Pipefish acting lethargic & weird?

[td3025]

one of my setups currently is a 45 gal tall seahorse pipefish tank with 2 kuda seahorses and 2 banded pipefish.

The pipefish are extremely new, brought them home 2 days ago. Seahorses I've owned for about 4 months. after looking into several different discussions I was under the impression that putting them in a qt setup before adding to the tank typically did more stress than good for pipefish, so instead I acclimated them over a 1hr time period and then added them right to the display tank. The lfs I got them at told me they had them for over a week and seemed to be doing fine on frozen foods. The day of adding them to the tank I fed Frozen mysis to them and the seahorses. My small pipefish ate fine, along with the ponies. The much larger pipefish ignored the food completely. I figured he may just be still settling in.

2 days later and he still hasn't eaten. My small one is acting perfectly fine. Enjoying all the macro algae and swimming around curiously. Breathing fine, eating fine, etc.


My larger pipefish still hasn't eaten and now has his mouth permanently open. He will NOT close it. He is still alive, but breathing incredibly fast. And like I said... Never ever closing his mouth. Not for a moment. And he stays in the exact same spot all day every day.


Anyone know what this could be???
He's approx 5-6 inches right now, pretty large.

Tank parameters:

Temp: 75-76 degrees
Salinity: 1.021
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrate: >5ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
pH: 8.0


Help if you can!! I have a bad feeling he isn't gonna make it

 

[Humblefish]

I haven't kept seahorses/pipefish in over 20 years, but let me see if I can tag you some help. [HASHTAG]#reefsquad[/HASHTAG] @SeahorseKeeper @Lionfish Lair

I'm also gonna move this into the "Seahorse/Pipefish" forum to get some views in there. But I'll monitor this thread in case it turns out to be a disease.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

Can you get a picture at all? Have you ever heard the term "trigger"? I'm going to see if I can find my picture, but there is an ailment called 'stuck trigger". We have suspected one cause ciliates and have been doing FW and formalin baths for it. If the trigger isn't "deployed" than it may or may not be another issue. That's where the picture may help.

There's a long history of issues with mixing pipefish and horses. Have you ever read about any of that? It's a very convoluted theory with a convoluted history.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

I'm not on my regular computer, so I can't find my pictures. I'm going to snag one from my friend Tami (thanks Tami!). That little piece sticking down from the snout is the trigger and pipefish have them too. You may already know all of this, but I figure we'd get that out of the way now, just in case.

http://www.fusedjaw.com/

 

[vlangel]

I too was going to mention that many seahorse keepers have experienced adverse effects to one of the species or both when mixing seahorses and pipefish. One likely cause is that most pipefish are wild caught and therefore may carry pathogens that are foreign to captive bred seahorses and vise versa. The only source of captive bred pipefish that I know of are banded flagfin pipefish from Ocean Rider. I wished I knew of a treatment to recommend but I don't feel qualified to recommend one.

 

[eatbreakfast]

Perhaps it damaged it's mouth either in acclimation or on the sides of the tank when introduced.

 

[td3025]

Update he passed in the night. I have no idea what happened

 

[td3025]

Can you get a picture at all? Have you ever heard the term "trigger"? I'm going to see if I can find my picture, but there is an ailment called 'stuck trigger". We have suspected one cause ciliates and have been doing FW and formalin baths for it. If the trigger isn't "deployed" than it may or may not be another issue. That's where the picture may help.

There's a long history of issues with mixing pipefish and horses. Have you ever read about any of that? It's a very convoluted theory with a convoluted history.

He didn't have a stuck trigger from what I could see! I'm aware of that because one of the first seahorses I ever owned had that issue. He did pass in the night, but let me take a picture of him anyways in case anyone sees anything physically wrong so I know what to look for going forward!

 

[td3025]

I too was going to mention that many seahorse keepers have experienced adverse effects to one of the species or both when mixing seahorses and pipefish. One likely cause is that most pipefish are wild caught and therefore may carry pathogens that are foreign to captive bred seahorses and vise versa. The only source of captive bred pipefish that I know of are banded flagfin pipefish from Ocean Rider. I wished I knew of a treatment to recommend but I don't feel qualified to recommend one.

positive mine were wild caught. that's why the fish store owner warned me about how new they were to frozen food. My smaller pipefish is doing fine though along with my seahorses. I want to add another pipefish to the tank so this little guy isn't all alone but I want to make sure whatever happened doesn't happen again. Plus now I'm a little worried since it could be risky with the seahorses

 

[td3025]

Perhaps it damaged it's mouth either in acclimation or on the sides of the tank when introduced.

He didn't have the issues with his mouth the first day, but on the second day he wouldn't close it

 

[td3025]

Can you get a picture at all? Have you ever heard the term "trigger"? I'm going to see if I can find my picture, but there is an ailment called 'stuck trigger". We have suspected one cause ciliates and have been doing FW and formalin baths for it. If the trigger isn't "deployed" than it may or may not be another issue. That's where the picture may help.

There's a long history of issues with mixing pipefish and horses. Have you ever read about any of that? It's a very convoluted theory with a convoluted history.

Ok as for a pic. Sorry for anyone who didn't want to see a dead pipefish ( but his trigger is out now but idk if that just happens naturally after death. All I know is I surely didn't see it when I was looking for it when I noticed his mouth open. Only weird thing I noticed is his back fin looks extremely small. It was like that from the start. Any ideas what might've happened? He was swimming and active in the tank at the lfs, I didn't use a net or anything to release them. I believe the lfs guy did use a net to catch them though.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

Ya, a lot of the times the trigger comes out when they die, especially if they died breathing hard. It's hard to tell anything post-mortem, except that it didn't appear swollen. If you run into something like this again in the future (this time in QT ), try a formalin or FW dip. It's hard to get a nice established pair of seahorses, you don't want to ruin what you've already created.

 

[td3025]

Ya, a lot of the times the trigger comes out when they die, especially if they died breathing hard. It's hard to tell anything post-mortem, except that it didn't appear swollen. If you run into something like this again in the future (this time in QT ), try a formalin or FW dip. It's hard to get a nice established pair of seahorses, you don't want to ruin what you've already created.

yes for sure, my seahorses were captive bred and are happy and healthy and I don't want to mess anything up with them. I'll be more cautious going forward. I still do have one healthy pipefish though and feel like I need to at least add one more so he's not all alone But whenever that does happen I'll be more careful!

 

[vlangel]

I alao have a pair of seahorses and had a pair of banded pipefish (all captive bred from Ocean Rider). I also eventually lost one of my pipefish but I heard banded pipefish will fight if they are not a pair. Rather than risk perhaps getting the wrong sex I chose not to try and get a mate. The 2 seahorses and 1 pipefish have been happily living together for about 18 months now.

I think if everyone is healthy and seem well adjusted I would leave it be. Pipefish do not seem as bonded as seahorses and I would not assume the remaing pipefish is unhappy without a mate.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

+ million. I would not add another.

These fish don't have to be paired. I had lots of healthy-long lived seahorses who were "single".