Need Treatment Advice / Thoughts

[AmberOwl145]

I've never tried to tube-feed a seahorse. I have done that with weedy seadragons, but it is very tricky to do on small fish like that. You cannot use a pipette, you need a tiny catheter. Also, seahorses don't have a "stomach" per-se, so the amount of food you can get into them is miniscule.

I can't explain why this seahorse is not breathing fast compared to the last one. This tends to go against the idea that the cause is the same....

I would wait until tomorrow and dose the General Cure again. You can try a Ruby Reef Rally Pro dip, but I'm not confident that either will really work in this case.

As a side note - I still lose a lot of seahorses over time. They just do not survive for me as long as I think they should. With some (tank raised Erectus and pot-bellies) we've been able to breed them fast enough to offset the mortality rate, but we still have issues.

Jay

Hi Jay,

Just an update, as of 4:30 he still seems to be breathing normal. I tried lifting his hitching post to feed him with tweezers. He kept turning his head, and eventually seemed to get annoyed and swam gracefully down to another post. His eyes do seem to move around slightly.

That seems like a good sign. The bottle of Ruby arrived - do you think I should combine with the API General Cure, or don't do anything?

My fear, again, is he's rejecting food, no matter what I do, and I probably have 2 days left (maybe 3 at most) before he starves to death.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hi Jay,

Just an update, as of 4:30 he still seems to be breathing normal. I tried lifting his hitching post to feed him with tweezers. He kept turning his head, and eventually seemed to get annoyed and swam gracefully down to another post. His eyes do seem to move around slightly.

That seems like a good sign. The bottle of Ruby arrived - do you think I should combine with the API General Cure, or don't do anything?

My fear, again, is he's rejecting food, no matter what I do, and I probably have 2 days left (maybe 3 at most) before he starves to death.

I guess since you have the rally pro, I’d use it - maybe it would help, I don’t see it as causing the problem to worsen, it is very mild.

 

[AmberOwl145]

I guess since you have the rally pro, I’d use it - maybe it would help, I don’t see it as causing the problem to worsen, it is very mild.

Hi Jay,


Just an update, I completed my 2nd dose of API General Cure yesterday, and tomorrow i'm due for the water change. It didn't seem like he was in any better shape, so I did one dose of Rally which actually seemed to have restored his breathing to normal!

Now i'm just worried he won't eat still - I see I have two options:

1) I just wait until tomorrow, doing nothing more, and do a 25% water change, and put the filter back in. Hoping that after that I can feed him again. The thought is any further medicine might impact his appetite.

2) I apply another Rally today, seeing as it helped, and then do a water change tomorrow as planned. The risk is maybe it impacts his appetite, and ironically I cure the disease but he dies of hunger.

Wanted to see what you thought?? Thanks so much!!

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hi Jay,


Just an update, I completed my 2nd dose of API General Cure yesterday, and tomorrow i'm due for the water change. It didn't seem like he was in any better shape, so I did one dose of Rally which actually seemed to have restored his breathing to normal!

Now i'm just worried he won't eat still - I see I have two options:

1) I just wait until tomorrow, doing nothing more, and do a 25% water change, and put the filter back in. Hoping that after that I can feed him again. The thought is any further medicine might impact his appetite.

2) I apply another Rally today, seeing as it helped, and then do a water change tomorrow as planned. The risk is maybe it impacts his appetite, and ironically I cure the disease but he dies of hunger.

Wanted to see what you thought?? Thanks so much!!

Since you started with ruby reef, you need to go all in and follow the treatment instructions on the bottle. Stopping short can leave the fish open to a relapse.