Here you go! Just a little info for you. Hope it helps.
People have been asking in emergency lately about how to avoid common problems. This is what I would personally suggest based on the problems I see most often and what makes the difference between successful treatments and failed ones. Some of it is covered in the care guide but it’s worth repeating. NB this is aimed at the larger species (ie. Not H.zosterae etc) though many points still apply.
Don’t keep seahorses at the top end of the temperature ranges for the species. 76 is about the highest I would recommend for tropicals.
Don’t skip quarantine (full 8 weeks for WCs, combined with prophylactic antiprotozoan/antiparasitic treatment)
When buying a CB seahorse from a hobbyist, don’t assume it is disease free, as you would from a breeder.
Supplement frozen mysis with carotenoids (astaxanthin powder, vibrance etc).
Don’t allow your SH to breed continually all year without a break
Don’t move a potentially sick seahorse to a display tank because it appears “lonely”. Seahorses can quite happily be housed alone for extended periods.
Isolate a SH displaying symptoms of a bacterial infection immediately
Make sure your powerheads are safe and that the seahorses can't get their tails caught
If you want to minimise risk, especially as a new keeper:
Don’t mix captive bred and wild caught seahorses
If you can, keep single species tanks
Make sure you have the following on hand, at all times:
Neomycin and sulfas
Gentamycin
Diamox (acetazolamide)
Beta glucan
A catheter/cannula or similar for tube feeding, pouch flushes etc
Clove oil / MS-222 or similar (anaesthetic)
A hospital tank
Enough salt mix to do large water changes
Test kits for ammonia, nitrite, PH and oxygen
A refractometer to measure SG for hyposalinity
….and ideally a spare cycled filter
Base a diagnosis on the entire circumstances, not on symptoms alone (popeye doesn’t necessarily mean gas supersaturation, a thin seahorse does not necessarily have enteric parasites, etc). Buy a book on fish disease. Bassleer’s one is very cheap and a good introduction. Don’t use medications for conditions they are not designed to treat.
When posting in emergency, include all the information at the start, a clear picture, and tank parameters in full.
Have suitable live foods to hand when acclimating recently shipped seahorses and when treating for sickness
Don’t keep SH with unsuitable tankmates (yes, people do, and sometimes successfully, but that in my opinion is based on luck rather than judgement and at the very least it can lead to compromising optimal husbandry parameters for both species of animal)
Don’t skip parts of treatment advice, or change the dosages, or mix advice from different people.
Monitor ammonia, pH and o2 in hospital tanks - it can change quickly in a small body of water
Feed beta glucan during treatments, QT, after moves, during heatwaves, or at any time the SHs may have been exposed to disease.
If your fish is showing symptoms of disease, treat as soon as you can after you arrive at a diagnosis. Many times, there is a "treatment window" and if you leave it too long, you will not be able to save the fish.
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