Possibly Pregnant Kuda

[td3025]

My male and female kuda have been flirting on and off since I first introduced the female 3 weeks ago. I've seen the female attempt to lay eggs only to miss and lay them on a rock once, but no further signs of courting after that incident. But for the past week my male kuda has been acting strange. He's extremely reclusive, hides in the back for a majority of the day, and more often than not chooses to skip meals. My water parameters are fine (ammonia: 0, nitrate: >5ppm, nitrite: 0, pH: 8.2, sg: 1.022, temp: 73) and my female seahorse eats like a pig and explores the tank at all hours, so I don't want to immediately jump to an issue with the seahorse. I've had my male for 7 months, and during this time did experience a loss of another seahorse. The tank originally had two males that I purchased together, but I lost the smaller male after 4 months to what I believe was an infection. I attempted to treat that seahorse with Furan II in a QT tank but lost him. I don't want to jump to this being the issue with the surviving male that I've had for- like I said- about 7 months now. I especially don't want to move him into quarentine and treat him due to his lack of appetite and lazy behavior if he's simply pregnant.

I took a pic last night of his pouch (I was in the middle of a water change and my water isn't the clearest during this so it isn't a perfect picture). It's slightly inflated.

So i'm just going to wait it out and see if his pouch ever begins to expand before I jump to it being a medical problem. I'll keep everyone posted.

 

[td3025]

Update: it's been almost a week and no change in his behaviour. he will NOT eat unless I drop the food literally not even an inch away from his snout. if he has to reach out in any way to get the food, he wont do it. While cleaning the water he swam with ease to the other side of the aquarium, so I know he doesn't have buoyancy issues or anything like that. Still thinking it's a pregnancy.


Since day 1 this seahorse has been trying to mate. When it was a tank with two males, he tried mating with the other male every day. So he obviously really wants a pregnancy. I'm hoping this is what it is, because if not he's eating VERY tiny amounts of food each day for an unknown reason

 

[helen ann]

Sorry, can't help you with the questions but will ...
call @Lionfish Lair for you as she may be able to help.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

Oh my gosh! Your original post was last Sunday! Any time you're left hanging, please send me a message. My MIL is in hospital and I'm been switching between PC/phone/iPad, so I'm missing a lot of stuff.

On to your horses.... I don't like it. If he's pregnant, he's not pregnant enough to be reclusive and to be skipping meals. I'm just hoping you don't have a "Typhoid Mary" tank.

I'll go check and see what the seahorse crew are doing for nondescript illnesses such as this, now-a-days.

 

[td3025]

Oh my gosh! Your original post was last Sunday! Any time you're left hanging, please send me a message. My MIL is in hospital and I'm been switching between PC/phone/iPad, so I'm missing a lot of stuff.

On to your horses.... I don't like it. If he's pregnant, he's not pregnant enough to be reclusive and to be skipping meals. I'm just hoping you don't have a "Typhoid Mary" tank.

I'll go check and see what the seahorse crew are doing for nondescript illnesses such as this, now-a-days.

I'm sorry about your mother in law! I hope everything's okay

I swear this tank is giving me more problems than anything, and I don't understand why. Water levels are perfect and I keep the tank maintained wonderfully, but now this is my third horse that has acted weird. The other two ended in death.
He's still reclusive, but today he ate live 5 pieces of mysis. But like I said, I have to put them DIRECTLY in front of him or else he won't venture out to get them. he does move around the tank, but normally only at night and just to switch to a different hitching post. he has no problem swimming and getting around, but chooses not to.

the last thing I wanna do is take him out and move him to QT and treat him for something he doesn't have and end up killing him from the stress.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

*sigh*

I don't think this is going to go well, but it's honestly not uncommon. I think I need to send you to someone else for this. I know horse diseases, what we used to treat with and what I would treat with for something with such vague symptoms, but maybe there's been some advances and I'm not doing you justice. I'm going to PM you.

Not that I want to stop the conversation. Please anything you find out td, bring the information to us so we can all learn. If anyone else has anything to add, please still speak up. There are no definitive answers here, so no one will be wrong.

 

[td3025]

I have another question kind of unrelated to anyone coming across this thread,

I've noticed my water slowly turning a green color over the past few weeks, regardless of water changes. I just did a very large water change, and the water is STILL green.

Any ideas what could be causing this?
My water levels are all fine (ammonia: 0, nitrate: >5ppm, nitrite 0ppm, pH 8.0, salinity 1.022, temp 73)
At first I thought my seahorses behavior was unrelated to this, but now that I realized regardless of water changes that green color is staying, I'm wondering if the cause of it is something harmful??

 

[Lionfish Lair]

You basically have a little phyto culture going on. Sometimes once that's in there, it can take a long time to break the cycle. The water change doesn't do much for it, because if you think of a phyto culture, you take some away, fill it will clean water and it no time the culture will be nice and dark green again. I had in bad in one tank and I just kept up with the water changes and eventually the cycle broke. I know some other friends have used UV filters.

Green water can actually be used for raising seahorse fry.

 

[td3025]

You basically have a little phyto culture going on. Sometimes once that's in there, it can take a long time to break the cycle. The water change doesn't do much for it, because if you think of a phyto culture, you take some away, fill it will clean water and it no time the culture will be nice and dark green again. I had in bad in one tank and I just kept up with the water changes and eventually the cycle broke. I know some other friends have used UV filters.

Green water can actually be used for raising seahorse fry.

Would the light cycle being shortened help combat that, or should I just let it run its course and keep up with water changes?
I guess since it doesn't negatively effect them I shouldn't worry too much

 

[td3025]

+ in addition to that, if i remember correctly zooplankton eats phytoplankton, correct? I have some zooplankton available to dose the tank with, if that would at all help.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

It won't hurt anything, but I've seen it last a loooong time and get thick. It usually does develop into a last problem. Reducing your lights will help a lot. What kind of lights do you have? That's when mine came, when I turned on lights.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

+ in addition to that, if i remember correctly zooplankton eats phytoplankton, correct? I have some zooplankton available to dose the tank with, if that would at all help.

Perfect!!

 

[td3025]

It won't hurt anything, but I've seen it last a loooong time and get thick. It usually does develop into a last problem. Reducing your lights will help a lot. What kind of lights do you have? That's when mine came, when I turned on lights.

I just added a 12 inch blade by Wave Point over my macro algae field in their tank, because I was worried the macro wasn't getting sufficient lighting. The worst of the green came after that, now that I'm thinking about it.

But on top of the blade, I just have a LED fluval sky (not fluval marine, which I hear is a little better) that i've been running on it. I'm not too happy with it though, it's pretty dull and I've been looking for something better. I'll try the zooplankton dosing, see how that goes!

 

[Lionfish Lair]

Quite often the phyto can burn itself out, without much intervention. The phyto is blocking light from your macros, at the moment, but if the zooplankton can control the phyto enough to crash the cycle, you may not have to take away any light. It won't hurt anything if we're wrong on this point and it gets worse. We used to see a lot of this with seahorses over the years. Keep an eyeball on uneaten food. Do you have enough flow in there?

 

[td3025]

Quite often the phyto can burn itself out, without much intervention. The phyto is blocking light from your macros, at the moment, but if the zooplankton can control the phyto enough to crash the cycle, you may not have to take away any light. It won't hurt anything if we're wrong on this point and it gets worse. We used to see a lot of this with seahorses over the years. Keep an eyeball on uneaten food. Do you have enough flow in there?

I have two 240 koralia powerheads going on each side of the tank. So it's not an overwhelming amount, but decent.
My feeding post broke actually, so it's been harder for me to clean all the uneaten food out since I have to look all over the tank for it, but I'm definitely going to keep a better eye on it until my new feeding post comes in the mail! The male seahorse is moving around a little more after the large water change. He's at the front of the tank, hitched still like always but he ate dinner tonight at least.

I added the zooplankton, I'll see which direction the tank goes this week

 

[Lionfish Lair]

Some can be more sensitive to water quality and it can get away from you if the food does. I had a "water change horse" and could tell by the one horse's behavior that the water was a little rich with nutrients. They are such messy critters and the food can get everywhere.

 

[77.christy]

@td3025, do you have any other fish in there? A CUC to help w/ uneaten food?

 

[td3025]

@77.christy I've been scared to mix fish, so it's just two kudas and a few nassarius snails. Literally only like 3 of them at the most. Nothing else. I wanted to add a bigger clean up crew but I'm not too sure what I should add, I'm hesitant to do any kind of hermit or things with potential to harass the seahorses.

 

[77.christy]

@77.christy I've been scared to mix fish, so it's just two kudas and a few nassarius snails. Literally only like 3 of them at the most. Nothing else. I wanted to add a bigger clean up crew but I'm not too sure what I should add, I'm hesitant to do any kind of hermit or things with potential to harass the seahorses.

I have a 35 gal tall w/ 2 SH, 2 pipefish, 2 pajama cardinals, one Bangui Cardinal, a few red leg hermits, a sea hare, and lastly a bicolored dottyback. ALL tank mates are great EXCEPT the dotty back. I had no idea when I added the "cute little thing" she'd be such a turd!! I've tried nets and traps. She's Jst way too fast. There is a great list by @Lionfish Lair and also one on seahorse.org that will tell you what you can safely add to their tank. Even a list of corals. People used to think they have to be kept species only, but that isn't the Case so much anymore. Except for the dottyback, I'm totally happy w/ my tank and how the SH are doing. They're happy and aren't scared at all of anything in the tank. I wish you the best of luck w/ them!

 

[vlangel]

td, you have really been through it! I wished I knew what to recommend but I am stumped.