Help! OR Vibio?

[kizanne]

Please look at these picture of my seahorse. I believe he has Vibrio on both his left and right side.





So Here are a few questions for the 'experts'

Does it look like Vibrio?
How long do you think the horse has had that?
If it isn't Vibrio what is it because it is slightly sunken and dull (not glossy like the natural white pigment)?

I'm so mad right now. These are $200 horses from Ocean Rider that came in the mail today. I also paid for overnight shipping and they sent them 2 day. And they aren't eating!!!! I had alerted them to the shipping issue a week ago by email and hadn't even gotten a response nor was the shipping fixed.


I'm just so upset, sad, and mad right now. I'm just glad that I didn't put them in my main tank. They are in a 30 gallon with a 20 sump all by themselves.

@vlangel
@rayjay

[rayjay]

First off, it takes lab work to determine the type of bacteria as the vibrio types are not the only ones affecting our seahorses.
It doesn't appear to be natural markings so I would say it probably is a bacterial infection and it needs to be placed in a hospital tank with temperature lowered to about 68°F or as close as possible, heavy aeration with open ended air line, and treat with Furan II. You can also use tri-sulpha as well.
From Ann at the org:
FURAN-2 (immersion) Dosage and Preparation Instructions for a 10g/38L Hospital Tank
Active Ingredient: Nitrofurazone and Furazolidone
Indication: bacterial infection
Disregard package info concerning water changes and duration of treatment. Dose medication daily for10 days.
Replace the medication in ratio to the amount of water changed daily as needed to control ammonia.
This product is best administered by feeding it to adult live brine shrimp, then in turn, feeding those
animals to the Seahorse. If this is not an option, it may be administered as follows.
DAY 1 of Treatment
• Thoroughly mix one packet of Furan-2 with about 1 cup of marine water.
• Pour the mixture into a high-flow area of the hospital tank.
DAYS 2 through Day 10 of Treatment
• Perform a 50% water change.
• Thoroughly mix one packet of Furan-2 with about 1 cup of marine water.
• Pour the mixture into a high-flow area of the hospital tank.
For tri-sulpha, use a directed on package.

You need to get some live food to try to entice them to eat, although sometimes some seahorses take a day or so to eat after having been shipped.
Live adult brine shrimp, mysid shrimp, small ghost shrimp, whatever you can find fast right now.
If they DO NOT start eating very soon you will have to tube feed them.
You can find info on that as well as on flesh erosion disease @ https://fusedjaw.com/Category/diseasehealth/
Two day shipping in itself is not a problem. I have abs and barbs I imported from Australia that took two days to get here.
I'm a bit confused from your post as you said you got the seahorses today, (I'm assuming a pair of them) but alerted them to the shipping issue a week ago. Have you contacted them today after receiving the shipment with this problem?
You also didn't mention the species of seahorses.
Also, I'm curious as to why you bought from OR when Dan's seahorsesource and Alyssa's seahorsesavy are both cheaper with excellent quality.

[kizanne]

Thanks for the response.

I got them yesterday. But they created the label last week so I could see that the shipping was wrong.

I know 2 day is ok I have shipped two day myself a ton of babies but I wanted them to have the easiest journey possible and they are my Xmas present to myself. That was also an over charged vent.

I chose OR because they are Barbouri's and no one else had them. While I don't check all the time I haven't caught them in stock on Dan's site for five years. I'm in Florida so I would have ordered from Dan but ... No Barbour's. Alyssa no Barbour's in stock. Also OCean Rider is supposed to be good too. So far I called and emailed them yesterday and I spoke to a phone answerer who couldn't help but took my number at 2 pm Hawaii time but they didn't bother to call me back or answer my email .

They were already by themselves but I have removed them to a 10 gallon hospital tank. I already tried live brine, frozen mysid. I've put some tigger pods in too. And started treatment but not Furan. I'll have to order. I can feed some to the live brine. I will try Opua shrimp if the brine doesn't work and glass shrimp. I have both of those live on hand, amphipods too. Trust me if they'll eat at all I have the stuff for fussy eaters. Being a breeder I keep all kinds of fun around. But you shouldn't have too for brand new captive bred fish!

Ah well I suspected vibrio I guess it could be some other flesh eating bacteria. I've only had one experience with bacterial issues so I wanted to double check. The current course of hospital tank and treatment worked for that so hopefully...

[kizanne]

ARggggg. They still haven't bothered to call or respond to my email. So now I get to spend 30 minutes filling out dispute paperwork. At least for now the fish are still alive. It will take time for them to show improvement either way.

I can't believe this is a company that people oh and ah over.

I wouldn't even be as upset if there was any communication at all and the assurance they would make my expensive purchase right if things go south.

As it is I have to break down my grow out tank and disinfect that's a lot of work and 50 gallons of saltwater. Then I have to put extra work, money into saving/ medicating these fish. Then I'll have to break down that tank and clean it as well.

I get stuff happens but if you brag about your high health facility and charge $100 / seahorse then you should be able to respond when you ship people sick fish.

[rayjay]

I don't think it really matters if it is a vibrio type or a different one as treatment will be the same. The damaging bacteria are basically gram negative and the treatment should work on any of them.
It's unfortunate that the company has NOT responded as they probably would know just what the problem is, as I doubt it is an isolated incidence.

[vlangel]

I am sorry that you are having trouble with Ocean Rider. I bought my 1st 2 seahorses from them over 4 years ago and had a good experience. In fact I still have one of those 2 seahorses. I am sad to hear how they are not being responsive to your concerns.

I switched to Seahorse Source because they can overnight seahorses to PA from FL when it required 2 day shipping to PA from HI. I like Dan Underwood's concern for the welfare of seahorses and felt his buisness ethic deserved supported as well.

However, until I heard your experience I had nothing negative to say about Ocean Rider. I will no longer include them as a recommendation for future seahorse owners.

[kizanne]

Are they Barbouri?

[kizanne]

@rayjay you've had Barbouri's how many of your didn't have the zebra snout? (and where chocolate brown?)

[kizanne]

Originally Posted by vlangel

I am sorry that you are having trouble with Ocean Rider. I bought my 1st 2 seahorses from them over 4 years ago and had a good experience. In fact I still have one of those 2 seahorses. I am sad to hear how they are not being responsive to your concerns.

I switched to Seahorse Source because they can overnight seahorses to PA from FL when it required 2 day shipping to PA from HI. I like Dan Underwood's concern for the welfare of seahorses and felt his buisness ethic deserved supported as well.

However, until I heard your experience I had nothing negative to say about Ocean Rider. I will no longer include them as a recommendation for future seahorse owners.

Thanks for stopping by Vlangel. I also now am concerned these may not be Barbouri.

The color isn't standard but I guess possible. and there is no zebra snout. I was so focused on the health issue that I hadn't really thought about it.

Yes I would have ordered from Dan if he had Barbouri. They are very hit or miss to find. I've been thinking about them for about 5 years and often times when I decide I want them then I can't find them. Then I'll leave alone for a little while . Well last week when I decided that was what I wanted for Christmas they were the only ones with Barbouri's in stock I could find.

I'm working now to try to get answer to the question are they even barbouri's?

[rayjay]

Originally Posted by kizanne

@rayjay you've had Barbouri's how many of your didn't have the zebra snout? (and where chocolate brown?)

They all have the zebra snout but some it's hard to see while others it's prominent.

[kizanne]

Ok I"m losing my mind here. I took the last hour finding a more definitive way of identifying seahorses.
So far I've discovered that the head to snout ratio of my horse is 2.53
(typical erectus 2.6, typical barbouri 2.2)

My horse has one cheek spine (typical barbouri 2, typical erectus 1)
My horse is brown (typical barbouri yellowish, cream, tanish, typical erectus brown to black but can vary greatly with surroundings).

My horse has a brown nose (typical barbouri zebra striping known as the zebra snout seahorse, typical erectus matches body color)

Even the angel between the eye and nose spine is wrong

here is a zoomed in picture of his head with measurements. I'm not a biologist but did my best to follow the instructions. I didn't calibrate the program for distance but since it's a ratio it doesn't matter the ratio would be exact.

My "Barbouri"


An internet Barbouri


While this ones head ratio is about 2.37 which is larger than 2.2 it is closer to 2.2 than 2.6. And you can easily see the two cheek spines and the zebra snout.

I've been snookered. I just paid $300 for 2 sick erectus even though I already own, breed and sell erectus.

and still no response from Ocean Rider. I have sent another email with this concern and asked them to ship me 2 healthy Barbouri. We will see if I ever even get a courtesy reply.

[rayjay]

well mine have experienced a RANGE of colour going from light yellow to dark brown and at any given time, the eight have about half yellow to yellow brown and the others a darker to quite dark brown. They were all yellow up until I put a finger leather and Kenya tree that were mounted on reef rock. With a day they started their colour changing and several are quite a dark brown now.
I'm not about to try doing any measuring, but, for cheek spines, most have two, one has two tiny ones but they appear to be side by side, and another one looks to have just one.

[kizanne]

Originally Posted by rayjay

well mine have experienced a RANGE of colour going from light yellow to dark brown and at any given time, the eight have about half yellow to yellow brown and the others a darker to quite dark brown. They were all yellow up until I put a finger leather and Kenya tree that were mounted on reef rock. With a day they started their colour changing and several are quite a dark brown now.
I'm not about to try doing any measuring, but, for cheek spines, most have two, one has two tiny ones but they appear to be side by side, and another one looks to have just one.

So do you think my brown one is a Barbouri? or Erectus?

Also look at the angle of the nose and eye spine. In all the picture of Barbouri I've seen they are at a large arc that makes a half moon the erectus nose spine head more straight out and/or back then any of the Barbouri. Can you look at your Barbouri?

and of course no zebra snout

[kizanne]

I"m following this guide https://static1.squarespace.com/stat...-seahorses.pdf

[rayjay]

I use the same guide but from the cites site.
I can't tell you that they are not barbs but I can't say they look like erectus either as the crown looks like barb crown. My erectus didn't have as prominent a crown but I've seen pics of erectus with a more prominent crown than mine had. It's apparently a variable point.
As for HL/SNL, what you have falls within the given range for barbs (2.0-2.6) and is also within the erectus range of 2.2-3.5 which may have a wider range to allow for the differences between southern erectus and northern erectus.
As both have 11 trunk rings, and tail rings have a common range, you could eliminate barbs if the tail rings are 37-39 as that range is only listed for the erectus.
Maybe it's neither barb or erectus.
You're just going to have to wait until you succeed in contacting them.

[rayjay]

The doral spines are NOT as prominent in your picture as what mine are but that may be just the angle I'm seeing it at.

[rayjay]

That should be dorsal not doral

[kizanne]

When they are healthier I'll try to get a good picture to count dorsal spines.

Right now I"m trying to leave them alone, feed them good, use the medicine and hope they get better. The picture I used for the head and snout length is the same one I took when I noticed they were sick.

They have started eating some but I'm not having to clean up large seahorse poop so not enough eating yet.

[rayjay]

With regards to DORSAL, I wasn't talking of counting spines but to remark that the barb dorsal spines are more prominent that those of erectus. The tail ring count though MIGHT possibly be out of the range of one but fall in range for the other.
However, if you ALSO consider the Dorsal and Pectoral FIN RAYS, between all of them you MIGHT be able to narrow it down. As they both have partial similar ranges like the tail rings, they also have part of the ranges outside each other.
i.e. for dorsal fin rays, the barbs MIGHT have 21 or 22 which is more than the range for erectus running 16 to 20. For pectoral fin rays, they MIGHT have 19 or 20 which is outside the range for erectus at 14 to 18.
I also noticed on page 28 of the ID guide, it says, "snout often striped" which to ME implies that snouts are NOT always striped.

[kizanne]

Originally Posted by rayjay

With regards to DORSAL, I wasn't talking of counting spines but to remark that the barb dorsal spines are more prominent that those of erectus. The tail ring count though MIGHT possibly be out of the range of one but fall in range for the other.
However, if you ALSO consider the Dorsal and Pectoral FIN RAYS, between all of them you MIGHT be able to narrow it down. As they both have partial similar ranges like the tail rings, they also have part of the ranges outside each other.
i.e. for dorsal fin rays, the barbs MIGHT have 21 or 22 which is more than the range for erectus running 16 to 20. For pectoral fin rays, they MIGHT have 19 or 20 which is outside the range for erectus at 14 to 18.
I also noticed on page 28 of the ID guide, it says, "snout often striped" which to ME implies that snouts are NOT always striped.

Yes that is for wild specimens and I"m not saying there is no way it can be a Barbouri.
I'm saying it doesn't look likely. It's missing or on the margins for every Barbouri trait.

Do you expect a breeder to sell you a specimen that is missing it's quintessential markings (on both by the way are missing). Most breeders would not. You don't expect to get an ocellaris clownfish that isn't orange unless it is specified and listed in the listing.

I will bother to try to do the full identification when he's older because I don't kill fish so if they breed I'd like to know what to sell them as.

IF this is barbouri you can make sure I'll let people know of their deficiencies and I won't have a picture of a pretty zebra snout and sell you a plain horse. Barbouri are still nice because they are smaller. But the zebra snout makes them cool.

RayJay I don't think you answered my question about the eye and nose snout. While it isn't in the Cites paperwork I noticed when I was staring at lots of Barbouri pictures and Lots of Erectus picture that the eye and nose snout of all the Barbouri I found made a great arcing half moon. bold to draw attention not a negative thing. I just typed alot so if you were skip reading I wanted you to see that part.

The erectus didn't. You have 8 do any of them not have the half moon?

And of course there is the possibility that they aren't erectus either. Depending on their systems it could be a hybrid or some other species. I chose erectus because there are usually lots of those at any breeder.

I am thinking that a simple mistake was made. I doubt the owners pack everything up themselves since they are busy giving tours. My husband keeps expecting a call that says oh we are sorry somebody accidentally sent you ones out of our hospital tank which is near the Barbouri tank or something like that.

We are both flabbergasted that we haven't heard anything yet. But we run a smaller breeding program and all my customers get much quicker response time even though I have a full time and half job on top of my breeding.

I do however eventually have to identify these so I know what to do with them if they survive. Either way I need to order some actual Barbouri with zebra snout noses if I want to sell Barbouri.

[rayjay]

First of all, "wild" specimens doesn't mean anything to me as all these captive bred seahorses started with wild stock and the genealogy would continue.
I don't really see any half moon between the eye spine and nose spine. There is somewhat of a curve just above the eye spine. One of mine with a shorter snout that the others, has a curve from the nose spine to the end of the snout.
Maybe I'm looking for something different from what you are seeing.
I do agree with you though, that every time I look back at your picture of your seahorse, I wouldn't think of it being a barbouri, especially as the body spines are not as prominent as my barbs or the barbs I had many years ago. (I just looked at the pics on my website to compare)

[kizanne]

Originally Posted by rayjay

First of all, "wild" specimens doesn't mean anything to me as all these captive bred seahorses started with wild stock and the genealogy would continue.
I don't really see any half moon between the eye spine and nose spine. There is somewhat of a curve just above the eye spine. One of mine with a shorter snout that the others, has a curve from the nose spine to the end of the snout.
Maybe I'm looking for something different from what you are seeing.
I do agree with you though, that every time I look back at your picture of your seahorse, I wouldn't think of it being a barbouri, especially as the body spines are not as prominent as my barbs or the barbs I had many years ago. (I just looked at the pics on my website to compare)

I mean that wild specimens you expect might have sub-par markings because they aren't retailers. Breeders get to choose their brood stock. Why would you choose sub-par markings (everything really).

Here the half moon I keep referring to. I just happen to notice all the Barbouri pictures I looked at had it. Of course they also had the zebra snout.

[kizanne]

well today they updated their website to show their new black/red Barbouri's looks like mine without the zebra snout. This is extremely disappointing. They have purposely bred a non-zebra snout Barbouri? then sold it to me without warning (and sick and over charged me on shipping). I'm still not convinced it is a Barbouri (maybe a hybrid).

FYI it is 11 am their time and still no email or phone call.

[kizanne]

Well they must have received their notice from the credit card company because I got a generic email today. I hear you have an issue with your order, can you tell me more.

Apparently they still haven't read my actual emails. *sign* so we will see what they have to say.

[kizanne]

Well after my reply they have refunded my money so that is the best one could hope for.