Pete Giwojna
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Re:HELP!! NOT AGAIN!!! - 2006/02/18 19:33
Dear Shorty:
That sounds like a nasty infection! It's difficult to say whether it's bacterial or fungal in nature or a mixed infection that involves both, but regardless I would recommend that you treat it very aggressively with a combination of antibiotics in a hospital tank.
Right now we have no way of telling whether the secondary infection is bacterial and/or fungal in nature (or both), so I would recommend treating your seahorses with a combination of antibiotics that are effective against both. I suggest using neomycin sulfate and/or kanamycin sulfate combined with nifurpirinol (the active ingredient in Furanase). Neomycin and kanamycin are both aminoglycoside antibiotics, which can be used safely together with the Furanase (i.e., nifurpirinol), thus forming a potent synergistic combination of antibacterials that also have potent antifungal properties in the form of the nifurpirinol. If there are any primary or secondary bacterial/fungal infections involved in your seahorses' condition, that combination of antibiotics should clear it up and also has the added benefit of making it more difficult for resistance to develop to the medications. Here's some additional information about these antibiotics:
Kanamycin sulfate
This is a potent broad-spectrum, gram+/gram- aminogylcoside 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 (as well as metronidazole) to further increase its efficacy. Like other gram-negative antibiotics, it will destroy your biofiltration and should be used in a hospital tank only.
nifurpirinol (Furanase)
Nifurpirinol is a nitrofuran antibiotic that is the active ingredient in Furanase and many other commercial preparations designed for use in the aquarium. It is stable in saltwater and rapidly absorbed by fish, making it the preferred treatment for fungal infections in seahorses (Burns, 2002). Nifurpirinol is photosensitive and may be inactivated in bright light, so use this medication only in a darkened hospital tank. A must-have medication for fungal problems.
Nifurpirinol may be combined with kanamycin and/or neomycin (see below) to produce a potent broad-spectrum medication that's effective against both fungus and bacteria. Nifurpirinol/neomycin is therefore a great combination to use when you're not certain whether the infection you are treating is fungal or bacterial in nature.
neomycin sulfate
Neomycin is a very potent gram-negative aminoglycoside antibiotic. Most of the 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, nifurpirinol or sulfa compounds 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.
If you can't get all three antibiotics, Shorty, then use the neomycin + Furanase or kanamycin + Furanase (nifurpirinol) instead. In addition to antibiotic therapy, try to lower the temperature in your hospital tank (and your main tank) as much as possible. If you can keep your water temperature cool enough to reduce the virulence and growth rate of the bacteria, and the antibiotic therapy will be all the more effective.
Heat stress is especially debilitating and dangerous for seahorses due to a number of reasons (Olin Feuerbacher, pers. com.). For one thing, elevated temperatures can have a very detrimental effect on the immune system of fishes. This is because many of the enzymes and proteins involved in their immune response are extremely temperature sensitive (Olin Feuerbacher, pers. com.). Some of these protective enzymes can be denatured and inactivated by an increase of just a few degrees in water temperature (Olin Feuerbacher, pers. com.). So when seahorses are kept at temperatures above their comfort zone, their immune system is compromised and they are unable to fend off diseases they would normally shrug off.
At the same time heat stress is weakening the seahorse's immune response, the elevated temperatures are increasing the growth rate of microbes and making disease organisms all the more deadly. Research indicates that temperature plays a major role in the regulation of virulence genes (Olin Feuerbacher, pers. com.). As the temperature increases, virulence genes are switched on, so microorganisms that are completely harmless at cooler temperatures suddenly become pathogenic once the water warms up past a certain point. Thus both the population and virulence of the pathogens are dramatically increased at higher temperatures (Olin Feuerbacher, pers. com.).
This is true of Columnaris and certain types of Vibrio. At cool temperatures these bacteria are relatively harmless, but at elevated temperatures they become highly contagious, virulent pathogens that kill quickly. Neil Garrick-Maidment, director of the Seahorse Trust in the UK, reports that he stopped a deadly outbreak of Vibrio among his Hippocampus capensis dead in its tracks and cured the seahorses simply by cooling their aquarium down to 18°C (64.4°F) for a period of weeks. The bacteria simply no longer presented a problem at that temperature.
In short, it makes a lot of sense to reduce the aquarium temps while trying to get an infection such as this under control, Shorty. Cooling down the microbes and slowing their metabolism and rate of reproduction accordingly can slow any bacterial infection (Giwojna, Oct. 2003).
A simple way to drop the water temp in your hospital tank is to position a small fan so it blows across the surface of the water continually (Giwojna, Oct. 2003). This will lower the water temperature a few degrees via evaporative cooling (just be sure to top off the tank regularly to replace the water lost to evaporation). Leaving the light off on your hospital tank in conjunction with evaporative cooling can make a big difference and help you knock out this tail infection (Giwojna, Oct. 2003). Temperate seahorses will be perfectly happy at 60-72 F if you can possibly drop the hospital tank temp that far. Tropical seahorses like your Mustang will be fine as low as 68 F providing you drop the aquarium temperature gradually
You mentioned that this infection seem to be eating away at the seahorse's crown or coronet. If I had to guess what could be causing that, I would suspect Vibriosis or Marine Ulcer Disease -- a.k.a. "flesh-eating bacteria" -- as the prime culprit. Here's some additional information on Marine Ulcer Disease to give you a better idea of what you may be up against, Shorty:
MARINE ULCER DISEASE, A.K.A. HEMORRHAGIC SEPTICEMIA, A.K.A. "FLESH-EATING BACTERIA"
Marine ulcer disease is a particularly nasty type of infection that most hobbyists have come to know as "flesh-eating bacteria," and indeed it can often be attributed to bacteria, most notably Vibrio or Pseudomonas species (Giwojna, Nov. 2003). Vibrio in marine fish is the equivalent of the Aeromonas bacteria that plague freshwater fishes (Dixon 1999; Basleer 2000), causing external hemorrhagic ulcers (bloody lesions). Vibriosis is probably the most common bacterial infection of captive seahorses and one of the most difficult to eradicate from your system. Vibrio bacteria are motile gram negative rods, which measure about 0.5 X 1.5 micrometers (Prescott, 2001). When grown on suitable media they appear as shiny, creamy colored colonies (Prescott, 2001).
Marine ulcer disease or hemorrhagic septicemia can manifest itself in a number of forms. The most common of these are the external hemorrhagic (bloody) ulcers, which appear as localized open wounds on the body (Dixon, 1999). It may be helpful to think of this condition as a form of skin rot. The first symptoms are usually small, discolored areas of skin that often become red and inflamed (Giwojna, Nov. 2003). These may become large bloody spots or lesions (the characteristic ulcers) as the disease progresses, leading to sloughing of the skin and localized swelling (Giwojna, Nov. 2003). (I have found that many times hobbyists have a tendency to dismiss these ulcers as "heater burns," especially when they appear on the flanks or pouch of the seahorse, and to delay appropriate treatment on the basis of this misdiagnosis. Avoid this all-to-common mistake!) In severe cases, the underlying musculature also becomes infected, and the rapid tissue erosion that can result is one of the most alarming aspects of ulcer disease. At this advanced stage, the infected fish can longer be saved (Giwojna, Nov. 2003).
Badly infected fishes may develop a distended, fluid-filled abdomen due to internal bacterial infection (septicemia) of the kidneys, liver or intestinal tract (Dixon, 1999). This disrupts the normal circulation of the blood and lymph, causing fluids to accumulate in the intestine and abdominal cavity (Dixon, 1999).
The most dangerous form of hemorrhagic septicemia occurs when the bacteria spread internally and become septic, infecting the blood (Dixon, 1999). The bacteria release toxins into the bloodstream, making it the most virulent of these infections (Dixon, 1999). This insidious form of the disease does not produce the telltale external ulcers, and acute infections can kill quickly with little warning due to the lack of outward signs (Dixon, 1999). Affected fish become listless and lethargic (Dixon, 1999), which may be hard to pick up on with seahorses. Respiration is rapid and seahorses usually darken in color and go off their feed. These behavioral indicators are especially difficult to detect in seahorses due to their lazy lifestyle and habit of changing colors frequently. Seahorses may succumb to the acute form of this disease before the aquarist realizes anything is amiss, and hobbyist often ascribe such mysterious losses to Sudden Death Syndrome.
In seahorses, this disease sometimes takes the form of bilateral edema of the periorbital tissue (Bull and Mitchell, 2002, p19). The eyes themselves are not affected, as in popeye or Exopthalmia; rather, the tissue around both eyes swells up. The eyes are thus unaffected but are encircled by rings of swollen tissue. Hobbyists have described this condition to me by saying that their seahorse had developed "doughnut eyes." These characteristic doughnut eyes are often accompanied by swelling of the soft tissue around the tube snout (Bull and Mitchell, 2002, p19). Some cases develop this peculiar facial edema as well as the usual skin ulcers and tissue erosion (Bull and Mitchell, 2002, p19).
Hemorrhagic septicemia or marine ulcer disease can be a very stubborn and difficult infection to treat, especially when it is due to Vibrio and the disease is acute or advanced. However, if the condition is detected early and treatment is begun when the discolored patches of skin or other symptoms are first noticed, antibacterial agents are often helpful (Giwojna, Nov. 2003). The professional aquarists treat this disease aggressively, using bivalent Vibrio vaccines, immunostimulants such as a beta-glucan, and injections of antibiotics (Bull and Mitchell, 2002, p19).
Such measures are beyond the grasp of we home hobbyists. We must make do by treating the affected specimens in isolation using wide spectrum antibiotics such as chloramphenicol, kanamycin, oxytetracycline, nifurpirinol, sulfonamide or streptomycin. As with other bacterial infections, lowering the water temperature during the course of treatment can help a great deal. This is your best course of action when you are confident that the problem is due to a bacterial infection, such as Pseudomonas or Vibriosis (Giwojna, Nov. 2003).
Chloramphenicol is the treatment of choice. It can be given orally or used as a bath (Prescott, 2001c). Therapeutic baths lasting 10-20 hours are administered in a chloramphenicol solution consisting of 40 mg per liter of water (Prescott, 2001c). If the seahorse is still eating, the chloramphenicol can also be bioencapsulated by gut loading red feeder shrimp or ghost shrimp with flake food soaked in the antibiotic solution. Even if the affected seahorses does not eat, feeding medicated shrimp to its tankmates is a good way to prevent this contagious disease from spreading to the healthy seahorses (Prescott, 2001c).
Your seahorse may require long-term antibiotic therapy to resolve this problem, Shorty. Keep the affected seahorse as cool as possible, feed her beta-glucan enriched frozen Mysis, and maintain the aggressive antibiotic therapy we have been discussing. Since you have had other seahorses with this problem before, it would also be a very good idea for you to install an ultraviolet sterilizer on the main tank.
Best of luck resolving this problem, Shorty!
Respectfully,
Pete Giwojna
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