Catastrophic Event!

[yveterinarian]

Yesterday when I turned on the lights to my dwarf tank I found the majority of them dead on the bottom of the tank!

They were fine and swimming around the day before so I immediately began testing my water -

Ammonia - 0 ppm
Nitrites - 0 ppm
Nitrates - 5 ppm
Salinity - 1.019 (optimum for Dwarfs)
Temp - 74*F

Seeing that the water parameters looked okay I then turned to the possibility of Hydroids. I carefully checked the tank but have been unable to find any. I immediately took the remaining few out of the tank and put them in a small holding tank but I am at a loss as to what caused this issue. I have a protein skimmer and an airline running on this tank as well as a canister filter filled with rock rubble.

I am devastated.

I have not counted what I have left as I was too upset yesterday but I think that there are only about 20 left out of the 70 or more that I had. The tank has been running without issue since last August with 100 dwarfs to start.

 

[heath]

OMG, Yvette, is there anything that anyone can do to help ? Were these babies or your adults..

 

[yveterinarian]

No, Heather, these were the adults. I had one baby that was in a separate small tank and I put the remaining adults in with it. This morning I did a full count and, after a few more died last night, I am now left with 12 adults and 1 juvenile. Of those 12, 2 look poor.

I have always been aware that Dwarfs might possibly be a short term endeavor given their short life span. I had been hoping the juveniles would help me sustain the population. My adults most likely were close to the 1.5 year mark for age but it never occurred to me that I could lose so many at once with no warning when the tank hadn't crashed. If the tank had crashed I could understand it. The only thing I can think of is some unknown pathogen. I will be dismantling and sterilizing the tank over the next few days.

Given the small number I have left I will be keeping them in the smaller container that I have successfully raised their fry in. I will be doing daily water changes since it is not a cycled tank and will cross my fingers that they will begin to reproduce again. Maybe I will be lucky and be able to start increasing my herd again.

There isn't anything anyone can do to help since Dwarfs are not available in Canada. I will not be making another large order from Florida so if these ones die off that's it. I have my fingers crossed but if they don't survive at least I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed keeping them and it has been a very exciting experience.

 

[heath]

oh Yvette, my heart goes out to you, you have worked so very hard to raise them..I didn't realize that their life span was that short..my fingers, toes and what ever else I don't use are crossed that you save the remaining ones and find out what it could have been..

 

[EricTMah]

Omg yvette!

Sorry to hear. I highly doubt it was anything you've done as all your posts indicate you have great husbandry practises and go above and beyond to ensure your ponies are receiving the best care possible.

Hopefully the remaining few will bounce back and begin breeding again for you.

Sorry to hear

Sony Xperia Z3

 

[Kman]

As a precaution I would check the food you were feeding them, something might have contaminated the food source. Go over everything you have done leading up to it to rule everything out.

 

[Jesse biocubebeginner]

Not too knowledgeable on sea horses. One thing I would suggest is checking your temperature probe. Got one off averhoog last weekend that reads three degrees different then my original lousy one.


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[yveterinarian]

Thanks everyone. I have checked my food but I don't think it is that since I have been feeding the exact same from the same hatch bottles to my fry in another tank with no issues. I suspect it is a bacteria or pathogen but I can't see any outward signs on the seahorses. Their behaviour was not unusual in the days leading up to this. One of life's mysteries.

 

[sunnykita]

oh Yvette, I am so sorry to hear this sad news, life mystery, for sure, but not any easier to swallow when you've cared for them as well as you do.

 

[scubasteve]

thats such a shock to hear yvette i know first hand how well you take care of them and they were always doing so well. im leaning on the short life span since other issues you would have noticed ahead of time . on the up side you still have adults and a baby so hopefully we see some more baboes soon

 

[yveterinarian]

Thanks Steve

We have been discussing this on the org and I think we have narrowed it down to Dave using bug spray on himself in our back hall. As you know we have no doors between the tank in the living room and the back hall area. Another member of the org lost his dwarfs because his landlady bug sprayed an empty apartment beside his and it seeped into his apartment. When he said that last night I suddenly remembered Dave using the bug spray the day before they all died because he went out to cut the grass and the mosquitoes were terrible.

I have difficulty imagining all the seahorses dying at the same time due to age but I guess stranger things have happened and at the time it was all I could think of other than a pathogen or oxygen deprivation but I had an open ended airline running in the tank.

Yesterday 4 more died so I am now down to 6 adults and one 2 month old fry. I am still in shock.

 

[heath]

OMG Yvette, something that no one would ever think about, just part of daily living..I was on seahorse.org last nite and I think that I need someone to show how to navigate the site.. I run the automatic air freshners in my living room, sounds like they are going into another room.. another thing to think about using aerosol sprays..
Fingers are crossed that the remaining survive..

 

[EricTMah]

Omg. I'm so sorry yvette.

Anytime I hear anything like this it makes me cringe.

I don't allow any aerosols in the house at all. All sprays that we use to clean with are all vinegar and water only. Any other sprays are only allowed outside. No air fresheners either. Maybe a scented candle here and there. But that's it.

I've heard way too many horror stories about stuff like this not to be extra careful in my house.

Sony Xperia Z3

 

[heath]

Good to know, the air freshners are GONE today..

 

[heath]

Yvette, just had a brain fart, instead of using any type of bug spray use bounce dryer sheets, rub it all over any exposed skin, really works, its what I use on the dogs at shows to keep those nasty things off them..and he will smell really nice too..

 

[yveterinarian]

They are still debating if the bug spray was a cause or not on the Org but either way I'll tell Dave to take it outside or try the dryer sheet idea.

 

[scubasteve]

that bug spray does contain nasty stuff thats for sure

 

[yveterinarian]

It has been three weeks now since my devastating loss and I now have 5 adults and one juvenile left. Of the adults one is a male and the rest are females. I'm not sure what the juvenile is yet. I lost the sixth adult about 2 weeks ago and nothing since. No new babies on the way yet but I have my fingers crossed since I do have the one male left.

I started Furan 2 as was suggested to me in Seahorse.org in case it was bacterial in nature and I'm not sure if that helped or not but I do know it hasn't been a detriment.

They are still being housed in a small, uncycled, barebottom tank with 50% water changes daily. I have just incorporated this water change into my daily routine with the brine shrimp hatcheries and it works well because I can't forget if I do it all at the same time.

I have been having difficulties scaling down my brine shrimp production now that I have so few dwarfs that are eating them. I was so used to the large quantities I had to hatch every day. When it first happened I had three large batches on the go at different stages of development. I tried saving the extra in the fridge but didn't have any luck with that. I couldn't seem to find any live ones after a couple of days in the fridge even if I warmed the to room temperature and bubbled the dose I wanted to give the dwarfs that day so I am now just hatching out a small amount every 3 days and each batch is lasting three days. It is finally working out well and I'm not having too much wastage.

 

[heath]

so glad to hear that things have calmed down and that things are working out with no more losses...you are a trooper and a hero...