Thank you for your input, there a few things I would like to respond to.
I have read from multiple sources that freshwater dips are risky for a couple different species of seahorses, barbouri being one of them. Because of this I am very hesitant to try it.
Each week I do 20% water changes. Every day, I use a turkey baster to blow around all detritus/whatever else is stuck in all the rock work. I then suck up anything I can with the turkey baster, the rest is blown around into the filter/protein skimmer. With each water change, I use a siphon and suction the sand bed all over. I rinse out my sponge filter every week in aquarium water and replace my filter floss at the same time, too. Obviously, like you said, there are tons of other things in the water that we can’t test for. I know my method of cleaning up doesn’t catch everything, but I do my best to get everything possible.
I know that selcon releases into the aquarium and doesn’t hold to the food very well. Because of this, I soak the thawed frozen shrimp in selcon for 5 minutes, pour it out into a net to let the excess drain out, then put it in a new container before feeding. Again, this doesn’t get every single little particle out, but the water doesn’t cloud a noticeable when I feed because of this.
I have heard arguments for both sides of fasting seahorses once a week, but the bottom line is it doesn’t hurt to do it. The main reason I do it is because I have class from 8:30am-7:00pm on Wednesdays and it makes sense to make this my fasting day.
Anyway, moving onto the treatment of my seahorses, I got SeaChem’s MetroPlex & Focus to mix in with their food. I have heard great things about it and I’m hoping it will work out. This morning wasn’t too great - the infected seahorse was still refusing to eat it while the other gobbled it all up. There was a lot of activity in the tank this morning with me moving rocks around to try and make a more comfortable place for her to eat, so I’m hoping that by tonight she will be more relaxed and have more interest in the food. Otherwise, I plan to force feed her with MetroPlex as best as I can until she (hopefully) recovers.
There can be such a learning curve with so much anecdotal information. I fell in love with the idea of breeding them back in the 80's. I have put a lot of hours in since then. Shedd aquarium documents, Pete G. Backstage tours with biologists at Scripps, copepod farms, tours of seahorse breeding sites in Carlsbad and Hawaii. IMHO you are doing exactly what you should be doing. Metroplex is a great 2 for one drug. If the disease is internal, don't stress them out with a dip or any handling. If it is external, Formalin is awesome and takes 30 minutes. Bacterium, Kanamyacyn, and tmp sulfa have been wonder drugs for me as well. Cool water slows bacterium.... good advice. Get him out of the general population if it is an option.
It is almost always malnutrition as a trigger. You should be able to hear your animals hit food from across the room. Live food is a key. Craigslist neocardian shrimp, a dollar, Special order feeder shrimp usually $.25, hatch and grow out brine. Look under rocks in a river bed. If the feeder shrimp look too big, cut them up. They will still twitch flash boielectri colors and attract attention. They will also have a different color than frozen and often have an electrical pulsing color that the seahorses can see. Live food keeps them alive and eating. Plus it gives you the option to gut load. If they won't hit live food, the game is kind of over. Enhance with SELCO, I am not sure about the other versions, SELCON and such. There is a brine shrimp supplier out of northern Utah (Logan?) that sells Self Emulsifying Lipid Concentration. Brineshrimpdirect. It is short chain fatty acids so it has a shelf life and needs to be refrigerated. If the lipids can sit on the shelf at a shop without going rancid, you probably need to do some research on how healthy it actually is.
I have never microscopically confirmed internal parasites with my animals, but I have treated for them and I have seen vibrant animals afterword. It is good to keep trying for a while. I seen healthy animals refuse food for up to a month and finally respond to the right treatment and pull out. There are some drugs that are not really water soluble, they have to be fed to your animal. Most dissolve easily and the seahorses are constantly drinking water so they do get the meds you put in there.
I don't want to be a buzz kill, but Micobacterium Marinum is increasingly common in captive seahorses (possibly 90% have it). It is incredibly rare in wild populations. It is not easy to spread, but dead food laying around and biofilms in low flow areas are great vehicle among others. Some public aquariums just let the infected animals co-exist. There is not really a treatment. Listless seahorses gasping for air and indifferent to food are good candidates. If meds don't work or the animal, and or if it is constantly in and out of remission with infections you are not completely sure of, you may want to find a lab and do a fin clip to test for it. Google the rest. There is a pretty standard procedure for managing that infection. It would be awesome if there were more hearty populations available.
Filtration is an easy one to point a finger at. I have built my own filter systems with algae scrubbers, ozone, waste settlement areas, degassing chambers, Dual protein shimmers, Denitrification chambers, calcium reactors, dosing pups and who knows what else. I can design and build an ultra low nutrient system with the best of them. After doing water tests, I can confirm that seahorses fall ill in water that tests out as being better than or equal to seawater, and water that has been ignored with low ph, alkalinity, magnesium, calcium and phosphates that max out my test kit. However, they have also thrived and produced offspring in the same situations. I know if sounds grandiose, but I can post evidence if you need to see it.
If I were to offer advice it would be; culture your own live rock so you don't get bristle worms among others. Then add some kind of accelerated algae growing system to your tank, (reactor, scrubber, or some DIY option) and check your cal, alk, and Mag, until you have found a way to keep them all in check. Don't take advice from a breeder that has access to seawater and has a flow through system. Finally, after that, just wait three days. Whatever you think is wrong with the animals, just feed them and wait 3 days.
Sorry if this sounds like a rant.
