SkinnyPete
Aquarium Advice Freak
My male seahorse has suddenly stopped eating. For a couple days about a week or so ago he wouldn't eat anything. Then he snapped out of it, and showed interest in food - however he spits out 90% of what he snicks up. I have 4 seahorses in a large 160g set-up (including sump/fuge water). Tank mates include a couple shrimp and a mandarin. The other 3 horses seem healthy, apart from one of the others who has, in the past couple days, began spitting out food as well, but not as frequent and she is not losing weight.
He doesn't appear to be keeping much down. What's happening is, he gets very excited over the food, goes to the feeding station and starts snicking up mysis right away. Snick is making a snapping noise and he appears to be on target, but he makes a kind of hiccup motion as if he's trying not to regurgitate it back up. This goes on for 5-10 seconds and he finally spits it out, sometimes along with other mysis he has swallowed.
Parameters are
Ammo 0
Trites 0
Trates 5
pH 8.0
Temp 72-73
SG 1.023
I've got a plague on my hands with flatworms and I'm batting cyano (both of which I'm working on - the low flow and height of my tank is a problem that I'm trying to resolve...but, not easy with seahorses).
Any ideas what could be wrong? Taking advice from seahorse.org, I gave the little guy a freshwater dip and he was a real trooper. I only dipped for 7 minutes, and I'm being told I should have shot for 10 so I may try again tonight. He didn't appear stressed at all. However, it did not appear to help. He's still spitting out food. He's now searching my rockwork for pods day and night. So, it's not a lack of appetite - he just can't keep it down. I may try to grab some formalin somewhere locally in case I need to do a formalin bath.
Any help would be appreciated.
- Skins
He doesn't appear to be keeping much down. What's happening is, he gets very excited over the food, goes to the feeding station and starts snicking up mysis right away. Snick is making a snapping noise and he appears to be on target, but he makes a kind of hiccup motion as if he's trying not to regurgitate it back up. This goes on for 5-10 seconds and he finally spits it out, sometimes along with other mysis he has swallowed.
Parameters are
Ammo 0
Trites 0
Trates 5
pH 8.0
Temp 72-73
SG 1.023
I've got a plague on my hands with flatworms and I'm batting cyano (both of which I'm working on - the low flow and height of my tank is a problem that I'm trying to resolve...but, not easy with seahorses).
Any ideas what could be wrong? Taking advice from seahorse.org, I gave the little guy a freshwater dip and he was a real trooper. I only dipped for 7 minutes, and I'm being told I should have shot for 10 so I may try again tonight. He didn't appear stressed at all. However, it did not appear to help. He's still spitting out food. He's now searching my rockwork for pods day and night. So, it's not a lack of appetite - he just can't keep it down. I may try to grab some formalin somewhere locally in case I need to do a formalin bath.
Any help would be appreciated.
- Skins