Female negative buoyancy

[Mitchman010]

I'm looking for some help for my female seahorse who is having problems swimming. Instead of swimming vertically, she swims horizontally and has trouble controlling herself and even anchoring. Once she anchors, she's fine and she is eating. Everything I find when I search talks about pouch emphysema in males. I have a male also whom I had to release the air in his pouch. The male would end up upside down quite a bit before I took care of his pouch. The female is not to that level, but she still struggles quite a bit and I want to help her. Any advise is appreciated.

Water parameters:
Ph 8.3
Salinity 1.024
Nitrate 8
Phosphates are high - Been battling an algae problem - Dosing 4ml/day Red Sea NO3:PO4X
30% water changes weekly
40 gallon AIO
Skimmer
UV Filter
Refugium

I only feed them PE mysis shrimp twice a day. They don't like the Hikari.

 

[shorse]

How long has she had the issue? Did this come on suddenly or get worse over time?

I had a female who has similar issues seemingly out of nowhere, and I was able to give her a gentle massage and she wound up burping out some air! Was totally fine after that.

 

[Mitchman010]

That's cool that you were able to get yours to burp! How many times did it take massaging her before she burped? Also, was there a specific area you were massaging? Mine has been going on for a couple weeks. I've tried to massage a few times, but not consistently. She does seem to go through times where she seems like maybe she's getting better, only to go back to struggling. Maybe it's my ego, but I think she got stressed when I went away for a few days and had a friend looking after them. Food was measured out and my friend had strict instructions, plus, he's looked after them before without issue, so I don't think he did anything wrong.