with copepods. Add a starter culture of marine copepods to each tank, acclimating the ‘pods if necessary exactly as you would acclimate a new aquarium fish. They will do the rest.

To nurture the copepods, simply maintain a nice green tint to the culture water by adding more phytoplankton whenever the water in the tanks begins to clear in color. (Be conservative with these phyto-feedings. One dose of phytoplankton every 7-10 days is generally adequate, depending on production and your copepod harvest rates; Rhodes, 2003.) The ‘pod population in the culture tanks will double every 2-3 days, depending on the temperature and how well they are fed (Rhodes, 2003), and as soon as the population builds up sufficiently, we can begin to harvest copepods to feed to our seahorse fry. When you begin to notice numbers of copepods gathering on the tank glass, that’s a good indication that their population density can support daily harvesting.

The best way to harvest copepod nauplii is to strain the desired amount from the culture tank using a 35-micron sieve and then rinse or backwash the strainer in the nursery tank (Rhodes, 2003). Alternate which culture tank you harvest the copepods from for each feeding in order to avoid depleting the ‘pod population too much in any given tank.

Periodically, it will be necessary to restart the copepod culture tanks to filter out the detritus that accumulates on the bottom. This is typically done every month or two (Rhodes, 2003) and is a surprisingly simple process. Just siphon out the water from the culture tank, straining the water in the process in order to retain the copepods. A 125 -micron sieve works well for a strainer. That size mesh will retain all the reproductive adults you need to restart your culture (Rhodes, 2003). It’s a good idea to use a small diameter siphon at first, being careful to suck up as little of the detritus as possible since it will clog up your strainer and your goal at this point is to recover as many copepods as you can. Once you’ve strained out most of the ‘pods, backwash them into container of clean saltwater and set them aside to seed the culture tank after you’ve finished cleaning it. Having saved as many pods as possible, switch to a larger siphon and drain the culture tank completely, removing all of the accumulated detritus. Fill the tank half way with freshly mixed saltwater you’ve prepared in advance and adjust the aeration. Then return the copepods you strained out previously and add enough concentrated phytoplankton to tinge the water green, and your culture is ready to begin producing again. If you restart your culture tanks on alternate months, one or more of them will be in full production at all times, and you can keep a thriving copepod population going indefinitely in this manner.

If you so desire, rotifers can be cultured in exactly the same manner. The only difference is that the 10-gallon culture tanks should each be seeded with a quart of live rotifers initially (Giwojna, Jan. 1997). When necessary, add enough concentrated phytoplankton or greenwater to keep the rotifer culture tanks slightly green. As long as the rotifers are being fed algae, about 25% of the rotifer cultures can be harvested each day to feed to your seahorse fry (Wilkerson, 1995). Try to keep more than one rotifer culture going at all times in case of crashes, and be sure to keep the bottom of the culture tanks scrupulously clean (Giwojna, Jan. 1997).

In fact, you can even maintain a dual culture of copepods and rotifers in the same tank if you wish. But you must avoid cross-contamination of your culture tanks with brine shrimp at all costs! Newly hatched brine shrimp (Artemia nauplii) are considerably larger than either copepods or rotifers, and the Artemia will happily fed on them as well as the phytoplankton. So if any brine shrimp ever find their way into your culture tanks, you will very shortly thereafter be culturing Artemia instead of ‘pods or rotis, leaving you with nothing but live food that’s too large for pelagic fry to eat.

Harpacticoid copepods such as Nitokra lacustris go through 6 naupliar stages as they grow, followed by 6 copepodite stages, before they become reproductive adults. They range in size from 45 microns (smaller than rotifers) up to 270 microns as full-sized adults. The many different stages of development copepods undergo is actually a blessing for the aquarist since it makes it possible to provide progressively larger ‘pods to the seahorse fry as they grow simply by using sieves with different sized mesh to harvest them. For instance, a 35-micron sieve will gather up even the smallest copepod nauplii for newborn fry, while a 125-micron will collect only adult-sized pods for older fry and juveniles, leaving the smaller ‘pods behind to develop further. An 80-micron sieve will take intermediate-size ‘pods along with the adults.

Whether you’re culturing rotifers or copepod nauplii, pelagic seahorse fry should be fed continuously starting 6-12 hours after birth (Giwojna, Jan. 1997). Dr. Amanda Vincent recommends feeding 2 plankton nets of rotifers (or ‘pods) 5-7 times daily or whenever no plankton is visible in the nursery tanks (Vincent, 1995c). In addition, she keeps a drip of diluted plankton (i.e., rotifers or copepods) going at the rate of 10 liters/day at all times (Giwojna, Jan. 1997). (A bucket of copepod-laden or rotifer-rich saltwater set on top of the nursery tank will suffice for this–just use a length of airline tubing as a siphon and adjust the drip rate with a valve; Vincent, 1995c.)

Your youngsters still have a ways to go before you can think about weaning them onto frozen foods, Eric. Professional breeders will begin weaning when the juveniles are about a month old, but home hobbyists typically need to postpone any we needed tabs until the fry are six weeks old or older for good results.

A good rule of thumb to keep in mind is that once the juveniles are 1-1-/2 inches in length, they need a more substantial diet than newly hatched brine shrimp, and they are ready to be weaned onto frozen foods. They should be receiving brine shrimp at advanced instars, including adult brine shrimp, at this size, and you should begin weaning them onto minced frozen Mysis and other frozen foods at this point, as discussed below.

Making the Transition to Frozen Foods

The current thinking is that the fry can remain on a steady diet of newly hatched Artemia until you are ready to begin weaning them onto a diet of frozen foods (usually minced Mysids and/or Cyclop-eeze). Aquaculturists are now converting the fry to frozen foods earlier than ever, often beginning around 3-4 weeks old. Jeff Mitchell reports that the fry are healthier and grow faster the sooner they make the transition to enriched frozen foods, and he expects the young seahorses to have made the transition to frozen foods by the age of 4-1/2 weeks.

I generally have the best results using frozen Mysis. The best way to prepare the Mysis for the juvenile seahorses is to mince the frozen Mysis coarsely rather than putting it through a blender. How fine or coarse you need to chop it depends on the size of your fry, since you want to wind up with bite-size pieces of Mysis. Initially, many breeders prefer to shave small pieces of Mysis off of a cube while it’s still frozen.

The frozen Mysis that works best for most hobbyists is Hikari in frozen blocks rather than trays. The Hikari Mysis is much smaller than Piscine Energetics Mysis relicta and that makes it easier to shave off bite-sized pieces for the young seahorses. Some hobbyists report even better results using the new Mini Mysis offered by H2O Life, which is small enough that it often doesn’t need to be minced or shaved before offering it to the juveniles.

When it comes to shaving the Mysis, a technique that works well for many home hobbyists is to use a potato peeler to shave off bits of the Hikari Mysis from a frozen block, and then use a single edged razor blade to further mince the frozen bits the potato peeler has removed.

Try offering the minced Mysis exclusively for their first feeding of the day when the youngsters are the hungriest. Watch the juveniles closely to see if any of them begin to pick at the minced Mysis or pick it up from the bottom. If they still aren’t having any of it, siphon up the uneaten frozen Mysis after about half an hour and offer them newly hatched brine shrimp soaked in Mysis juice so that they have something to eat, and intermingle some freshly minced Hikari frozen Mysis or Cyclop-eeze in with the bbs.

When the fry have grown a little larger and can accommodate bigger pieces of Mysis, I find it convenient to carefully thaw whole Mysis individually and then carefully chop them into several pieces. Or the Mini Mysis by H2O Life can be fed to the larger juveniles whole and intact, if you can obtain it.

Either way, it is very important to be extra diligent about vacuuming up leftovers (and any fecal pellets) while the fry are making the transition to frozen Mysis. Otherwise, the minced Mysis that doesn’t get eaten right away while it’s still suspended in the water column or shortly after it has settled on the bottom will begin to degrade the water quality in your nursery tank.

It’s important to overlap the fry food when they are making the transition. Offer them shaved or minced Mysis along with the newly hatched brine shrimp they are accustomed to eating. (Many times it’s better to offer the minced Mysis first, while the fry is still the hungriest, and then add the baby brine shrimp.) Once they begin eating the bits of frozen Mysis well, gradually increase the amount of minced Mysis and decreased the amount of baby brine shrimp you offer at every feeding until they are finally eating the shaved Mysis almost entirely.

Overlapping the feedings this way, offering newly-hatched brine shrimp as usual along with just a little frozen Mysis at first, assures that there is familiar food available to the fry while they are making the transition and makes sure that the slow learners still get enough to eat.

Some hobbyists find it helpful to begin soaking the newly hatched brine shrimp in Mysis juice for a week or two before they actually began offering the bits of minced Mysis along with the bbs. That way, the juveniles get used to the scent of the frozen Mysis and associate it with food before you start to add the bits of frozen Mysis.

Here’s a previous message from Patti that describes how she weaned her erectus fry onto frozen to Hikari Mysis:

[open quote]
I’m wondering if nutrition is your problem.
Could you train them onto frozen mysis? My 4 week old erectus are eating shaved Hikari frozen mysis already. They started not eating much of the BBS and looking around the bottom of the bowl. I enriched the shaved mysis w/Vibrance & put it in the bowl. It goes to the bottom and they’re on the hunt. They’ll look at it a good while and then snick. It only took 1 day to train them. I swish it around a little at first to get them interested.

I think the mysis is better for them nutritionally and they don’t have to spend so much energy eating all those tiny BBS. Give it a try. It may take a few days. I gave mine the mysis 1st – before adding the BBS. That way they were pretty hungry. Then I gave them some BBS for desert to make sure each one got something to eat if they weren’t eating enough mysis yet.
Patti [close quote]

Notice that Patti’s erectus fry were all hitching and beginning to look around on the bottom for things to eat, indicating that they were ready to give up their planktonic existence (i.e., the high-risk pelagic phase) and make the transition from live brine shrimp suspended in the water column to frozen foods.

Other breeders go a step further and begin adding a little of the minced Mysis to their nursery tanks with the newborns right from the start to help build up their intestinal flora and ultimately enable them to better digest the frozen Mysis when they start eating it. They feel that this helps the babies get them used to the scent of the Mysis and conditions them to associate it with food, which helps to make the transition from live food to frozen Mysis easier later on when they’re the right age.

For example, here’s how Neil Garrick-Maidment, a very successful breeder in the UK, describes this technique:

Hi Peter and all,

I tend to put in a very small amount of finely chopped mysis in with the fry from day 1. The idea behind this is to create a bacterial soup in the fry water to help load the fry gut with the right bacteria to break up the mysis shrimp which tends to be quite hard. It makes it easier to get them to switch to dead mysis later on BUT it is crucial to clean the tank daily and water change to stop a problem with disease..

Neil Garrick-Maidment

Cyclop-eeze is also worth considering when weaning the youngsters onto frozen fare. When the juveniles are the right age, don’t hesitate to try them on frozen Cyclop-eeze first if you aren’t having any luck with the frozen Mysis. Lelia Taylor is one hobbyist who has had good results using the Cyclop-eeze, as she described below:

<open quote>
I have had success placing BBS in Cyclop-eeze, then feeding the mixture to my babies. They readily take the Cyclop-eeze. As they get bigger I add frozen, enriched brine shrimp. they began eating the frozen food immediately. Using the same principle, I began adding Mysid shrimp, along with the brine shrimp and Cyclop-eeze. I have found, even very young babies, will pick the larger pieces of Mysid shrimp, into bite sized pieces. I have also had success culturing copepods in my baby and grow up tanks. The babies readily feed on these, as well. <close quote>

Hobbyists who have tried The Cyclop-eeze for their juveniles are unanimous in saying that the frozen Cyclop-eeze is far superior than the freeze dried product for this purpose. They report that the bars of frozen Cyclop-eeze in particular work well because they will shed copious amounts of the bite-size frozen cyclops into the water.

Bonus tip: adding one or two older juveniles that are already eating the frozen Mysis well to the nursery tank along with the inexperienced fry in order to act as their mentors can hasten the transition. Many hobbyists report that fry learn to take frozen minced mysids much faster and easier when they are provided with teachers to show them the way. These teachers are usually a few of the older fry from a previous brood, which have already become proficient at feeding on the frozen mysids (Liisa Coit, pers. com.). The younger fry are quick to copy them, learning from their example.

Okay, Eric, that’s the quick rundown on rearing seahorses and eventually weaning them onto a diet of frozen Mysis. It can be tricky weaning the juveniles onto a staple diet of frozen Mysis, and you need to be prepared to make water changes and to be very diligent in cleaning up the breeder net and uneaten shaved Mysis while the youngsters are getting the hang of it. But once they are weaned onto frozen Mysis, the juveniles will grow rapidly and will be ready to introduced to the main tank within 2-3 months or less.

Best of luck with your Sunbursts and their future progeny, Eric!

Happy Trails!
Pete Giwojna, Ocean Rider Tech Support

Dear Balthasar:

It is terribly difficult to try to diagnose health problems from afar when you cannot see the seahorses or the system they are in, and you have no laboratory tests, cultures, skin smears, wet- mounts, necropsy reports or anything concrete to go on to guide your diagnosis, sir. But you have been quite thorough and provided me with enough information to take a stab at it in this case, Balthasar, and I would be happy to try to explain my thinking on the matter based on the meager information I have and discuss the situation with you in more detail.

My best guess is that your Hippocampus kuda seahorses died as a result of asphyxiation due to ammonia poisoning/nitrite toxicity, compounded by the stress of a heavy nematode infestation. Allow me to elaborate:

The freshwater dip you performed on the surviving seahorse revealed the presence of nematode worms which are enormously irritating (hence the scratching and shaking you noticed). Nematodes will invade the gills during a heavy infestation, impairing the breathing of the affected seahorses.

Your water chemistry readings also indicate unacceptable levels of ammonia and nitrite at levels that are harmful. Your aquarium has very good water volume and it sounds like your seahorses did well initially until the accumulation of nitrogenous wastes reached a noxious level.

Exposure to moderate levels of ammonia and nitrite (or excessively high levels of nitrates) can change the normal hemoglobin in the seahorse’s blood stream to a form (i.e., methhemoglobin) that is no longer able to transport oxygen. If this becomes severe enough, it will leave the affected seahorse starved for oxygen, which makes it very weak and fatigued, a condition known as “brown blood disease.” As a result, the affected seahorses may detach themselves from their hitching posts periodically and rest on the bottom, unable to exert themselves in their weakened condition. As you can imagine, being deprived of oxygen really wipes them out in terms of loss of energy and stamina. And it also results in respiratory distress and rapid, labored breathing as they try to oxygenate themselves and compensate for the lack of normal hemoglobin.

Seahorses suffering from ammonia and/or nitrite poisoning will sometimes struggle to breathe as a result. They will be lethargic and exhibit rapid respiration, increased oxygen uptake, and increased heart rate. Other symptoms of low-level to moderate ammonia poisoning and/or nitrite toxicity include a loss of equilibrium and hyperexcitability. Affected seahorses may appear disoriented, blindly bumping into objects, or periodically detaching from their hitching posts only to sink to the bottom (Indiviglio, 2002).
The most obvious symptoms of ammonia poisoning are a loss of equilibrium, hyperexcitability, increased respiration and oxygen uptake, and increased heart rate. At extreme ammonia levels, fish may experience convulsions, coma, and death. (You mentioned that some of the seahorses were shaking, which may have been the sort of convulsions or death throes that occur when the end is imminent.)

Providing the fish were not exposed to toxic levels for too long a period, ammonia poisoning and nitrite toxicity are completely reversible, and you will need to work on restoring your water chemistry to normal as soon as possible, Balthasar, as indicated below:

Ammonia (NH3/NH4+):
Natural Seawater Value = 0.010 mg/L
Acceptable Range = 0.000 to 0.050 mg/L
Optimum Level = 0 at all times

Ammonia is highly toxic to both fish and invertebrates in even small amounts (> 0.05 mg/L or ppm). Causes of ammonia toxicity include: immature biofilter (new tank syndrome), impairment of the biological filtration due to antibiotics and other medications, overfeeding, overstocking and dead specimens that go undetected (Webber, 2004). Ammonia levels can also rise after the addition of new animals, after a water change, or following a heavy feeding. Any ammonia level above 0.05 mg/L is a cause for concern, and the source must be found and corrected immediately. Be sure to maintain a good schedule of water changes.

Nitrite (N02):
Natural Seawater Value = 0.010 mg/L
Acceptable Range = 0.000 to 0.100 mg/L
Optimum Level = 0 at all times

Nitrite is slightly less poisonous to fishes than ammonia, but deadly to many invertebrates at very small concentrations. Residual levels of nitrite are common in marine aquariums. Levels of 0.05 or less are of little concern in a fish-only aquarium. If the levels are higher than this, the source should be found and corrected immediately. Even trace amounts of nitrite can wreak havoc among the live corals and delicate invertebrates in a reef tank. High levels of nitrite result from the same causes as ammonia.

Nitrate (N03):
Natural Seawater Value = 0.050 mg/L
Acceptable Range = 0.000 to 20 mg/L
Optimum Level = below 10 mg/L in fish-only tanks; 0 mg/L in reef tanks.

Nitrate is the end product of the process of nitrification, formed during the Nitrogen Cycle by the oxidation of nitrite by aerobic bacteria. Nitrate is relatively nontoxic to fishes, but elevated levels (> 20 mg/L) are stressful to seahorses over the long term and promote the growth of nuisance algae. Reef invertebrates can be much more sensitive to nitrate, and concentrations as low as 0.06 mg/L can cause problems for symbiotic stony corals. Any level above 5.0 mg/L in reef aquariums is a reason for concern and should be corrected immediately. The nitrate level is a good indicator of water quality and rising levels of nitrates are an indication of deteriorating water quality. For best results, consider using live rock and/or a live sand bed (preferably situated in your sump) in conjunction with a good protein skimmer to help filter your seahorse setup. The skimmer will remove excess organic compounds before they enter the nitrogen cycle, and live rock and a deep sand bed will provide significant denitrification ability, all of which will help keep your nitrates down. Don’t overstock, don’t overfed, remove leftovers promptly (a good cleanup crew is useful here), grow and harvest macroalgae, practice good aquarium maintenance and maintain a sensible schedule for water changes.

In your case, sir, the SeaChem Stability you are using will be very helpful in resolving the unacceptable ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate readings, and you should see a big change within seven days.

In addition to restoring your water quality, Balthasar, you’ll also need to address the nematodes in your aquarium system.

When you are dealing with an outbreak of nematodes, a simple freshwater dip will provide seahorses with some immediate relief but will not resolve the problem. You will need to consider administering a formalin bath and/or treating your tank with a good dewormer such as fenbendazole, sir, which may be problematic because I don’t know if you have same medications available to you in Australia that we do here in the USA, and because your delicate live corals and invertebrates can be adversely affected by antiparasitic medications.

Nematodes can be extremely irritating to seahorses, especially juveniles and the dwarf species. These pesky little worms are particularly troublesome for small seahorses, but they can also be an irritant for larger seahorses, and the type of scratching you have noticed is very typical of the irritation and damage the nematodes can do.

In cases like this, I normally recommend administering a quick formalin bath to provide the affected seahorses with immediate relief, followed by treating the aquarium with a good anthelminthic agent such as fenbendazole (brand name Panacur) to eliminate all of the little worms.

Nematodes are tiny, worm-like ectoparasites (i.e., external parasites) that attack the skin and underlying muscle of the affected seahorse, and also invade the gills when there is a heavy infestation.

The most common symptoms are increased respiration or labored breathing and a progressive loss of prehensility in the tail of the seahorse, accompanied by depigmentation (whitening) of the affected areas of the tail. But I should point out that respiratory distress may not be involved in cases when the nematodes have not yet invaded the gills, and that twitching and scratching are typically seen in the later stages of an infestation.

The early symptoms of a nematode infestation are thus increased respirations and a progressive loss of prehensility in the tail of the seahorse. As the tail of the seahorse loses its ability to grasp or cling to objects, the seahorses either swim or sort of slither along the bottom or the substrate with their tails extended stiffly behind them.

Rapid breathing is sometimes the first symptom of an infestation. Flaring gills and extremely labored breathing will signal their obvious distress. The diligent hobbyist will often realize something is wrong at this point, but checking the water parameters will reveal nothing amiss.

Next, the seahorses’ tails will be affected. First they will become colorless and rigid at the very tip and lose their grasping ability in that small segment of the tail. Then the stiffness and loss of coloration will progress a little higher on the tail day by day, until the entire tail is affected, becoming a useless weight that the seahorses must drag around like an anchor when swimming. The loss of flexibility in the tail is apparently the result of the tiny worms boring into the musculature of the tail.

In a heavy infestation, the nematodes will invade the gills, causing respiratory distress, and they may also spread from the gills into the buccal cavity and snout of the seahorse. When that happens, you may also see the characteristic loss of coloration or depigmentation in the snout of the seahorse, together with the usual scratching or twitching, of course …

Here is an excerpt from the biological profile on the lined seahorse (Hippocampus erectus) from the Ichthyology Department at the Florida Museum of Natural History:

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Gallery/Descript/LinedSeahorse/linedseahorse.html

<open quote>
· Parasites
Captive lined seahorses are especially vulnerable to parasitic infections including microsporidians, including Glugea heraldi; a myxosporidian of the genus Sphaeromyxa; fungi; ciliates, including Uronema marinum; and nematodes.
<close quote>

Most cases of nematode infestation I have seen in the USA involve wild-caught dwarf seahorses (Hippocampus zosterae), but the above reference clearly indicates that the larger breeds of seahorses such as Hippocampus erectus are also susceptible to parasitic nematodes, and your Hippocampus kuda are no exception.

As I mentioned earlier, administering a formalin bath will provide the affected seahorses with some quick relief, Balthasar.

You can then confirm the diagnosis by a close examination of the water in which you administered the formalin baths afterwards:

In a heavy infestation, the nematodes that have been killed during the therapeutic dip/bath will be easily visible in the water using an 8 – 10 X magnifying glass or jeweler’s loupe, and can often be seen with the naked eye.

Fortunately, the distinctive symptoms make nematodes easy to diagnose and easy to cure.

Formalin dips and baths are very effective at eliminating nematodes, Balthasar, but I do NOT recommend that you administer a formalin bath to your remaining kuda following the freshwater bath you administered, which accomplished the same thing. (Good job adjusting the pH of the water beforehand, sir, which greatly reduced the stress of the freshwater dip. Well done!) And, of course, you are absolutely right about avoiding daily freshwater dips.

Whenever you do, don’t introduce the Hippocampus reidi seahorses you mentioned until you have addressed the nematode problem.

In the meantime, I would increase the aeration and surface agitation if possible to increase the dissolved oxygen levels and reduce the carbon dioxide levels in the aquarium water.

If necessary, you can administer a formalin bath at the first sign of any scratching, which should provide immediate relief from nematodes. Here’s how to proceed:

Formalin Baths

Formalin (HCHO) is basically a 37% solution of formaldehyde and water. It is a potent external fungicide, external protozoacide, and antiparasitic, and is thus an effective medication for eradicating external parasites, treating fungal lesions, and reducing the swelling from such infections. It is a wonder drug for treating cases of Popeye caused by trematodes, and also eradicates external nematodes.

In my experience, provided it is administered properly, seahorses tolerate treatment with formalin very well at therapeutic dosages. For a long term bath the correct dose is 15 to 25 mg/L. [Note: 25 mg/L equals 1 ml (cc) of 37% formalin per 10 gallons of water.] This is done every other day for 3 treatments.

For a short term bath (dip) the correct dose is 250 mg/L. This would equal 1 ml (cc) of 37% formalin per 1 gallon of water. This should be for about 45 minutes to 1 hour. In my opinion, formalin is a safe, effective treatment for parasitic infections in seahorses providing you don’t exceed these dosages and observe the following precautions for administering the medication properly:

Many commercial formalin products are readily available to hobbyists, such as Kordon’s Formalin 3, Formalin-F sold by Natchez Animal Supply, and Paracide-F, sold by Argent Chemical Laboratories. Or whatever brand of formalin is available to you should work fine, Balthasar.

A formalin bath simply involves immersing the seahorse in a container of saltwater which contains the proper dosage of formalin for a period of 30-60 minutes while monitoring it. Include a hitching post of some sort in the container and follow these instructions: place the fish in a three-gallon bucket or a similar clean, inert container containing precisely one gallon of siphoned, aerated tank water. Medicate the bucket of water with the appropriate amount of formalin for a concentrated bath according to the directions on the label. Place an airstone in the bucket and leave the fish in the bath for 30 minutes. If at any time the fish becomes listless, exhausted or loses its balance, immediately place the fish in clean, untreated water in your hospital tank.

I want you to be aware of these precautions when administering the formalin bath:

Formalin has limited shelf life and degrades to the highly toxic substance paraformaldehyde (identified as a white precipitate on the bottom of the solution); avoid using any formalin product which has such a precipitate at the bottom of the bottle.
Formalin basically consumes oxygen so vigorous aeration must be provided during treatment.
Time the bath closely and never exceed one hour of chemical exposure at this concentration.
Observe the seahorse closely during the bath at all times, and it show signs of distress before the allotted time has elapsed, remove it from the treatment immediately.

If you can obtain Formalin 3 from Kordon, Balthasar, these are the instructions you should follow for your formalin dip:

METHOD 2 (DIP) FOR THE PREVENTION OR TREATMENT OF FISH DISEASES
(a) To a clean, non-metallic container (i.e., a plastic bucket), add one or more gallons of fresh tap water treated with Kordon’s AmQuel . For marine fish use freshly prepared saltwater adjusted to the same specific gravity (or salinity) as in the original tank. Make sure the temperature in the container is identical to that in the aquarium
(b) Add 1 teaspoons of Formalin·3. This produces a concentration of 100 ppm. formaldehyde.
(c) Agitate the solution with an airstone and adjust for a moderately strong flow of air.
(d) Remove the fishes to be treated and deposit them in the container for a treatment period of not more than 50 minutes. Immediately after the treatment period, or if signs of distress are noted, remove the fishes to a previously prepared recovery tank. The fishes may be returned to their original tank, but the presence of the original disease-causing agents in the tank water may result in a reoccurrence of the disease condition.
(e) Observe recovering fishes. Make sure that tankmates do not molest them during recovery.
(f) Repeat treatment as needed, every week. Each treatment is very stressful to the treated fishes. Do not reuse the dip solution.

For additional information on treating fishes with Formalin 3 by Kordon, see the following web page:

Click here: KPD-54 Formalin-3
http://www.novalek.com/kpd54.htm

If you get another brand of formalin, just follow the instructions that it comes with for a concentrated bath or dip (not prolonged immersion or a long-term bath) or follow the following directions, courtesy of Ann at the org:

FORMALIN Short-Term BATH Dosage and Preparation Instructions
Active Ingredient: 37% Formaldehyde
Indication: external parasites
Brand Names: Formalin, Formalin-MS
Notes:
1. Do NOT use Formalin that has a white residue at the bottom of the bottle. White residue
indicates the presence of Paraformaldehyde which is very toxic.
2. “Formalin 3” by Kordon contains only 3% Formaldehyde. Dosing instructions will need to be modified if using this product.
• Fill a small tank with aged, aerated, dechlorinated marine water. Match the pH, temperature, and salinity to that of the tank the Seahorse is currently in.
• Add an artifical hitch and 1-2 vigorously bubbling airlines. Formalin reduces dissolved O2 so heavy aeration is required.
• Add 1ml/cc of Formalin per one gallon (3.8 liters) of tank water. Allow several minutes for the Formalin to disperse.
• Place the Seahorse into the dip water for 45-60 minutes unless it is showing signs of an adverse reaction. If the Seahorse cannot tolerate the Formalin dip, immediately move it back to the hospital tank.
• Observe the Seahorse for 24hrs for signs of improvement.

The formalin baths will provide affected seahorses with some immediate relief from the nematodes, Balthasar, but they will not cure the problem because the seahorses can be reinfested once they are returned to the display tank due to the fact that other nematodes may be present in large numbers in the substrate of the aquarium. So you will need to take other measures to eliminate the parasitic worms from the main tank and the associated filters as soon as possible.

A relatively light infestation of nematodes can be brought under control via a 50 percent water change, combined with vacuuming the substrate and a thorough tank cleanup. That’s always a good place to start, Balthasar, and I recommend you do so, sir. The water change(s) will also be helpful in eliminate the remaining ammonia and nitrite from your tank.

Serious nematode infestations require more drastic measures. A bad nematode invasion will require treating the main tank with a good anthelmintic or deworming agent such as fenbendazole (brand name Panacur).

Worms of all kinds can be controlled in the aquarium by using a medication known as fenbendazole to treat the tank over a period of days. Fenbendazole (brand name Panacur) is an inexpensive anthelmintic agent (dewormer) used for large animals such as horses, and the de-worming granules can be obtained without a prescription from stores that carry agricultural products (e.g., farm and ranch equipment, farming supplies and products, veterinary supplies, livestock and horse supplies, livestock and horse feed). If you live in a rural area, those would be good places to obtain it as well.

However, there are a couple of things you should keep in mind when treating an aquarium with fenbendazole, Balthasar. Administering a regimen of fenbendazole (FBZ) or Panacur will eradicate any hydroids, Aiptasia rock anemones, bristleworms, or roundworms (e.g., nematodes) from live rock or live sand, thereby rendering them completely seahorse safe. The recommended dose is 1/8 teaspoon of the horse dewormer granules (22.2% fenbendazole) per 10 gallons of water. Dose aquarium with 1/8 teaspoon/10 gallons every other day until you have administered a total of 3 such treatments (Liisa Coit, pers. com.). Even one dose will usually do a fine job of eradicating worms of all kinds, but Aiptasia rock anemones and hydroids are a bit tougher and may require 2-3 doses to eliminate entirely.

Because fenbendazole is essentially a de-worming agent, it will destroy any bristleworms, flat worms, roundworms or nematodes, spaghetti worms or the like. Unfortunately, this includes desirable worms such as featherdusters, tubeworms, Christmas tree worms, or fanworms as well..

Fenbendazole does not have any adverse effects on biological filtration, but be aware that it is death to many Cnidarians besides hydroids. Mushrooms and related corals are generally not affected, but expect it to have dire effects on other corals (e.g., sinularias), polyps, gorgonians, and anemones. In general, any Cnidarians with polyps that resemble the stalked family of Hydrozoans are likely to be hit hard by fenbendazole, so don’t use this treatment in a reef tank!

Also be aware that fenbendazole seems to soak into the porous live rock and be absorbed indefinitely. I know one hobbyist who transferred a small piece of live rock that had been treated with fenbendazole (Panacur) months earlier into a reef tank, where it killed the resident starfish and Astrea snails. So enough of the medication may be retained within treated live rock to impact sensitive animals months after the fenbendazole was administered. Don’t treat live rock intended for reef systems with fenbendazole (Panacur)!

At the lower dosage recommended for nursery tanks and dwarf seahorse tanks with fry (1/16 tsp. per 10 gallons), fenbendazole normally does not harm cleaner shrimp and decorative shrimp. With the exception of Astrids (Astrea), Coit and Worden have found it does not usually affect the types of snails typically used as cleanup crews (e.g., Nassarius, Ceriths, and Nerites). It will kill starfish but copepods, hermit crabs, and shrimp are normally not affected.

Macroalgae such as the feathery or long-bladed varieties of Caulerpa or Hawaiian Ogo (Gracilaria) are not harmed by exposure to fenbendazole at even triple the normal dose.

So fenbendazole (FBZ) or Panacur is primarily useful for ridding bare-bottomed nursery tanks and dwarf seahorses setups of hyrdroids and Aiptasia anemones, ridding Caulerpa and other macroalge of hydroids or Aiptasia before its goes into the aquarium, and cleansing live rock of bristleworms, hydroids, and Aiptasia rock anemones before it is introduced to the aquarium.

It can also be used to eradicate bristleworms, roundworms/nematodes, hydroids, an Aiptasia from an established aquarium if it does not house sensitive animals such as live corals and gorgonians, starfish, certain snails, or tubeworms and other desirable worms that may be harmed by FBZ, providing you monitor the ammonia levels closely and are prepared to deal with the ammonia spike that may result from the sudden death of the worm population.

When it comes to snails, Nerites, Ceriths, and Nassarius snails are not affected by the medication and can remain in the aquarium during and after treatment with fenbendazole.

On the other hand, Trochus or turbo snails, Astrea snails, and especially Margarita snails are sensitive to fenbendazole/Panacur and should be removed from the aquarium until the treatment regimen has been completed and the fenbendazole has been pulled from the aquarium using activated carbon and/or polyfilter pads for chemical filtration.

Okay, Balthasar, that’s the rundown on treating an aquarium with fenbendazole or Panacur. As you can gather, treating your main tank with the fenbendazole is not feasible in your case due to the live corals and invertebrates you are keeping.

Instead, I would recommend that you perform one or more 50% water changes, combined with vacuuming or siphoning the substrate along with the general aquarium cleaning in order to remove as many of the nematodes as possible.

Since the water changes and thorough aquarium cleaning often do not sufficiently eradicate the nematodes by themselves, you will also need to treat your seahorse tank with the fenbendazole (brand name Panacur) to eliminate the nematodes after temporarily removing any sensitive invertebrates such as certain snails or featherdusters. The seahorses can remain in the aquarium while it is treated with the fenbendazole, since it has no effect on them at the recommended dosages, and will help to kill any remaining nematodes the ponies may be carrying. But again, that’s not a realistic option in your case, sir.

Best of luck resolving this problem, Balthasar. If you contact me off list with a brief e-mail, I can provide you with additional information. You can reach me at the following e-mail address:

[email protected]

Respectfully,
Pete Giwojna, Ocean Rider Tech Support

Dear Dan:

Your recent experience with the pet shop ponies you rescued from their deplorable circumstances sounded all-too-familiar to me, sir, because it’s very similar to many such incidents I have had myself in the past. I have been keeping seahorses since the 1970s, and back in those early days there was no such thing as captive-bred-and-raised seahorses – that was back when your local fish store was your only option for seahorses, and your selection (at least in the US) was usually limited to wild-caught Hippocampus erectus, which of course you could get in pretty much any color you wanted, providing it was a shade of black or brown.

In fact, Dan, all too often, seahorses are purchased from the local fish store (LFS) not because they’re the picture of health but rather because they appear to be at death’s door, and some kind-hearted hobbyist brings them home on a mercy mission, hoping that with plenty of TLC and plenty of tempting live foods, he can resurrect the half-starved ‘horses and give them a second chance at survival. I know because I am that sentimental slob. Being a soft-hearted seahorse lover myself, I’ve returned from local pet shops in rescue-mission mode many times over the years, rushing to get my latest reclamation project home to the Intensive Care Unit (my reef tank, which is specially set up just for seahorses) where they could benefit from the natural surroundings, optimum water quality, and all of their favorite live foods they could eat.

Sadly, more often than not, my attempts to rehab these poor ponies were a dismal failure. It appears that at some stage these pitiful patients are simply too far-gone to save; once they reach the point of no return, irreversible damage has been done to their digestive system, and there’s no bringing them back. I call that tragic condition starvation syndrome, and after years of bitter experience, I’ve learned the hard way to tell at a glance which emaciated seahorses still have a chance and which ones will never make it. The terminal cases develop what I can perhaps best describe as the “far look,” a sort of vacant stare as if their eyes were focused far away on some distant object. They are unresponsive, with little or no eye movement. Whether you call it starvation syndrome or PTSD, the situation is so bad that industry statistics indicate that only 1 in 1000 seahorses collected from the wild for the pet trade lives longer than 3 months (Garrick-Maidment, Sep. 2002).

Worst of all, on a number of occasions the rescue ponies I attempted to save introduced some sort of pathogen or parasite to the aquarium, which eventually claimed a number of my healthy animals as well as the pathetic pet-shop ponies I couldn’t resist rescuing. That’s a hard lesson to learn, and one that I was slow to absorb, having to go through the heartache involved on multiple occasions before I finally realized that my ill-advised rescue missions were not worth the risk in the mental anguish involved in seeing the ponies waste away despite your best efforts and anything or everything I tried to bring them around…

Having said that, Dan, I examined the video clip you provided and I didn’t see any outward indications of a health problem. The seahorse was breathing normally, with no huffing, rapid respiration, or other signs of respiratory distress, and it had very good eye movement, and seemed to be quite aware of everything going on around it. There’s no discoloration of its tail and it was clinging to the substrate with its prehensile tail quick normally. For all intents and purposes, it appeared to be a perfectly healthy lined seahorse (Hippocampus erectus). But then again weak snick is not evident until you see the seahorse attempting to eat…

My suggestion would be to obtain some live adult brine shrimp to water to your seahorse, since they will be much easier for it to swallow then ghost shrimp or frozen Mysis, and then to enrich the adult brine shrimp with Vitamin E and selenium, or any other good vitamin formulations for marine fish you can find, since weak snick is often associated with vitamin deficiencies.

Véronique LePage, from Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada was looking into nutrient deficiencies in weak snick in sea dragons. Weak snick occurs in sea dragons as well, which is not surprising considering their physiology is so similar to seahorses. One researcher (Véronique LePage) at a vet college in Ontario discovered that several seadragons she had observed with weak snick had muscular weakness or degeneration (myopathy) around the muscles of the face and head. This was due to a vitamin E and selenium deficiency, and once treated, the snick resumed. (as reported by Tami Weiss).

Likewise, the Birch Aquarium also found myopathy, necropsy and degeneration of the head and jaw muscles in syngnathids (Tami Weiss).

Here is a discussion of weak snick excerpted from my new book (Complete Guide to the Greater Seahorses in the Aquarium, unpublished), which will explain more about this disorder and how it can be treated, Paul:

FEEDING DIFFICULTIES: WEAK SNICK, TRIGGER LOCK, & LOCK JAW

Seahorses suck! That’s a fact. Our amazing aquatic equines are supremely well adapted for suctorial feeding, which just means that their tubular snouts are designed for generating a powerful suction and slurping up small prey whole (Giwojna, Feb. 2004). Basically, their tubular mouths operate like slurp guns, a method of feeding that is often adopted by fish accustomed to taking prey from the bottom or plucking small crustaceans and larvae from the leaves of underwater plants (Evans, 1998). The anatomy of the seahorse’s head has evolved to accommodate this method of feeding (Giwojna, Feb. 2004).

For example, a tubular mouth is an advantage for suctorial feeding because it acts like a pipette and the narrow opening accelerates the inrush of water via the Venturi effect, thus maximizing the suction generated by the powerful head muscles (Giwojna, Feb. 2004). The seahorse’s oral or buccal cavity and gill chambers (opercular cavities) act as dual suction pumps that draw the water inwards with considerable force (Evans, 1998). Expansion of the buccal and opercular cavities causes a sudden drop in pressure within the mouth (Evans, 1998). The suction thus created allows the seahorse to suck up food through its slurp-gun snout faster than the eye can follow. In essence, the seahorse inhales its food in the blink of an eye, and cavitation caused by the sudden inrush of water traveling at tremendous velocity through the narrow snout and characteristic movements of its head and skull bones produce the distinctly audible “snick!” which announces the demise of its prey (Giwojna, Feb. 2004).

Every seahorse keeper is familiar with the seahorse’s “trigger,” located at the underside of its jaws at the base of its throat, which moves downward sharply when the seahorse strikes, thereby expanding its oral (buccal) cavity and generating the suction to draw its prey inwards. This trigger is actually the seahorse’s hyoid bone, and it is pulled downward by contraction of the powerful sternohyoideus muscle that runs from the hyoid bone to the cleithrum (one of the bones of the pectoral girdle), which forms part of the seahorse’s bony exoskeleton (the cleithral ring) just behind its head (Evans, 1998).

The suction generated by the sudden downward contraction of the hyoid bone when a feeding seahorse “pulls the trigger” on its intended prey is greatly enhanced by the nearly simultaneous expansion of its gill chambers or opercular cavities (Giwojna, Feb. 2004). The additional suction thus created by the seahorse’s opercular pump is produced by contractions of the hyohyoideus muscles and dilator operculi muscles (Evans, 1998). The water pulled into the gill chambers this way is then expelled from the opercular cavity through a small pore. (This narrow opening accelerates the stream of water passing through it in the same way as its narrow tubular snout does.) The seahorse’s bony coronet evolved atop its head in part to provide solid anchorage and attachment points for the large muscles that operate its buccal suction pump and twin opercular suction pumps, which enable it to feed so efficiently (Giwojna, Feb. 2004). This is the perfect feeding mechanism for an ambush predator, ideal for extracting small prey items from heavy cover or sucking up suspended prey neatly from the water column, and the seahorse is perfectly adapted for its role as the sniper of the seagrass jungle (Giwojna, Feb. 2004).

Of course the seahorse’s turreted, independently operating eyes are the perfect targeting system for this sophisticated feeding apparatus (Giwojna, Feb. 2004). Side-mounted, hemispherical eye turrets provide nearly 360 degrees of vision and allow the seahorse to look upwards and downwards (or forward and backwards) simultaneously in search of potential prey or possible predators (Giwojna, Feb. 2004). As soon as it detects a likely prey item, both eyes lock on it simultaneously and track it intently, thus providing excellent depth perception. This allows the seahorse to judge distances with remarkable accuracy as it draws a bead on its intended victim (Giwojna, Feb. 2004).

The hyoid bone is the trigger which fires the seahorse’s slurp-gun snout, and the moment its prey closes within striking distance, the powerful sternohyoideus muscle contracts and pull the trigger (Giwojna, Feb. 2004). The buccal cavity expands, followed the almost instantaneous contraction of the hyohyoideus muscles and dilator operculi muscles, which likewise expand the opercular cavities (Evans, 1998). The resulting drop in pressure creates a sharp inrush of water, which draws the prey irresistibly into the seahorse’s mouth (Evans, 1998). Once the prey has been sucked in, the mouth is closed. At this point, the buccal and opercular cavities are contracted and the excess water is forced out in a strong stream via the tiny opercular pores (Evans, 1998).

All this happens in an instant, faster than the eye can follow, and the powerful suction that is generated often macerates large prey (Giwojna, Feb. 2004). When the resulting debris is expelled from the gill chambers, it looks remarkably as if the seahorse is shooting smoke out of its ears, thus giving a feeding seahorse an uncanny resemblance to the legendary fire-breathing dragon (Giwojna, Feb. 2004).

However, when this remarkable feeding mechanism is injured or disrupted by parasites and/or secondary infections, a number of problems arise. Weak snick is an unusual affliction that results when a seahorse is unable to generate adequate suction to feed properly. Seahorses develop weak snick when their sophisticated feeding apparatus, or the muscles that operate it, are incapacitated as a result of injury or infection, or by muscular degeneration associated with vitamin deficiencies.

For example, I have often seen it in seahorses as a result of protozoan parasite infections (Amyloodinium, Cryptocaryon, Brooklynella, Uronema, etc.). I tend to suspect that’s the cause when the weak snick is accompanied by rapid respiration and labored breathing, or when more that one seahorse develops the condition, or when the weak snick victim’s tankmates are bothered by odd ailments such as “trigger lock,” appetite loss, lockjaw, heavy breathing, or the first signs of snout rot, which all early indications of masked protozoan parasite infections (Giwojna, Dec. 2003). These organisms typically attack the gills first, from which they spread to the throat and mouth (oral or buccal cavity). As their numbers build up in the gills and they spread from within, invading the esophagus and oral cavity, symptoms such as rapid breathing, loss of appetite, weak snick, trigger lock, and snout rot begin to appear (Giwojna, Dec. 2003).

This is how I believe the disease progresses in such cases: the burrowing of the embedded parasites causes hyperplasia of the underlying tissue, and when sufficient numbers of them build up in the gills, we see the initial symptoms of respiratory distress, labored breathing, and huffing (Giwojna, Dec. 2003). During a heavy infestation, the parasites may attack the key muscles that expand the opercular cavity, or sheer numbers of the parasites can clog the gills to the extent that the opercular pump is impaired, resulting in weak snick due to a decrease in suction (Giwojna, Dec. 2003). In severe cases, this will eventually result in death by asphyxiation.

In less severe cases, the parasites will continue to spread from the gills into the throat, buccal cavity, and eventually the snout itself (Giwojna, Dec. 2003). When this happens, the irritation caused by the burrowing parasites and the hyperplasia of the infected tissue can cause loss of appetite or difficulty swallowing and the victim may go on a hunger strike (Giwojna, Dec. 2003). If the swelling and hyperplasia occlude the gills, throat and snout sufficiently to prevent the seahorse from generating adequate suction when attempting to feed, weak snick is the result (Giwojna, Dec. 2003). If the burrowing of the embedded parasites allows secondary fungal or bacterial infections to take hold, the seahorse can develop snout rot (Giwojna, Dec. 2003). When such secondary infection(s) affect the sternohyoideus muscle that controls the hyoid bone trigger mechanism, ailments such trigger lock, sticky trigger, or lockjaw result and again the seahorse is unable to feed (Giwojna, Dec. 2003). Weak snick can be caused in this way as well if the sternohyoideus muscle is affected to the extent that hyoid trigger still operates, but so feebly that the buccal pump can no longer generate sufficient suction to feed (Giwojna, Dec. 2003).

Another common cause of weak snick in many instances is a mechanical injury to the seahorse’s hyoid-bone “trigger” mechanism. This sometimes happens when a seahorse accidentally ingests a foreign object when feeding off the bottom. The offending particle is often a piece of gravel or crushed shell. When a hard, sizable foreign object such as this is ingested, it can lodge in the throat or snout, and the seahorse may have difficulty expelling it again. (The seahorse’s feeding mechanism is much better suited for sucking things in than spitting them out again.) When that happens, the seahorse is almost always able to clear the offending object eventually, but sometimes not before it causes considerable irritation or the repeated efforts to eject it cause a muscular strain to the hyoid trigger mechanism. The seahorse then acts as though it has a very bad sore throat. The suction it generates is weak and both the act of pulling the trigger and the act of swallowing appear to be painful. The seahorse feeds reluctantly or halfheartedly as a result, and may eventually stop feeding altogether. Such mechanical injuries can also open the door for snout rot.

Suspect a mechanical injury when the weak snick or sticky trigger is not accompanied by respiratory distress, when only one of your seahorses is affected and exhibiting unusual symptoms, or when you witnessed the seahorse struggling to expel a foreign object. In such cases, most often the problem clears up on its own after two weeks to two months as the injury heals. No treatment is necessary and the key to a successful outcome is keeping the patient eating while the healing takes place. That’s what treatment should concentrate on.

When these feeding difficulties arise, it’s a good idea to try tempting the affected seahorse with live adult brine shrimp. Seahorses suffering from weak snick induced by an injury may have better luck slurping up smaller, lighter, soft-bodied prey like brine shrimp; if so, that will be enough to keep them going while they heal. You’ll want to enrich the brine shrimp to maximize its nutritional value, and gutloading the shrimp with an enrichment product high in HUFA and vitamins, such as Vibrance, is a good way to fortify it beforehand. Brine shrimp are filter feeders that will ingest whatever is suspended in the water with them, so all you need to do is add a pinch or two (or drop or two) of the enrichment formula to a small container of saltwater swarming with brine shrimp at least 30 minutes before you offer the shrimp to your seahorse.

Some hobbyists dealing with weak snick have had good success in coaxing the affected seahorse to feed by transferring the seahorse to a critter keeper or breeder net or similar enclosure that can hang within the main tank itself, and then adding a generous amount of live adult brine shrimp to the container. Within the enclosure, the affected seahorse does not have to compete with its tankmates for the live food, and it is easy to maintain an adequate feeding density within the confined space so that there is always a big juicy brine shrimp passing within striking distance of the hungry seahorse. Add one or two hitching posts within the critter keeper or breeder net so that your male can anchor in place and wait for a tasty brine shrimp to pass within easy reach, and give him an hour or two within the enclosure to eat him fill of the softbodied adult brine shrimp. You can monitor his progress from a nonthreatening distance away from the tank to see how she is doing. In most cases, the seahorse quickly becomes familiar with the routine of being transferred to the special enclosure at feeding time and associates it with tasty live foods and a full belly — positive reinforcements that make it a very nonthreatening, stress-free procedure for the affected seahorse — and, as a result, it may actually come to look forward to it after a few feedings. You can repeat this feeding process two or three times daily in order to fatten him up again, if your schedule allows.
<Close quote>

In your case, Dan, since the affected seahorse is not showing any other symptoms other than a loss of suction when feeding, then you’re most likely dealing with a muscular strain or mechanical injury, and keeping your seahorse eating by providing it with abundant softbodied adult brine shrimp to slurp up is probably the best approach to this problem. But be sure to fortify the adult brine shrimp may have time using Vitamin E and selenium, or other fish vitamins.

If you do not have access to live adult brine shrimp, then target feeding the seahorse, or even handfeeding the pony are also good options. Try target feeding some of the smaller frozen Mysis, such as the Marine Mini Mysis by H2O Life or the Hikari frozen Mysis, which may be easier for the affected seahorse to slurp up and swallow than the larger brands of frozen Mysis, such as Piscine Energetics Mysis relicta…

In either case, keeping the seahorse feeding or providing it with adequate nourishment is the key to resolving weak snick and other related feeding disorders. Many times the problem will resolve itself over time providing you can keep the seahorse well fed in the meantime. Providing your pony with plenty of softbodied adult brine shrimp that are easy to slurp up and swallow is one way to accomplish this.

But sometimes the problem progresses to the point where the seahorse cannot even suck up the softbodied adult brine shrimp. When that’s the case, Paul, handfeeding the seahorse instead is often the best approach. 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 head end 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 the seahorse’s open mouth far enough, it’s feeding instincts will kick in and take over so that the seahorse 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). When this method of force feeding works well, it can be maintained indefinitely to provide the seahorses with good nourishment until it has recovered and can feed normally again on its own.

For example, even the magnificent seadragons sometimes develop problems with weak snick and similar feeding disorders, and professional aquarists will use this same method to provide their prized dragons with good nourishment until they recover, as discussed below:

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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
7007 SeaWorld Drive
Orlando, Florida 32821
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Best of luck getting your seahorse over this hurdle and back to feeding normally on its own again, Dan!

Respectfully,
Pete Giwojna, Ocean Rider Tech Support