39 Gallon Seahorse Tank

I know keeping these guys is difficult...yet, loosing both in the same day was a bit of a surprise.

 

I'm sorry to hear of the passing of your seahorses.
What were the indications leading up to their deaths? Respiration, markings, swimming patterns,
I would first put the bodies in a clear container of fresh water and see if any parasites come off the bodies.
The two most probable causes are bacteria or pathogen and this fresh water may give an indication that pathogens were present in numbers.
Unfortunately this is all too common with tank raised and net pen raised as they are not raised in water devoid of pathogens as true captive bred are.
While death can happen even with true captive bred, the odds of success are greater than with those that are tank/net pen raised.
The initial cost is greater but in the end, it could end up being cheaper.
The bad news now is that before replacing the seahorses, it is best to sterilize the whole system, including contents, and then recycle it.
Maybe give seahorseshource.com, pekasponies.com or seahorsecorral.com a chance with their true captive bred seahorses.

 

Our observations...

• Siphoned/cleaned the gravel and inspected the effluent for "bugs", there were many visible...ordered the horses...removed the damsel...
• I'd prepared a fresh hatch of brine shrimp for their arrival...
• When they arrived, we drip acclimated them for ~ 1 hour, then moved them into their home. Observed that the MP10 pump, even on it's lowest setting, provides TOO much flow for the horses, turned it off.
• After ~ 6 hours, powered off the pumps and fed BS, both were aggressive eaters, after ~45 minutes, turned the pumps back on...
• We observed them continuing to graze the gravel and rock work. One prefers to anchor lower in the tank and picks at the gravel, the other swims/moves more up/down in the tank tracking "stuff" in the water column
• Repeated the feeding for day 2 with similar observations, posted the video of them eating...
• Day 3, started a new batch of BS, but fed cydoplast/frozen mises shrimp...little interest in eating, grazing observed...their color continued to look fine...movements were fine...sure are interesting to observe...
• Day 4, in the morning both were found in the sponge filter guarding the overflow...freed them, and noted that they were moving slower, fed the cydoplant/mises shrimp in the morning and BS in the evening... observed little feeding/grazing...color and bodies looked good...generally, they were much slower in all movements,
• Day 5....both are dead, and lying on the bottom of the tank...removed from tank...

The tank is configured with both UV and O3, temp is managed by chiller/heater to 72 deg. Chem is managed by dosing 3 Part from BRS using an auto doser... lighting is a 175 watt MH with 2 T5s

I will check out the sources you mentioned. Thank you,

Joe

 

Just remember that even true captive bred stock don't guarantee success.
They just make the odds better.