Found injured seahorse in surf

[ann83]

That is good news. Feed him some more if he'll eat it. Or try to feed him again before you go to bed if he won't eat more now. :-)

[reefy em]

He's just going to town on them! I watched him for like two minutes just now and he ate about 10! I added a bunch more so hopefully he'll chow down all night.

[ann83]

That is so great. That makes things so much easier and gives him a lot more hope for survival. Now we need to get him nice and fat and work on getting him onto larger foods, like 2-3 day old enriched, and then wean him onto frozen mysis. I am not sure if de-worming is appropriate at such a young age. What color is his poo?

[reefy em]

Haven't seen any poo yet. I cleaned some of the detritus off the bottom earlier but not very good so it'll be hard to see. I'm going to do some more cleaning tomorrow so I'll watch for it.

[ann83]

K, the way I'm thinking right now is, he has had a traumatic couple of days, so getting him eating and getting his strength and immune system up is most important. In the next couple of days, after he is reliably taking the live brine, you can start mixing in frozen brine with the live brine, and if he takes that, mixing in frozen H20 Mini Mysis or Hikari Mysis (brands w/ smaller mysis) and if he takes that, that would be phenominal. That will also be around the time that we'll have to start talking in the other thread about doing a FW dip, and de-worming him, although I think its probably a good idea to wait until he's stable since he's straight out of the ocean. Some people on your other thread may have better advice on that one (having treated smaller WC SH themselves), so you might want to ask over there about treatment once you are confident he is eating well.

[reefy em]

Aside from the obvious, what exactly is the de-worming for?

[ann83]

Wild caught seahorses often come in with internal parasites, so we treat to get rid of them before they migrate to vital organs like the brain. The FW dip is primarily for external parasites, but also has a limited effect on internal parasites, and is especially effective on those in the snout. There is a pinned topic in the wild caught seahorses forum on sh.org that talks about the quarantine process for wild caught seahorses and what different people do. It actually may be beneficial to you to see how people treat incoming wild caught dwarf seahorses, since they are closer to the body mass of your seahorse right now. That type of info can be found in a search of the threads on the dwarf seahorse forum.

[Duddly01]

Out of curiousity how is the little guy doing?

[reefy em]

He's doing very well. Still eating like a pig and is swimming around alot more. I'm going to try and get some better pictures so he can hopefully be IDd.

[Duddly01]

Considering you found him in the gulf of Mexico I would bet either Zosterae (which would be smaller) or Southern Erectus. I am betting Erectus, certainly a juvenile. Sam is a good name, nice and unisex. It appears to be female now, but depending on how old it is and probably is a juvenile it may form a pouch latter and turn out to be a male.

BTW, I wouldn't feel bad about capturing this one as a wild caught. With that much damage to its tail it wouldn't have had a chance in the wild. It has a much better chance with your care.

[reefy em]

UPDATE: Sam is doing great! I have been hatching BBS (kits at first, now decapsulated enriched with Selco) and he is still chowing down on them. I have tried some frozen BBS a couple of times but he won't take it. I think he's grown a little but I'm not positive. Haven't seen his poo yet either although there seems to be some poo-looking stuff on the bottom but I'm not sure.

[ann83]

Congrats
A couple ways to try to train her onto frozen:
Now that she's used to having a full tummy, tomorrow (or whenever) feed him frozen bbs at the first feeding of the day, and then at the second feeding, feed frozen bbs at first, and then after 15 minutes or so, feed out the live. Try this a couple days, if it doesn't work, go back to feeding live for a while to fatten her up again.
Or, mix the frozen bbs in with the live bbs so that she'll accidentally snick some, and gradually increase the ratio of frozen to live until he's eating all frozen. You can enrich both the frozen and live with garlic extract to help with the conditioning.
Trying frozen cyclopeeze, H20 mini mysis, and/or shaved mysis may also work with the training to frozen, and you'll definately want to try to switch her over to these more nutritous foods as soon as she's on frozen since frozen bbs is not a good staple diet (works for introducing vitamins, but thats about it, its mostly water and fiber).
You'll need to watch her eating and pooing closely while you train to frozen to make sure she is eating & pooing regularly so she won't accidentally starve. Its important to get her onto frozen now for better nutrition.
Good Luck and keep us updated.

[Duddly01]

That is wonderful news!
Another idea to get her more nutritious food would be ghost shrimp. Are they available in your area?
How about tiggerpods? They can get expensive at $20 a bottle but would be a good suplement and are more nutritious. They're also small (large for copepods) and she may have already outgrown them if she is on adult brine.
As far as frozen go for whole shrimp (brine and mysis), hikari is good and usually reasonably small. She will likely have an easier transition if the food looks like something she recognizes as food.
I have only kept CB horses so I have never weaned one myself, I wish you the best of luck.

[mrme]

look into melafix/ methane blue, for healing up the tail and keeping away disease/parasites. Im Glad he has lived this long, keep up with water changes, and be sure to gutload those mysis.
As long as the BBS have enough nutrition, the seahorse can live on them for quite some time. But they must have the extra nutrition, or your efforts are meaningless.

Goodluck !

[mrme]

oops, i mean gutload the bbs, not the mysis. =P

[NbMaxx13]

Tagging along ... I think it is impressive to go through and read this post... Just to see how your knowledge has increased in this process... Proud of ya!... Keep up the great work and keep us updated...

Also you have been getting some excellent advice... Such a wonderful comunity of people here ... Congrats all..I am proud to be a part right now ..

[mollymonticello]

Just to clarify for future readers of this post--get a few more opinions before you use Melafix on your seahorse. Ask people who have actually done it. There have been many seahorse deaths reported as a result of using Melafix.

Now, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Melafix, but I would not take the chance of using it on a seahorse.

[shilo_1]

Updates ? =-)