Anybody use quinine to treat their seahorses?
 

Hi All,

I have been battling some kind of chronic infection/infestation with my seahorses for months. Not all of them are eaffected, but the ones that are exhibit rapid respiration/gilling, exhibit darker color, show less interest in food, and exhibit general malaise. I have placed the sick ones in a hospital tank and treated with metronidazole for a couple of weeks, then placed them back in the display tank, only to have them relapse a couple of weeks later.

I suspect this problem might be caused by cryptocaryon irritans (marine ich), but not absolutely sure. At this point, I thought I should take all of the seahorses (as well as the pair of Bangai cardinals and red scooter blennies I have housed with them) out of the 110 gallon display tank regardless of whether or not they are displaying signs of illness and place them into a 70 gallon, bare-bottom quarantine tank. I plan to treat them all in QT and leave the display tank fallow for 6 weeks or more, hoping that whatever pathogen is in there will finally die out with no fish hosts.

I was thinking of treating the seahorses with Crypto-pro (quinine sulfate) while they are in the quarantine tank because the makers claim is it very effective for stubborn cases of marine ich.

Has anyone used this medication on their seahorses? Any other recommendations for how to treat their symptoms while in QT?

Thanks for your help!

It has been a long time since I have used quinine sulfate. It can work for some parasites but it is very hard on the seahorses. If it were me, I would prefer to go the copper route if I suspected ich. Seahorses do handle copper ok! We just had one customer go through this in a community tank with copper being used for several weeks.

Dan

Hi Dan...thanks so much for getting back to me on this! I had sort of given up on getting a response. I am actually now in day 5 of a 7 day course of quinine sulfate (crypto-pro) and fortunately all of the seahorses seem to be tolerating it OK (eating and swimming normally...knock on wood!). But, I will plan to follow your advice and use copper if the 7 day treatment of quinine does not seem to do the trick and eradicate the pest.

I suspect ich (cryptocaryon), but not positive that is what it is. Whatever it is I have been battling it off and on for months. So I hoped that by leaving the display tank fallow for several weeks and treating all of my livestock (seahorses and a couple of Bangai Cardinals and ruby scooter blennies) in a hospital tank would finally put an end to the infestation.

Hopefully, by then you will have your reidis available again!