Internal parasites in seahorse?

[Austin Weinerman]

I have had 2 female barbouri seahorses for about 4 months. They have been doing great all this time. Yesterday morning, I tried feeding them as I always do. They responded to the turkey baster when I stuck it in the water and swam to their feeding station. The seahorse that usually eats quickly was still eating, although she was slower than usual. A couple hours later I did my weekly water change of 20%. Soon after I noticed a solid piece of white poop with a translucent coating around it. It was in the same shape that the seahorse poop usually is, so I figured it came from one of them. This worried me, but I decided to wait until the next feeding to worry too much. Last night when I tried to feed, they both swam over to the feeding station again, but the same seahorse that was slow to eat in the morning refused to eat anything at night. Soon after, I turned the tank lights off. About an hour later, I checked back in the tank and saw the same seahorse was breathing heavily and had a long, white strand of poop attached to her, still coming out. This really worried me and I began to research all sorts of reasons for why this could happen. I had narrowed it down to either internal parasites or possibly constipation from overfeeding. This morning, I noticed she has a portion of her body (lower torso to tail) that is discolored. Now, I really believe she has an internal parasite. If anyone has any advice on how to treat this or if my diagnosis is wrong, please let me know. Thank you.

 

[Austin Weinerman]

By the way, water parameters are as follows:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: about 10
Salinity: 1.024

I feed the seahorses a mix of frozen Mysis/brine twice daily, enriched with selcon. They have 1 fasting day per week. The other seahorse seems to be doing fine - she eats normally, breathes normally, and acts as she always does.

 

[rayjay]

First thing I'd be doing is a fresh water dip followed by placing the seahorse in a hospital tank with water matching temp and salinity of the display tank water. Then gradually lower the temperature to 68°F. Use open ended airline for good aeration and water motion and treat with Furan II and Tri-sulpha.
Then, for the display, you need to find out why the water quality has allowed the bacteria to get to plague proportions. YOU CAN'T TEST WATER FOR THIS CONDITION as there are no test kits available to the hobbyist for this. You have to be pro-actively doing sufficient numbers and volume of water changes coupled with an extreme husbandry protocol that will keep the water clean.
Seahorse eating habits promote this poor water quality as in being selective eaters that leave many pieces uneaten that even clean up crew don't get all of, and, when they snick their food they masticate it, passing minute particulate matter out into the water column. All this is food and bedding for the nasty bacteria.
In addition, you are soaking food in Selcon and almost ALL of this washes off when the food is added to the water. Again, you further provide nutrient for the bacteria.
IMO, fasting of seahorses is NOT needed. I've not fasted any of mine in 15 yrs other than when I'm away for a day once in a while.
Take a small powerhead and blow around all the decor and rockwork and see just how much crap it hidden that clean up crews don't get to. Let it settle and siphon it out. Also, clean any mechanical filters at the very least not more than seven days. I clean my powerhead quickfilter attachments every 3 days.
See if you can add or change water flow such that the crap stays in suspension long enough for the filtration to remove a lot more of it before it settles. Manually remove what doesn't get filtered up.
Not all seahorses necessarily come done with the symptoms at the same time as seahorses like people, have varying degrees of resistance to pathogens. Not everyone in a room exposed to a person with a severe cold will come down with one themselves, or, at least not all at the same time.
Lastly, if the colouration on the seahorse is the same on both sides it's possible that it in itself is stress related and not yet a bacterial infection.

 

[Austin Weinerman]

First thing I'd be doing is a fresh water dip followed by placing the seahorse in a hospital tank with water matching temp and salinity of the display tank water. Then gradually lower the temperature to 68°F. Use open ended airline for good aeration and water motion and treat with Furan II and Tri-sulpha.
Then, for the display, you need to find out why the water quality has allowed the bacteria to get to plague proportions. YOU CAN'T TEST WATER FOR THIS CONDITION as there are no test kits available to the hobbyist for this. You have to be pro-actively doing sufficient numbers and volume of water changes coupled with an extreme husbandry protocol that will keep the water clean.
Seahorse eating habits promote this poor water quality as in being selective eaters that leave many pieces uneaten that even clean up crew don't get all of, and, when they snick their food they masticate it, passing minute particulate matter out into the water column. All this is food and bedding for the nasty bacteria.
In addition, you are soaking food in Selcon and almost ALL of this washes off when the food is added to the water. Again, you further provide nutrient for the bacteria.
IMO, fasting of seahorses is NOT needed. I've not fasted any of mine in 15 yrs other than when I'm away for a day once in a while.
Take a small powerhead and blow around all the decor and rockwork and see just how much crap it hidden that clean up crews don't get to. Let it settle and siphon it out. Also, clean any mechanical filters at the very least not more than seven days. I clean my powerhead quickfilter attachments every 3 days.
See if you can add or change water flow such that the crap stays in suspension long enough for the filtration to remove a lot more of it before it settles. Manually remove what doesn't get filtered up.
Not all seahorses necessarily come done with the symptoms at the same time as seahorses like people, have varying degrees of resistance to pathogens. Not everyone in a room exposed to a person with a severe cold will come down with one themselves, or, at least not all at the same time.
Lastly, if the colouration on the seahorse is the same on both sides it's possible that it in itself is stress related and not yet a bacterial infection.

Thank you for your input, there a few things I would like to respond to.
I have read from multiple sources that freshwater dips are risky for a couple different species of seahorses, barbouri being one of them. Because of this I am very hesitant to try it.
Each week I do 20% water changes. Every day, I use a turkey baster to blow around all detritus/whatever else is stuck in all the rock work. I then suck up anything I can with the turkey baster, the rest is blown around into the filter/protein skimmer. With each water change, I use a siphon and suction the sand bed all over. I rinse out my sponge filter every week in aquarium water and replace my filter floss at the same time, too. Obviously, like you said, there are tons of other things in the water that we can’t test for. I know my method of cleaning up doesn’t catch everything, but I do my best to get everything possible.
I know that selcon releases into the aquarium and doesn’t hold to the food very well. Because of this, I soak the thawed frozen shrimp in selcon for 5 minutes, pour it out into a net to let the excess drain out, then put it in a new container before feeding. Again, this doesn’t get every single little particle out, but the water doesn’t cloud a noticeable when I feed because of this.
I have heard arguments for both sides of fasting seahorses once a week, but the bottom line is it doesn’t hurt to do it. The main reason I do it is because I have class from 8:30am-7:00pm on Wednesdays and it makes sense to make this my fasting day.
Anyway, moving onto the treatment of my seahorses, I got SeaChem’s MetroPlex & Focus to mix in with their food. I have heard great things about it and I’m hoping it will work out. This morning wasn’t too great - the infected seahorse was still refusing to eat it while the other gobbled it all up. There was a lot of activity in the tank this morning with me moving rocks around to try and make a more comfortable place for her to eat, so I’m hoping that by tonight she will be more relaxed and have more interest in the food. Otherwise, I plan to force feed her with MetroPlex as best as I can until she (hopefully) recovers.

 

[rayjay]

If your husbandry protocol was sufficient, then this problem shouldn't happen. It just indicates that regardless of what you are doing, it isn't enough.
Protein skimmers are only for removing dissolved organics in the water, not particulate matter that need a proper filtration.
I used to use a turkey baster many years ago but found that a small powerhead works MUCH better. After allowing the crap to settle, a gravel vac works great to remove the settlement.
I've not heard of ANY problems with any species taking to FWD. In 15 yrs I've kept zosterae, angustus, comes, reidi, erectus and currently barbouri for my second time along with abdominalis. https://fusedjaw.com/diseasehealth/how-to-give-a-seahorse-a-freshwater-dip/ by Dan Underwood of seahorsesource.com
I have Metroplex and Focus but won't use MP again although Focus can be of some help to bind meds to other foods. MP is more for parasites and anaerobic bacteria. I'm not entirely convinced your problem is just parasites and, the nasty bacteria like the vibrio species don't seem to be cured by the MetroPlex even though if in the digestive tract it's thought to be anaerobic. I think possibly just not strong enough for the bacteria mainly affecting the seahorses.
I would NEVER treat a seahorse in the display tank as the conditions that caused the problem work against the cure. Also is probably is harder to get the temperature down to 68°F to slow up the bacterial growth.
Like particulate matter expelled through the gills, you might not see the water getting cloudy but it is indeed fouling the water, as is the Selcon.
If you end up having to tube feed see https://fusedjaw.com/diseasehealth/emergency-seahorse-care-part-ii-tube-feeding/
https://fusedjaw.com/ has a lot of more current information you could read up on as from some of the things you've posted I think you have been reading some out of date facts that have no bearing now with the progression of knowledge on keeping seahorses.

 

[Austin Weinerman]

If your husbandry protocol was sufficient, then this problem shouldn't happen. It just indicates that regardless of what you are doing, it isn't enough.
Protein skimmers are only for removing dissolved organics in the water, not particulate matter that need a proper filtration.
I used to use a turkey baster many years ago but found that a small powerhead works MUCH better. After allowing the crap to settle, a gravel vac works great to remove the settlement.
I've not heard of ANY problems with any species taking to FWD. In 15 yrs I've kept zosterae, angustus, comes, reidi, erectus and currently barbouri for my second time along with abdominalis. https://fusedjaw.com/diseasehealth/how-to-give-a-seahorse-a-freshwater-dip/ by Dan Underwood of seahorsesource.com
I have Metroplex and Focus but won't use MP again although Focus can be of some help to bind meds to other foods. MP is more for parasites and anaerobic bacteria. I'm not entirely convinced your problem is just parasites and, the nasty bacteria like the vibrio species don't seem to be cured by the MetroPlex even though if in the digestive tract it's thought to be anaerobic. I think possibly just not strong enough for the bacteria mainly affecting the seahorses.
I would NEVER treat a seahorse in the display tank as the conditions that caused the problem work against the cure. Also is probably is harder to get the temperature down to 68°F to slow up the bacterial growth.
Like particulate matter expelled through the gills, you might not see the water getting cloudy but it is indeed fouling the water, as is the Selcon.
If you end up having to tube feed see https://fusedjaw.com/diseasehealth/emergency-seahorse-care-part-ii-tube-feeding/
https://fusedjaw.com/ has a lot of more current information you could read up on as from some of the things you've posted I think you have been reading some out of date facts that have no bearing now with the progression of knowledge on keeping seahorses.

Thank you for posting links to those articles. It looks like a FW dip will be ok after reading that. Maybe you’re right that my sources were outdated. Although I thought that FW dips only help with external parasites, and after seeing her poop a long, white string, I’m pretty positive at least some of the problem is an internal parasite. Is this not true that FW dips only treat external parasites?

 

[Austin Weinerman]

Also, I think the spot on the infected seahorse is a bacterial infection, which the article says to not do a FW dip if they have bacterial infections. So for now, I guess I shouldn’t do a FW dip?

 

[w2inc]

Thank you for your input, there a few things I would like to respond to.
I have read from multiple sources that freshwater dips are risky for a couple different species of seahorses, barbouri being one of them. Because of this I am very hesitant to try it.
Each week I do 20% water changes. Every day, I use a turkey baster to blow around all detritus/whatever else is stuck in all the rock work. I then suck up anything I can with the turkey baster, the rest is blown around into the filter/protein skimmer. With each water change, I use a siphon and suction the sand bed all over. I rinse out my sponge filter every week in aquarium water and replace my filter floss at the same time, too. Obviously, like you said, there are tons of other things in the water that we can’t test for. I know my method of cleaning up doesn’t catch everything, but I do my best to get everything possible.
I know that selcon releases into the aquarium and doesn’t hold to the food very well. Because of this, I soak the thawed frozen shrimp in selcon for 5 minutes, pour it out into a net to let the excess drain out, then put it in a new container before feeding. Again, this doesn’t get every single little particle out, but the water doesn’t cloud a noticeable when I feed because of this.
I have heard arguments for both sides of fasting seahorses once a week, but the bottom line is it doesn’t hurt to do it. The main reason I do it is because I have class from 8:30am-7:00pm on Wednesdays and it makes sense to make this my fasting day.
Anyway, moving onto the treatment of my seahorses, I got SeaChem’s MetroPlex & Focus to mix in with their food. I have heard great things about it and I’m hoping it will work out. This morning wasn’t too great - the infected seahorse was still refusing to eat it while the other gobbled it all up. There was a lot of activity in the tank this morning with me moving rocks around to try and make a more comfortable place for her to eat, so I’m hoping that by tonight she will be more relaxed and have more interest in the food. Otherwise, I plan to force feed her with MetroPlex as best as I can until she (hopefully) recovers.

There can be such a learning curve with so much anecdotal information. I fell in love with the idea of breeding them back in the 80's. I have put a lot of hours in since then. Shedd aquarium documents, Pete G. Backstage tours with biologists at Scripps, copepod farms, tours of seahorse breeding sites in Carlsbad and Hawaii. IMHO you are doing exactly what you should be doing. Metroplex is a great 2 for one drug. If the disease is internal, don't stress them out with a dip or any handling. If it is external, Formalin is awesome and takes 30 minutes. Bacterium, Kanamyacyn, and tmp sulfa have been wonder drugs for me as well. Cool water slows bacterium.... good advice. Get him out of the general population if it is an option.

It is almost always malnutrition as a trigger. You should be able to hear your animals hit food from across the room. Live food is a key. Craigslist neocardian shrimp, a dollar, Special order feeder shrimp usually $.25, hatch and grow out brine. Look under rocks in a river bed. If the feeder shrimp look too big, cut them up. They will still twitch flash boielectri colors and attract attention. They will also have a different color than frozen and often have an electrical pulsing color that the seahorses can see. Live food keeps them alive and eating. Plus it gives you the option to gut load. If they won't hit live food, the game is kind of over. Enhance with SELCO, I am not sure about the other versions, SELCON and such. There is a brine shrimp supplier out of northern Utah (Logan?) that sells Self Emulsifying Lipid Concentration. Brineshrimpdirect. It is short chain fatty acids so it has a shelf life and needs to be refrigerated. If the lipids can sit on the shelf at a shop without going rancid, you probably need to do some research on how healthy it actually is.

I have never microscopically confirmed internal parasites with my animals, but I have treated for them and I have seen vibrant animals afterword. It is good to keep trying for a while. I seen healthy animals refuse food for up to a month and finally respond to the right treatment and pull out. There are some drugs that are not really water soluble, they have to be fed to your animal. Most dissolve easily and the seahorses are constantly drinking water so they do get the meds you put in there.

I don't want to be a buzz kill, but Micobacterium Marinum is increasingly common in captive seahorses (possibly 90% have it). It is incredibly rare in wild populations. It is not easy to spread, but dead food laying around and biofilms in low flow areas are great vehicle among others. Some public aquariums just let the infected animals co-exist. There is not really a treatment. Listless seahorses gasping for air and indifferent to food are good candidates. If meds don't work or the animal, and or if it is constantly in and out of remission with infections you are not completely sure of, you may want to find a lab and do a fin clip to test for it. Google the rest. There is a pretty standard procedure for managing that infection. It would be awesome if there were more hearty populations available.

Filtration is an easy one to point a finger at. I have built my own filter systems with algae scrubbers, ozone, waste settlement areas, degassing chambers, Dual protein shimmers, Denitrification chambers, calcium reactors, dosing pups and who knows what else. I can design and build an ultra low nutrient system with the best of them. After doing water tests, I can confirm that seahorses fall ill in water that tests out as being better than or equal to seawater, and water that has been ignored with low ph, alkalinity, magnesium, calcium and phosphates that max out my test kit. However, they have also thrived and produced offspring in the same situations. I know if sounds grandiose, but I can post evidence if you need to see it.

If I were to offer advice it would be; culture your own live rock so you don't get bristle worms among others. Then add some kind of accelerated algae growing system to your tank, (reactor, scrubber, or some DIY option) and check your cal, alk, and Mag, until you have found a way to keep them all in check. Don't take advice from a breeder that has access to seawater and has a flow through system. Finally, after that, just wait three days. Whatever you think is wrong with the animals, just feed them and wait 3 days.

Sorry if this sounds like a rant.

 

[Tatiana89]

I have had 2 female barbouri seahorses for about 4 months. They have been doing great all this time. Yesterday morning, I tried feeding them as I always do. They responded to the turkey baster when I stuck it in the water and swam to their feeding station. The seahorse that usually eats quickly was still eating, although she was slower than usual. A couple hours later I did my weekly water change of 20%. Soon after I noticed a solid piece of white poop with a translucent coating around it. It was in the same shape that the seahorse poop usually is, so I figured it came from one of them. This worried me, but I decided to wait until the next feeding to worry too much. Last night when I tried to feed, they both swam over to the feeding station again, but the same seahorse that was slow to eat in the morning refused to eat anything at night. Soon after, I turned the tank lights off. About an hour later, I checked back in the tank and saw the same seahorse was breathing heavily and had a long, white strand of poop attached to her, still coming out. This really worried me and I began to research all sorts of reasons for why this could happen. I had narrowed it down to either internal parasites or possibly constipation from overfeeding. This morning, I noticed she has a portion of her body (lower torso to tail) that is discolored. Now, I really believe she has an internal parasite. If anyone has any advice on how to treat this or if my diagnosis is wrong, please let me know. Thank you.

Austin, I am having the same problem with my female barbouri. Please any advice? What worked for you?