Thorny seahorse

[teemee]

I went to pick up a gorgonian for my current NPS tank last night, and there lo and behold was a beautiful pink female H. histrix. I'd planned to start a seahorse tank for a pair or trio of locally bred H. erectus or some H. comes that come in periodically in the new year anyway, but i haven't even ordered the tank yet. Anyhow, i got her and put her in my current tank. Light is low and water is ~25˚C for my nps. Moving rhizos into an acclimation box, fish are all v. peaceful. she isn't taking mysis, so plan to try and get some live brine tomorrow and prazipro.
has anyone ever kept this species? any tips? any suggestions? thanks in advance :)

[Mo2]

Did you ask the LFS to feed before you purchased? How long have they had her? Whats the size? I have a bunch of these too and its a toss. Some of mine are eating frozen mysis. Some aren't. I'm assuming its probably an issue with their size. For the ones that were not eating I tried a ton of stuff, live brine, bbs, arctic pods, copepods, etc. They would snick at a few things but didn't take anything completely. It was a headache.

[Mo2]

Oh and eventually they took a few days old bbs. I enriched them with algamac3050. This isn't sufficient however, so I would then try to get them on mysis or at least enriched adult live brine.

[TamiW]

Hi Teemee! Mo2 pointed me at this thread. As far as I know, this is the first time this species has shown it's face in the US, and at the very least as tank-raised. Most people who've reported having them in the past had misidentified them H. barbouri or H. comes. I have been pretty active on various seahorse forums and mailing lists since 1999 and have never actually seen them in the western hemisphere until now. A few places in Vietnam claimed to be raising them a few years back, but their websites have evaporated, making it more unusual to finally be seeing them.

If you don't mind, where about are you located? I'd love to know how widespread the distribution is, and your use of Celcius suggests not in the US.

There isn't a lot known about their care, but there is a lot we know about tank raised seahorses that are commonly available in the US. They tend to fair poorly for most people due to the size they are shipped at. Most are far too small small, and can't go a long time without food. So they tend to be pretty weak by the time they're acquired. Getting the seahorse to eat is going to eat asap is going to be very important. She might not be eating due to stress, she might not be eating do to a prolonged period without food (they can be hard to get restarted), she might not be eating due to something like an internal infection due to stress.

I would throw every type of food you can at her. Try and asses her overall health by looking at her body mass. Are her plates sunken in or does she have nice muscle mass. I find looking at the plates around the back of the neck and the tail start to hollow out first when starved. Gaging that condition can help give you some idea of how long she's been without food.

Oh, and if she's as small as I suspect, then the actual sex is probably not determinable yet. Most tank raised seahorses are sold before sexual maturity.

Finally, I wanted to mention the temperature. Most seahorse keepers keep them in cooler water to help suppress bacterial infections. Seahorses appear to lack any adaptive immune system (or it's very different than most vertebrates) and so succumb to a whole host of infections. One way hobbyists have hacked that is by keeping the temperature lower than they would be found in the wild. In a tropical species like this, I'd guess you wouldn't want it higher than 74, with 72 probably being ideal. But as I don't think a lot of people have experience with them, it's kind of a guess at this point.

Good luck! Please keep us posted.

[teemee]

Hi,
She'd only just arrived that day (Sunday). She's a big girl - my guess is 5-6", so I'm presuming by that size sex can be determined. She's definitely wild caught. I didn't ask them to feed her at the store, mainly because she'd only been there a few hours, but they were really busy, and she was in a holding tank the size of a shoebox with 3 others, not H. histrix, and probably freaking out. I'm 99% she is properly identified, def. not a borb - i looked for those for years - she has a significantly elongated snout, very thorny, with a large predominant thorn on the crown of her head. If i can find my camera today, I'll try to take some pictures.
I too have looked on all of the forums and can't find a thing about them. I've seen plenty of them diving in the Indo-Pacific, but that's not very helpful for me, except in terms of habitat.
Yesterday I tried mysis shrimp and some larry's reef frenzy that has tons of good stuff in it, with no luck. She's out scouting the benthos now for pods - I'm hoping my grissengeri gobies stay away!
Light is low and heat not high anyway, but I'm going to turn it down a bit more and pick up a thermometer today just to make sure the thermostat on my heater is working and it's not too warm in there.
Wish me luck - i'm praying this to make this a success story.

[teemee]

no live brine available until thursday or friday :uhoh3:

[rayjay]

You can use freshwater ghost shrimp or cherry shrimp. Just add a few and they will live until eaten, keeping the remainder of what you buy in a container of aerated fresh water.

[teemee]

Thanks Ray, I'm going to call my local LFS to see what they have in stock right now!

[teemee]

Bought some cherry shrimp this afternoon - put 3/6 in the tank, each in front of her about 30 min apart. She's pretty terrified of me and the turkey baster. Will try again with the other 3 tomorrow, by then they should have ghost shrimp as well. I'll have live adult brine on thursday morning. Her belly isn't sunken one bit, and I see her hunting for pods all of the time in my tank, which it has no shortage of, but I also have a mandarin in there (that eats frozen, too).

[Whiterabbitrage]

Pix please. I've never seen a pink seahorse.

[teemee]

I'll post pics as soon as my camera has charged up.
She's not very interested in live adult brine shrimp. Saw her try to snick up a few, not successfully as far as I can tell. don't know what to do... Suggestions anyone?

[rayjay]

As brine shrimp are not a natural food for seahorses, it sometimes takes a bit for them to get onto thinking of them as food.
What makes it harder is if there is still copepods in the tank that it still sees as food and until that source is decimated it may not get all that interested just now.
The good sign is that you've seen it try to snick some up, indicating it may not be too long before success happens.

[redhorse]

I would get a different camera if it takes this long to charge :lmao:

[TamiW]

I've seen two reasons fishstore seahorses don't eat. One is not recognizing the food offered. As Rayjay said, brine not part of their natural diet. Many seahorses will eat it, but some just won't; it's too foreign.

I would try any food you can. Live mysis, frozen mysis, arctipods, cyclopeeze, baby brine shrimp <-- I normally would not recommend, but there does seem to be some at least smaller histrix that take it. I'm skeptical at their size but I also don't think it would hurt. Try amphipods - check your filter media and throw some in the tank. Anything you think might help is worth a try. Different brands of mysis might even help- for instance, small

Try dosing the tank with b12. It's an appetite stimulant. You'll want to find b12 with no additives, and dose at a rate of 5,000 micrograms per 10 gallons. That might perk them up.

The other reasons seahorses often don't eat is that their health is declining and/or has declined. I've seen that in wild caught and tank raised seahorses. Even when offered the right food, they go downhill and refuse food. Or take a couple small snicks to only turn their nose up a couple days later. I don't know what the treatment is, I've seen enough of these cases both in my own hands and on various forums that they all go downhill in a predicable manner. That's not to say to give up, but rather that is important to know that you might try everything, but still have no luck.

That's not to say you shouldn't try all your options. I always try to assume that they can be helped, no matter what.

Good luck!

[Mo2]

I 2nd the B12. Everything else failed, and failed for days. Dan Underwood suggested the B12 and it actually helped. The day after the 1st dosage I got them to eat.

Also, my histrix were really shy... do you have a lot of hiding spaces? Maybe even try covering up the sides of the tank with black paper. And PICS PICS PICS!!!

[teemee]

i spoke with Dan the other day and he recommended the B12 to me as well. picking some up today! she's still in a 55 - a friend is going to lend me an 8g biocube to try and get her feeding.
plenty of hiding spaces. I taped a small mirror to it, also per Dan's suggestion, and have the tank completely covered around the sides for pretty much the whole day for the last 2.
I know I owe you guys pics... they're coming.
i don't know what she's doing, but her belly looks full to me... maybe she's been eating stuff while the tank's been covered, but until I actually see it happen, I'm dubious...

[redhorse]

Having a full belly or looks like can be eggs or condition issue.
Do you have male or was she with males at the store?

Reason Pics are important because someone might see something others are unaware of.

Example: If a seahorse has not been seen eating but looks full.. We might see that she is egg bound or has a bacterial issue causing swelling and we might see this in her tail or a spot that is not normal. We all care--Sorry to be blunt but pics are very important.

Many including myself have had males that we thought were preg, but in fact were not and a pic was capable of diagnosis.

[teemee]

I couldn't find B12 with no additives, so bought the one with the least additives I found. Dosed twice and the seahorse did perk up, eating wise. Was dosing the 5000 micrograms per 10g; my tank is 55g but I only dosed as if it were forty to account for displacement by the rocks. It was 20 1000 microgram tabs per dose.
Day 2 am - my red spot cardinals were acting strange. Day 2 pm - dead seahorse, dead golden angel, dead cardinals, dead ruby red dragonet and dead susumi basslet. I immediately did a 10g water change - all that I had on hand. Goby, mandarin and corals are all fine (mostly extra sensitive non-photo gorgonians). haven't seen possum wrasse and leopard wrasse, so don't know.
sad and depressed.

[noy]

I couldn't find B12 with no additives, so bought the one with the least additives I found. Dosed twice and the seahorse did perk up, eating wise. Was dosing the 5000 micrograms per 10g; my tank is 55g but I only dosed as if it were forty to account for displacement by the rocks. It was 20 1000 microgram tabs per dose.
Day 2 am - my red spot cardinals were acting strange. Day 2 pm - dead seahorse, dead golden angel, dead cardinals, dead ruby red dragonet and dead susumi basslet. I immediately did a 10g water change - all that I had on hand. Goby, mandarin and corals are all fine (mostly extra sensitive non-photo gorgonians). haven't seen possum wrasse and leopard wrasse, so don't know.
sad and depressed.

that's really sad to hear about your losses.