Arggh sea horse with pouch bubble

[djnzlab1]

HI.
Well my male devolped that puffy pouch disease over the past few days,
I went to the Seahorse org page and read up on treatments and known fixes.
One is to use a catheter to flush the pouch with dilute acetazolamide, or diamox. it helps with any bacteria in the pouch and improves the fluid balance of the pouch tissues. seahorse male pouches can have the pouch slit seal up trapping bacteria forming gases.
Well its sunday and my favorite vet is closed so I took and irragation syringe and gently flushed the pouch till the slit opened and gently irrigated it with sea water.
Almost immedately it went back down to normal and he is swimming upright in the tank looking for ghost shrimp.
cross your fingers its fixed, had these guys for a few months and they really grow on you.
My only suggestion is to only get captive bred sea horses. and join the seahorseorg before you get any and look at the issues in keeping and feeding a pair.
they cost more than any of my other pets to keep feeding and healthy.
Doug

[baugherb]

Hope everything works out. Do you have any pics... Goodluck...

[djnzlab1]

Here's the male with a normal pouch.



Here's the female checking out a percula that's checking out the Seahorse



and a young seahose checking out a watchman goby.

[amcarrig]

When this happened to me, I would gently grab the male and gently massage its belly until the gas bubbled out. Try that before trying the syringe method.