Please Help! Desperate :( - 2008/08/13 17:34hello my name is monique. i have been researching and reading on this for the last month. i bought a pair of seahorses about 6 months ago and after i purchased them i was researching the information on there care, such as water stability and breed.. etc.. i then called teh store i purchaced them from (pet connection-dearborn,Michigan) and they informed me that they were WC seahorses. i was very sad and did not want to return them to go to someone else that may not look into this as i did. i noticed a bump on the females tail and just thought it might have been a wound or something. then after sometime the bump got bigger and actually spread to another bump. very fast turning into a sore- ulcer like. my male had developed a white patch on his back hump and one of his crown points deteriorated. i started treating the tank with melafix ASAP! after changing the water and treating the tank for 10 days they just got worse. half way through the treatment i started treating also with pimafix. both products were said to be reef safe. i did not want to treat with chemicals if not necessary. they both seemed to be eating fine but then a tragedy freak accident happened in my tank. my anenome stied to eat my seaslug and the seaslug poisoned the anenome. the anenome died letting off a poison as well as the seaslug. killing my flame scallop, my starfish and my urchins. suprisingly only leaving my 2 seahorses and mandrin (extremely sick) alive. my mandarin pulled through and is great today. however my seahorses are still suffering from what i believe is a combination of vibrio, and a fungal infection. i took my female in to another marin store and they put some methalyne blue on her sores since they were so bad. i then set up a smal hospital tank 1gal (its all i could find immediatly) and started treating them with Furan2. i did regular water changes about 2 cups a day and lowered the temp slowly to 70. the treatment seemed to be going well as the wounds were healing and they were both eating great. then my male all of a sudden took a turn for the worst and yesterday after treating them for 5 days (per instructions) he staopped eating and was breathing heavily. i gave them both a fresh water dip after reading that there may be parasites as well. he did nto take to the dip well. the female was absolutly fine. i dipped him in a methal;yne blue dip for 10 second and then back to the hospital tank. the male was lethargic and kept laying down on the floor.. i kept arousing him back to hitch up straight. the female was ok. he looked like he was dying in front of my eyes it was horrific to watch and i felt extremely helpless. needless to say this morning i woke and he was dead. i took him out and placed him in a bag (with the water he was in in the fridge) so maybe i could find someone that could examine him to see what this disease or cause of death may be. maybe to help the female fighter i have left! i then placed her in a bowl floating at the surface of the main tank to adjust the water temp. i thought it would be best to put her back in the larg tank since i cleaned it, the water was tested good and the mandrin was doing so well. mayeb a larger healing environment would be better for her? there is nothing else left in my tank except a few polyp frags, live rock, mandrine, a few snals and crabs. she still has the 2 ulcer-looking sores on her tail. but they look a little better since the furan2 teratment. it called for 4 days. i did not want to leave her in the small area to face a possible same fate as the male i also treated the hospital tank with formalin for 15 minutes before i placed her back into the main tank this morning. teh temp is about 78 in themain tank is this too high? i believe they are mustangs. one is gray-ish brown and gets lighter with mood. 5point crown(female) and the male is the same but gets yellow with mood and the spikes where a little smoother than the female. i have a recent uv steralizer i just started using 2 hang filter and they eat live brine shrimp and some copepods i put in the tank. i have been so stressed out about this and cannot find anyone that can help. no one knows how to treat seahorses at any of the clinics i have called. so instead of reading others posts i desided to post my own in hopes to get a reply that may possibly help save this precious little fighter. she is tough and doesnt seem to be bothered by any of this. please help!
monique
Post edited by: g000dxgirl, at: 2008/08/13 19:03
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I'm very sorry to hear about the problems you've been having with your aquarium. It does indeed sound like your seahorses have developed a serious bacterial infection (marine ulcer disease), which is most often associated with Vibrio bacteria.
Furan2 is a good medication for treating mild skin infections and can be helpful for vibriosis when the infection is caught early and treatment is begun while the disease is still in its initial stages. But it won't resolve marine ulcer disease when it has progressed to the point that they are open bloody lesions. At this point, you'll need to treat your female seahorse in isolation with a more potent broad-spectrum antibiotic. The medications that are most useful in resolving Vibrio infections are chloramphenicol (i.e., Chloromycetin), which you probably will not be able to obtain, or a combination of doxycycline + kanamycin, both of which can be obtained from National Fish Pharmaceuticals without a prescription. I will provide you with instructions for using these antibiotics later in this message, but first I want to address your question about the water temperature.
Yes, 78°F is a bit too warm for most seahorse species and makes it more difficult for them to fight off a bacterial infection such as vibriosis. 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.
In short, it's doubly important to keep seahorses at the proper temperature. Because of the reasons mentioned above and the fact that water holds less and less dissolved oxygen as it warms up, seahorses generally tolerate temps at the lower end of their preferred range much better than they handle temperatures at the upper limit of their range.
For best results, try to maintain stable water temperatures between 72°F-75°F in your seahorse tank at all times.
Here is some additional information regarding marine ulcer disease to give you a better idea of what you are dealing with, Monique:
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).
Aside from administering beta glucan (a primary ingredient in Vibrance) orally, 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, doxycycline, kanamycin, oxytetracycline (orally), neomycin sulfate, sulfonamide or streptomycin, or Furan2. 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 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 help prevent this contagious disease from spreading to the healthy seahorses (Prescott, 2001c). <Close quote>
All things considered, Monique, I would say that chloramphenicol (i.e. Chloromycetin) is the treatment of choice for marine ulcer disease (i.e., flesh-eating bacteria) and most Vibrio infections, in general. It is effective both as a bath for prolonged immersion or when administered orally. If the affected seahorses are no longer eating, then administering the chloramphenicol to the treatment tank would be a good option for you.
The treatment protocol for Chloramphenicol or Chloromycetin is as follows:
Chloramphenicol can be used to treat Vibriosis at 40 mg/ litre of water (which comes out to about 150 milligrams per gallon) in a bath for 10-20 hours. It is important to watch the quality of the water, and if it starts to become turbid, the water must be changed. It is best to treat in a separate tank. In stubborn cases, a series of such baths may be necessary to resolve the problem, in which case a complete water change should be performed before the medication is redosed.
Chloramphenicol can also be used as an additive to the feed, if the fish are still eating (all to often in a major infection they will refuse to eat, but this treatment may be most useful in preventing the horizontal spread of the infection). When used as an addition to the feed use 500 mg per 100 gram of feed. (In the case of seahorses, the flake food medicated with chloramphenicol in this way would first be bio-encapsulated in live feeder shrimp, which would then in turn be fed to the seahorses.)
If you do obtain the chloramphenicol, be sure to be very careful when handling it. Remember, in a few rare individuals exposure to chloramphenicol can cause a potentially fatal side effect (aplastic anemia). These are rare cases and almost always involve patients who were being treated with the medication, but I would use gloves when handling it as a precaution and if you crush crush up tablets of chloramphenicol, be very careful not to inhale any of the power.
Because of this side effect, which affects one in 100,000 humans, chloramphenicol is no longer available as a medication for fishes and can therefore be difficult to obtain. If you find that is the case, your next best alternative is to obtain doxycycline and kanamycin from National Fish Pharmaceuticals and use them together to form a synergistic combination of antibiotics that is often very effective in treating Vibrio infections.
Doxycycline hydrochloride
USE: broad spectrum antibiotic derived from oxytetracycline. Use for both gram-positive and gram-negative bacterial disorders, including fin and tail rot, septicemia, and mouth rot. Unlike tetracycline antibiotics, it will not be deactivated by the high pH levels found in marine aquaria. Works in a similar manner to chloramphenicol.
DOSAGE: add 1/4 teaspoon per 20 gallons, every 24 hours for 10 days. Do a 25% water change before each treatment.
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 certain other antibiotics such as doxycycline or 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.
USE: gram-negative bacterial infections and resistant forms of piscine tuberculosis (mycobacteria). Works especially well in saltwater aquariums.
DOSAGE: add 1/4 teaspoon per 20 gallons. Treat every 24 hours and perform a 25% water change before each treatment. Treat for 10 days. (When treating piscine tuberculosis, treat for 30 days.)
Both the doxycycline and kanamycin can be obtained online from National Fish Pharmaceuticals at the following URL:
As you know, Monique, it will also be very helpful to gradually reduce the water temperature in your hospital tank during the treatment period. Seahorses such as Mustangs and Sunbursts (Hippocampus erectus) will be comfortable at 68°F providing you lower the temperature gradually, and if you can drop the water temperature that far, it could do wonders for resolving this type of bacterial infection.
One simple way to drop the water temp in your aquarium 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 several degrees via evaporative cooling (just be sure to top off the tank regularly to replace the water lost to evaporation). Leaving the cover/hood and light off on your seahorse tank in conjunction with evaporative cooling can make a surprising difference.
In a pinch, some hobbyists will even freeze plastic bottles 3/4 full of water and float the frozen bottles of water in their tank during the hottest part of the day. If necessary, that may worth trying in your case too, depending on how well your aquarium temp responds to the other measures.
Here are some additional suggestions on cooling down your aquarium from Renée at the org that you may also find helpful:
Some summer tips are:
• Use computer fans (you can wire them to AC adapters... we are making some this weekend for our tanks).
• Use a big ol clip-on-fan or a fan on a stand that you can set close. (Just be mindful of water evap.)
• Float ice containers in the tank (Use water/liquid that you wouldn't care if it sprung a leak. Those blue lunch/picnic type cooling things are not acceptable IMO.... what if it leaks? It will kill everything. I would recommend using bottled ice water because it will stay frozen even longer than fresh water..... but if you do use fresh water make sure it is water you wouldn't mind spilling into the tank.... good ole tap water is not acceptable.)
• If you have a hood or canopy on the tank.....keep it off or lifted.
• Cool down the room the tank is in by using a portable or window AC unit. The window units can be pretty cheap.
• If the sun really heats up this room, look into some window tinting. This is what I did when I lived in South Texas. It dropped the room temp TEREMENDOUSLY! (If ya wanna go the cheap method, foil was used in many windows in the city I lived in... wasn't the prettiest method but it saved many people lives who lived in places without central AC and couldn't afford well working window units.)
• Shorten your photoperiod.... if possible don't have the lights on in the hottest past of the day. But at any rate, shorten the amount of hours the lights are on for. HTH Renée
When reducing the water temperature via evaporative cooling, I should also caution you to observe all the usual precautions to prevent shocks and electrical accident when you are using an electric fan or any other electrical equipment on your aquarium, Monique.
One such precaution is to install an inexpensive titanium grounding probe in your aquariums. That will protect your seahorses and other wet pets from stray voltage and should also safeguard them electrocution in the event of a catastrophic heater failure or similar accident..
But the best way to protect you and your loved ones from electrical accidents around the fish room is to make sure all the outlets are equipped with Ground Fault Circuit Interrupters. And it's a good idea to make sure all your electrical equipment is plugged into a surge protector as well to further protect your expensive pumps, filters, heaters, etc. from damage. Some good surge protectors, such as the Shock Busters, come with a GFCI built right into them so you can kill two birds with one stone. So when you set up your cooling fan(s) on the aquarium, be sure they're plugged into a grounded outlet with a GFCI or a surge protector with GFCI protection.
Best of luck resolving this problem and getting your seahorse tank back to normal, Monique.
Respectfully, Pete Giwojna
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g000dxgirl
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Re:Please Help! Desperate :( - 2008/08/14 00:44thank you sooooooo much for your advice! i am terribly sad and i can tell she is lonely in the tank alone. she is still eating well (little piggy).. she is not dancing around though. so maybe the small hospital tank will make her feel a little comfort (wishful thinking) ok.. so a few more questions before i get started. -is this bacteria in my tank? im worried because a few of my frags are not blooming. and a polyp just died on one of the clusters. maybe just my brain linking them? is this bacteria going to stay in my tank to possibly re-effect her when she heals? or possibly my other fish? i was thinking about getting another horse from this site for her to come back to after her treatment. but i dont want to take the chance of getting another horse sick if it is still in the water? -since i will be treating her in the 1 gallon tank and not a 20 gallon tank what do you recomend the dosage to be? and for how long? then do i place her back in the main tank right after? also should i do daily water changes like a few cups since it is so small? will that lessen the antibiotic? when i mix the antibiotic in a bottle will it stay good in the refridgerator to use daily? since they dont really make such a small dose reccomendation i did not know how to make it smaller besides mixing a full batch and putting the remaining in the fridge. is this a bad idea? im sorry for all the questions i just want to make sure she gets a fair treatment. and right.. without suffering like the male did again thank you so so so very much! GOD BLESS
monique
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Yes, it is likely that all of the specimens in your aquarium were exposed to the bacteria that are producing the marine ulcer disease in your seahorses. In fact, these bacteria are fairly ubiquitous and are normally present in low numbers in nearly all aquarium systems, or oftentimes within the fish themselves. It is normally only when the fish are stressed and their immune system is impaired that the bacteria become problematic and cause health problems, as we will discuss in more detail later in this message.
You could treat the entire aquarium with powerful broad-spectrum antibiotics in an effort to eliminate all of the undesirable bacteria. The problem with this approach is that it often causes more harm than good. This is because the antibiotics don't discriminate between undesirable pathogens and the beneficial nitrifying bacteria that carry out the nitrogen cycle and provide the aquarium with biological filtration. Treating the tank with potent gram-negative antibiotics (the vast majority of the pathogenic bacteria that affect fish are gram-negative, including Vibrio) will therefore destroy the biofilter and result in dangerous ammonia and nitrite spikes, which will be very harmful to any residents of the aquarium. The whole tank would need to be recycled from scratch afterwards, and it's very unlikely that all of the aquarium inhabitants would survive the elevated ammonia and nitrite levels that will prevail in the meantime.
The bacteria (Vibrio, Pseudomonas, etc.) that cause marine ulcer disease are highly contagious, so while the affected seahorses are being treated in isolation, you must also tend to your main display tank in some fashion, Monique. The trick is to treat it without destroying your biofilter in the process.
A good place to start is to clean up and sterilize the main tank. Many health problems are associated with deteriorating water quality and hemorrhagic ulcers are no exception (Giwojna, Nov. 2003). If your primary biofiltration is provided by live sand and live rock, you can safely remove the equipment and as much of the décor (except the LS/LR) as possible and sterilize all of the equipment and decorations before returning them to the aquarium (Giwojna, Nov. 2003). Once the seahorses have recovered from their ordeal and are ready to be returned to the main tank, we want to make sure they benefit from pristine conditions and optimum water quality (Giwojna, Nov. 2003).
Even if the problems with your female kuda is not Vibriosis, Monique, it's still important for you to rehab your main tank while the seahorse is being treated to make sure it has a healthy system to return to. Here is some additional information that will explain how to go about that and that may help you prevent any recurrence of the bacterial infections you've been experiencing lately:
Disease-causing (pathogenic) bacteria 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, such as Mycobacteriosis or vibriosis.
A bacterial infection almost always indicates that there is another problem that is stressing the fishes and weakening their immune response (Indiviglio, 2002). In addition to treating the infection itself, the hobbyist must also identify and correct the underlying problem in order to restore health. Check your water quality and aquarium parameters. A water change and general clean up are usually a good place to start.
One of the best ways to prevent bacterial infections and other disease problems is to provide them with a stress-free environment. Many of the parasites and pathogens that plague our pampered ponies are ubiquitous -- present in low numbers in most everyone's systems or within the seahorse’s body itself (Indiviglio, 2002). As a rule, healthy fish resist such microorganisms easily, and they only become a problem when seahorse’s immune system has been impaired, leaving it susceptible to disease (Indiviglio, 2002). Chronic low-level stress is one of the primary factors that suppresses the immune system and weakens the immune response, opening the way to infection and disease (Indiviglio, 2002). Long-term exposure to stressful conditions is very debilitating. Among other effects, it results in the build up of lactic acid and lowers the pH of the blood, which can have dire consequences for seahorses for reasons we'll discuss later.
When disease breaks out in an established aquarium it is therefore generally an indication that something is amiss with your aquarium conditions. A gradual decline in water quality is often a precursor of disease (Indiviglio, 2002). Poor water quality is stressful to seahorses. Prolonged stress weakens their immune system. And an impaired immune system leaves the seahorse vulnerable to bacterial, viral, and fungal infections to which healthy, unstressed seahorses are immune. As if that weren't bad enough, there are a number of environmental diseases that are caused directly by water quality problems.
With this in mind, it's important to review the most common stressors of captive seahorses. These include the design of the aquarium itself. A poorly designed seahorse setup that lacks adequate cover and shelter, or has too few hitching posts, will be stressful to the occupants (Topps, 1999). Seahorses are shy, secretive animals that rely on camouflage and the ability to conceal themselves for their safety and survival. A sparsely decorated tank that leaves them feeling vulnerable and exposed will be a source of constant stress (Topps, 1999). The seahorse setup should have plenty of secure hiding places so they can conceal themselves from view completely whenever they feel the need for privacy. It should be located in a low traffic area away from external sources of shock and vibration.
Needless to say, rapid fluctuations in temperature, pH, salinity and other aquarium parameters must also be avoided. A large aquarium of 40 gallons or more provides much greater stability in that regard than does a smaller setup. The greater the water volume in the aquarium and sump, the more stable the system will be.
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.
In short, it's doubly important to keep seahorses at the proper temperature. Because of the reasons mentioned above and the fact that water holds less and less dissolved oxygen as it warms up, seahorses generally tolerate temps at the lower end of their preferred range much better than they handle temperatures at the upper limit of their range.
Incompatible tankmates are also stressful for seahorses. This includes not only aggressive, territorial fishes and potential predators but also inoffensive species that are restless, active fishes. Seahorses may be uneasy around fishes that are always on the go, swimming tirelessly back and forth. (Incidentally, Monique, stinging animals such as sea anemones are not compatible with seahorses and should be avoided in a seahorse tank. A sting from an anemone can leave a seahorse vulnerable to secondary bacterial or fungal infections at the site of the injury, and large anemones may actually be able to capture and eat seahorses, which are weak swimmers.)
Other common stressors for seahorses include overcrowding, overfeeding, stray voltage, and a host of issues related to water quality: ammonia or nitrite spikes, high nitrate levels, inadequate circulation and oxygenation, high CO2 levels and low 02 levels, low pH, etc., etc., etc (Giwojna, Jun. 2002).
In short, if hobbyists provide their seahorses with a stress-free environment, optimum water quality, and a nutritious diet, they will thrive and your aquarium will flourish with a minimum of problems. Preventing disease in the first place is infinitely preferable to trying to treat health problems after the fact.
When disease breaks out in an established aquarium it is therefore generally an indication that something is amiss with your aquarium conditions. A gradual decline in water quality is often a precursor of disease (Indiviglio, 2002). Poor water quality is stressful to seahorses. Prolonged stress weakens their immune system. And an impaired immune system leaves the seahorse vulnerable to bacterial, viral, and fungal infections to which healthy, unstressed seahorses are immune.
At the first sign of a health problem:
Because diseases are so often directly related to water quality, or due to stress resulting from a decline in water quality, when trouble arises the first thing you should do is to break out your test kits and check your water chemistry. Very often that will provide a clue to the problem. Make sure the aquarium temperature is within the acceptable range and check for ammonia and/or nitrite spikes first. See if your nitrate levels have risen to harmful levels and look for a drop in pH.
Be sure to check your dissolved oxygen (O2) level too. A significant drop in O2 levels (6 - 7 ppm is optimal) is very stressful yet easily corrected by increasing surface agitation and circulation to promote better oxygenation and gas exchange. At the other extreme, oxygen supersaturation is a red flag indicating a potentially deadly problem with gas embolisms (Gas Bubble Syndrome).
If any of your water quality parameters are off significantly, that may well be the cause of the problem or at least the source of the stress that weakened your seahorses and made them susceptible to disease. And correcting your water chemistry may well nip the problem in the bud, particularly if it is environmental, without the need for any further treatment.
Clean Up & Perform a Water Change
After a quick check of the water chemistry to assess the situation, it's time to change water and clean up. In most cases, the surest way to improve your water quality and correct the water chemistry is to combine a 25%-50% water change with a thorough aquarium clean up. Siphon around the base of your rockwork and decorations, vacuum the top 1/2 inch of the sand or gravel, rinse or replace your prefilter, and administer a general system cleaning. The idea is to remove any accumulated excess organic material in the sand/gravel bed, top of the filter, or tank that could degrade your water quality, serve as a breeding ground for bacteria or a reservoir for disease, or otherwise be stressing your seahorses. [Note: when cleaning the filter, your goal is to remove excess organic wastes WITHOUT disturbing the balance of the nitrifying bacteria. Do not dismantle the entire filter, overhaul your entire filter system in one fell swoop, or clean your primary filtration system too zealously or you may impair your biological filtration.]
At first glance your aquarium parameters may look great, but there are some water quality issues that are difficult to detect with standard tests, such as a decrease in dissolved 02, transitory ammonia/nitrite spikes following a heavy feeding, pH drift, or the gradual accumulation of detritus. A water change and cleanup is a simple preventative measure that can help defuse those kinds of hidden factors before they become a problem and stress out your seahorses. These simple measures may restore your water quality and correct the source of the stress before your seahorse becomes seriously ill and requires treatment.
In short, Monique, I would attempt to clean up and sterilize your main tank as described above while your seahorse is being treated in isolation. Installing an ultraviolet sterilizer will also help to reduce the incidence and spread of bacterial infections and protozoan parasites.
Regarding the dosage of the antibiotics, which come in powdered form, 1/4 teaspoon per 20 gallons is the same as 1/8 teaspoon per 10 gallons or 1/16 teaspoon per 5 gallons of water.
Since a one-gallon aquarium is really to small to make a good hospital tank for a seahorse that would need to be confined to it for a minimum of 10 days, I suggest using a new five-gallon plastic bucket as your hospital tank instead. This will provide the seahorse with more room and the larger volume of water will help to maintain good water quality during the treatments.
In a pinch, a clean 5-gallon plastic bucket (new and unused, NOT an old scrub bucket!) can serve as a makeshift hospital tank. It should be aerated (an airstone connected to a simple air pump with a length of airline tubing will suffice) and equipped with hitching posts but nothing else. This makes a useful substitute when the Quarantine Tank is occupied or in use and a seahorse needs treatment.
It's important for the hospital tank/bucket to include enough hitching posts so that the seahorse won’t feel vulnerable or exposed during treatment. Aquarium safe, inert plastic plants or homemade hitching posts fashioned from polypropylene rope or twine that has been unraveled and anchored at one end are excellent for a hospital tank. No aquarium reflector is necessary. Ambient room light will suffice.
Using a 5 gallons bucket as a simple hospital ward will make it easy to administer the treatments, Monique. The first day you would add 1/16 teaspoon of the doxycycline and 1/16 teaspoon of the kanamycin to the five-gallon treatment container. After 24 hours, you would change 25% of the water in the five-gallon bucket, which would amount to 1-1/4 gallons of water, and replace it with fresh saltwater that has been preadjusted to the same temperature and pH as the treatment container. After the water change, you would then redose the 5 gallon bucket with the medications, using the same dosage each time.
Every 24 hours you would then repeat the same procedure, removing 1-1/4 gallons of water and replacing it with freshly mixed saltwater, and then re-dosing the medications, adding 1/16 teaspoon of the doxycycline and 1/16 teaspoon of the kanamycin to the five-gallon treatment container again. This would continue for a total of 10 such treatments over a 10 day.
So you will be performing a partial water change in the treatment tank/bucket every day to help maintain water quality, and then adding a new dose of the medications after the water change every day. You should feed the seahorse very sparingly during the treatment period, which will also help to preserve good water quality.
You won't be returning the seahorse to the main tank until all of the ulcers and lesions are healed and the seahorse is cured. If the ulcers are not completely healed after the 10 day regimen of antibiotics, additional topical treatments or therapeutic baths may be necessary to promote healing. If the seahorse needs further treatment after the regimen of antibiotics has been completed, you will be making daily partial water changes to maintain good water quality in the hospital tank/bucket.
You cannot simply mix up a full batch of the antibiotics and then store the medication in your refrigerator and use a portion of it each day, Monique. This is because once it is mixed with saltwater, the antibiotics begin to decompose. After 24 hours, they will have been broken down and deactivated, and therefore rendered useless and completely ineffective. That is why you need to add a complete dose of the antibiotics to the treatment container every day after making the daily water change.
Best of luck treating your seahorse and rehabbing your main tank, Monique.
Respectfully, Pete Giwojna
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g000dxgirl
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Re:Please Help! Desperate :( - 2008/08/14 15:40i certainly appriciate all of your time and advice! it has cleared alot of questions up for me.. now i know exactly what went wrong how how i could have prevented it. unfortunalty too late for one and thankfully in time for the other. in your previous message you mentioned that metronconizole and neomycin is an ok substitute for doxy? i can get kanamycin and either metro or neo but doxy will take longer and cost alot more. just want to check which one you recommend and make sure it is equivilant. i will be starting this regimen this weekend and will definatly keep you posted to her recovery!! *hopes* i think your a wonderful person to take the time and dedicate all your heartful responses here for people and these wonderful creatures. thank you again.
monique
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Yes, if you cannot obtain the doxycycline easily, then the neomycin would be a good substitute that can be safely combined with kanamycin. The metronidazole won't be helpful in treating marine ulcer disease, but the two aminoglycoside antibiotics (i.e., kanamycin and neomycin) can be used together and would make an effective combination for treating a gram-negative infection.
In fact, these aminoglycoside antibiotics can also be combined with Triple Sulfa, which is another antibiotic that is often available from your local fish store for aquarium use, so if you can obtain some triple sulfa you can use it together with the neomycin and/or the kanamycin to create a potent synergistic combo antibiotic.
Best of luck treating your female's infection and restoring optimum conditions in your aquarium, Monique.
Respectfully, Pete Giwojna
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it was horrific to watch and i felt extremely helpless. needless to say this morning i woke and he was dead. i took him out and placed him in a bag (with the water he was in in the fridge) so maybe i could find someone that could examine him to see what this disease or cause of death may be. maybe to help the female fighter i have left! i then placed her in a bowl floating at the surface of the main tank to adjust the water temp. i thought it would be best to put her back in the larg tank since i cleaned it, the water was tested good and the mandrin was doing so well. mayeb a larger healing environment would be better for her? there is nothing else left in my tank except a few polyp frags, live rock, mandrine, a few snals and crabs. 
