Seahorse on its way to RECOVERY!!!!!
 

Hope I'm not jumping the gun, but it looks like my prayers have been answered. The male seahorse looks like its on its way to being normal again.

Recap: Woke up this morning to my prized male seahorse lying on its back inside a cave looking like death warmed over. Quickly moved heaven & earth (ie. the LR structure) & rescued him. Gave him a close examination underwater (him, not me) and placed him gently into the macro algae patch. Continued lying down & looking uncomfortable so I took him back up for a closer exam & I saw 2 bristles stuck to the left side of his inner tube mouth. My theory is that he accidentally sucked in a bristleworm while eating mysis & it was either inside stuck (or even worse eating him alive) or he had hopefully spit it out but the bristles were giving him indigestion & great pain. Panicked & called 8 local vet clinics but none would agree to give me a prescription for Panacur. Robert (cc_bruno?) was nice enough to offer me some of his but by tonight it started looking better.

The seahorse is now upright & swimming around slowly. Still hasn't eaten but I don't blame him. He's acting normal otherwise so hopefully the worse is behind him. Whew!!! I think we dodged a bullet & I'm going to follow my wife's advice (she's been bugging me for over a year to kill every bristle worm in all the tanks) & catch/nuke all the b.worms in the seahorse tank at least. (and yes, she said "I told you so!", but she was right so I shut up.)

Just thought I'd share the "hopefully" good news. Thanks for all who shared their concern.

Anthony

Lets hope that he is well on the road to recovery now.
Don't forget to keep us updated!!

Congrats hope he recovers.

Matt

Glad to hear hes doing better. I've always had a soft spot for seahorses. :redface:

:cool: Good news !

good the hear

Brad

:lol:

I think I ment to say good to hear
:rolleyes:


Brad

snaggle translation:

"Good to hear."


Ditto :razz:

-Rich

wewt.

As of 12:45am, he's hanging out by his "wife" in the seaweed patch. Will report his condition tomorrow. Thank you everybody for your concern. Appreciate it.

Anthony

Congrats! Looks like he make it....

Hoping for a full recovery :biggrin:

Well, woke up after 6 hours of sleep to check on the seahorse & he's still alive & hanging onto the corky finger gorgonian. Hope he eats today. He took a poop yesterday so I think that's a good sign.

Anthony

Good luck and best wishes for the little guy's continued recovery.

The amount of dedication it takes to properly care for seahorses impresses me. Short of using no unsterilized or sticking to DIY "synthetic" rock, I don't know how you could create a bristleworm free environment. Maybe a side tank with an arrow crab to pick them all clean and then move the rock into a seahorse environment?

Good to hear he's doing better, I hate for you too lose him, he's too cool. Thanks again for all your help while i was down, really appreciate it. The only horses I've had mediacal experience are 1200 pounds.
tristan

Anthony,

Glad to hear that he's making a nice recovery. If you are still heading out my way, you are still welcome to some panacur if you want it. I'd recommend getting anything that will eat bristle worms, but, won't touch your seahorses. Check out http://<a href="http://www.seahorse....ates.shtml</a> for a good list of tank mates, (and yes, the arrow crab is one that they say you can keep with seahorses.... BUT, it's rated a 3, and the description for 3's are"

"The 3's are a bit of a gamble, but work in some cases; watch them with care and be prepared to relocate them if they become a threat to your seahorses."

Not sure if there are any other natural predators to the bristle worm, or at least one that prefers to chomp down on one every once in a while, to keep the population in check, but, if you come across one, let me know, (might be cheaper than nuking the tank with Panacur every once in a while :eek: )

Robert
And yes, I'm cc_bruno :biggrin:

Anthony - great to hear he is doing better - if anyone can make sure of a full recovery its you for sure. lynn is sad that he got hurt. We look forward to a full postive update

Get some rest - both of you

Cheers
Rich

Well, as of 12:14am, he's hanging out on the gorgonian near his wifey & I haven't seen him eat yet. That's when I'll know that this whole ugly episode is past. However, I don't blame him for not eating if he had/has 2 bristles inside his tiny tube mouth. Slowly sifting through my substrate to catch & boil all the little buggers :evil: I'm going to see if OA will bring in arrow crabs for this problem & I hope to get a small dose of Panacur anyways to treat the tank with. Hopefully it'll drive them out of the LR.

It's a catch 20. Feed frequently to keep seahorses alive & fat but risk bristleworm infestations or feed less frequently to control the b.w. but be less than ideal for seahorses.

Thanks for everybody's kind words of concern & prayers for my little buddy.

Anthony (Yeah. Only one more paper to edit & I can go to bed :rolleyes: )

Anthony,

What species of SH do you have? How big are they? I'd be VERY cautious about adding an arrow crab with SHs. Arrows can be highly predatory, especially for slow-moving SHs :eek:

BTW, it's Catch-22, so called after the book by Joseph Heller. Just finished rereading it. One fine book :cool:

Yeah, the arrow crab will have to be quite small but my H. kudas are big (male is over 6" in total length). Catch-22, I must be very tired since I used to know this....

On a happy note, the male looks normal this morning. Hope he eats, so I better go defrost some mysis for him.

Anthony

I know King eds has a smallish arrow crab at least they did on friday...
I would also use caution with the arrow crab... I contribute the death of my Naso Tang to its hunting prowess :evil:

Good to hear it looking good
Speedy recovery
Dano