I have had a major crisis in the 65G H Reidi tank. I have lost all but 1 of my Reidis. Thanks to DavidP I have a few ideas of what may have happened, but no way to know for sure.
Back up to 1 1/2 weeks ago. All 6 reidis were fine. Eating, playing, looking active and beautiful, happily doing what sea horses do.
Then the temp. outside jumped to 92 degrees before we got the air conditioners installed. I was prepared for this or so I thought. I had (12 ) 1G ziplock bags filled 3/4 full of RO water frozen solid in the chest freezer to float in the tank.
By noon I had used all 12 bags and the temp rose to 80 in the tank. ( normal is 74)
We did get the air conditioners installed that night so the following day the tank was at the normal temp. again. All of the sea horses ate daily and acted fine.
2 days later I went to feed them in the morning and I noticed only 4 came out to eat. I was in a hurry to get to work and I didn't have time to investigate. I came home from work and when I went to feed them I couldn't find any of them. Not 1 was visable. I checked the temp. It was 74 as usual. Frantically I start to move rocks to try to find them. By this time I was freaking out. With every rock I moved I found a little sea horse body. I was crying so hard by body #4 I had to stop and wait till I could see. The 5th body was mostly eaten by the cleaners in the tank, but I couldn't find the 6th one. I just happened to to move a large patch of macro in the tank and I saw something move. 1 was still alive!! All wrapped in the macro, but alive just the same.
I set up a 5G eclipse with water out of my reef tank and acclimated him / her over the next hour and a half. So far so good. She is eating and doesn't seem to be effected by whatever killed the others. She does seem very lonely and probably has no idea why she is now alone in a new tank.
After a few frantic and sad PM's to DavidP we have narrowed it down to the heat issue since all water parameters were fine. I "think" the deaths were either due to 1.) Just plain overheating or 2.) The heat caused a bacterial bloom (virbo?) in the tank and that is why it took a few days for them to die.
I have 2 fish in this tank 1 firefish and 1 yellow watchman goby. Both are fine. All of the snails, crabs, and peppermint shrimp are fine. The 20 soft corals and zoanthids are fine. NOTHING else besides the sea horses died or showed any signs of stress. That's what leaves me to believe a vibro infection bloomed due to the rise in Temp.
I can not look at that tank without tears and I can not believe how much I miss them. I hate myself for not being better prepared. The airconditioners were in the garage!!! All I had to do was unpack and install them. It's my fault.....there is no sugar coating the fact that this was 100% preventable. I feel like I need to ask forgiveness from someone....maybe the sea horse gods, I don't know. I just know I let them down..........period.
Yes this was a hard lesson for me to learn, sadly it was harder on them.
I still have the 1 H. Reidi and I still have my pair of H. Erectus. I do not want to get anymore H. Reidis, but I feel so bad for the little lonley girl I have left. If anyone can give her a good home, please let me know. You MUST have sea horse experience. She has been tramatized enough. (reef_angel are you interrested?)
Since the 65G is now void of any sea horses, I'm going to wait 2 months and then put my Erectus pair in there instead of setting up the 47G coulmn tank I bought for them. I want to make sure that whatever killed the H. Reidis is gone.
My 125G reef tank was sold last week, so I only have the 65G sea horse tank and my 12G nano QT tank that the erectus are in. Oh, and the little 5G eclipse tank that the reidi is in, temporarily.
It was a sad day made even worse by my stupidity.