what is wrong with our seahorse?

C

coralcouple

Please look at these photos - our Seahorse (Willie if it is a boy and Wilma if it is girl) is crusty, or fuzzy.
We have had the horse since 10/20/05. It was smooth when we bought it. Over the last week or possibly two - it began to look furry, or fuzzy, or crusty. I looked up seahorse illnesses in a couple of books but this doesn't look like any illnesses I read about.
It is very active, appears very happy, very inquisitive, eats well, doesn't appear to act sick.
We have quite a bit of Southdown sand - could the sand (which becomes airborne occasionally) be sticking to the horse?
I wondered about getting a baby's toothbrush and gently brushing off the crusties? Or would that be dreadfully wrong? What could be done to get his/her smooth skin back? Some of the crusties appear loose as if they could be picked off.

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IMO - and you can take any way you want.

There are only 2 concerns I have. One is the sand and the comment about it being kicked up on occasion. IME or when I kept ponies I was always told fine grain sand and seahorses don't mix. I am sure someone on the board keeps them in this type of environment and can disspell those stories. I would keep an eye on dust storms.

In addition the last picture kind of has me worried since there are air bubbles on the body. Again not an alarmist but something certainly is not right about that. You might want to post or check the forums at http://seahorse.org/ There is a wealth of information there.
 
That third picture looks like cyano bacteria to me.

I would post these image in the Seahorse forum on RC to get some feedback there as well.
 
Yeah it really looks like algae on the horses. Does your tank have cyano? Often when people start feeding their horses the get an algae bloom due to all of the leftovers feeding the bacteria in the tank.

If it is just algae, I think if you fix that problem in the tank, you will find that it will fall off of your horses in time. I wouldn't take a toothbrush to the horses, it will just stress them out further.

I have a couple of erectus that have a bit of algae on them, it doesn't harm them in the least.

Carolyn
 
I agree that it looks like algae. It won't harm your seahorses. I have some red slime algae growing on one of my juvies.
 
I found this on seahorse.org

Cyano is very common in small dwarf set ups. The high amount of feeding required does cause an excess of nutrients, and the low flow required for dwarfs is a perfect environment for cyano. Increase your water changes, cut back on your photo period (preferably no lights for 48 hours if possible), syphon out what cyano you can during water changes and you should be fine in a week or so. Of course if you slack off on maintanence it will come back on you.

As far as the horses, you can leave it on them and it will flake off as it dies and clears up.
 
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