Seahorse adventure

[skriz]

So, one of my horsies had a really big bulging belly. I thought " cool, she's pregnant". Upon closer inspection, turns out she's a he and he actually has pouch emphysema; doh :doh:

Having never dealt with this before, I was somewhat apprehensive about treating it and almost post for some help. But, I figured I'd give it a shot. So, I grabbed him and applied a little pressure to the pouch; man, that pouch seemed like it was going to pop and kill him. During the whole time I'm trying to apply light pressure, he's trying to escape. Well, all of a sudden, he makes this move which forced me to react; I guess my I held him a little tighter..

Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles. All sorts of bubble started coming out of the pouch. It kinda freaked me out a bit, but I checked and I wasn't hurting him. So, I starting applying more pressure and squeezed out all of the air.

Now, he's hanging out and looking normal again.

YAY! :yay:

 

[jennm]

Yep, I've done that many times... had one that used to get pouch bloat often so he eventually learned the drill... he'd sit quietly and latch on to my finger as I held him upside down and I used a soft plastic pipette to gently open the pouch (do NOT insert pipette into the pouch)... then a little stream of bubbles and he was right side up again.

You may have to do it more than once, and/or on an ongoing basis. I'm not up to date on the latest treatments for it if there's an infection (back in the day we used Kanamycin/Kanaplex), not sure if that's the latest and greatest treatment anymore.

BTW... "she" won't be pregnant... he will be though. Males incubate the eggs in their pouch. The females can get a bit fatter when they are gravid, but the male is the one that sits around fat and pregnant

Jenn

 

[bobz]

Nice job Raj! Glad to hear you were able to help.

 

[jennm]

I don't have any pix - it's been a while, but typically the male's pouch looks bloated - but not pregnant. Pregnant is sort of an even bloat and does not affect the fish's buoyancy.

In pouch bloat, sometimes the pouch becomes asymmetrical, and eventually it will cause the fish to swim upside down, or at least sideways - as the gas build-up in the pouch causes it to float.

Burping the pouch lets those bubbles out and the fish can right itself.

I had at least once incidence of it when it "miscarried" - when I burped it there were dead, partially developed fry. My guess is they spontaneously aborted, but he wasn't able to expel them all, and as they died, the decomposition started the gas along with an infection. I didn't think mine would make it but he did, and had subsequent batches of fry.

Usually they can flush their pouches by themselves - an action called "pumping" where they jack-knife their bodies almost violently to flush out their pouch. They often do this during courting. If they have bloat, they don't seem to be able to fix it for themselves, particularly if it gets to the point where they aren't swimming straight.

Sometimes it's an isolated incident, but quite frequently there's another problem going on that should be addressed or the bloating will just keep repeating itself.

Jenn

 

[skriz]

No problemo Charlie.

I have a link with pics;I'll post it for you.

 

[jennm]

dawgdude;360110 wrote: I have heard about using a needle to pierce the pouch before and expel, have you ever had an incident where a needle was required? Sorry to highjack Raj!

NO! Never pierce the pouch, and never introduce a foreign object into the pouch. I mentioned using a soft plastic pipette - just to spread the opening a bit while gently massaging the exterior of the pouch to move the air toward the opening.

Pix will be more explanatory

Jenn

 

[ralph atl]

I didn't know you had ponies! That new? great job!

 

[skriz]

Yeah, that's what the nano build is for. I have the ponies in a 50g cube right now.

"Massaging" the pouch is a no-no as is piercing the pouch. The pouch is skin and can easily be damaged if you rub it. Applying pressure in a similar method as you would toothpaste is optimal. If he pouch opening isn't opening, you can use something the help open it; that sound creepy.

All of this is from a ton of reading and seahorses.org-awesome resource!

 

[skriz]

Here's a link with some pics: http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/gbd/gbd.shtml">http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/gbd/gbd.shtml</a>

And a link for directions for evacuating the pouch: [IMG]http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/pouchevac.shtml">http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/pouchevac.shtml</a>

[IMG]http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/gbd/4.jpg alt="" />

 

[jennm]

Wow he was pretty "inflated" - glad you were able to sort him out. Keep a close eye - it often recurs.

That's a great link - wish that was around the first time I had to do it! LOL It takes a bit of practice to get comfy with it, but once both you and the horse have done it a time or two, it gets easier.

Jenn