something is wrong with my seahorses

Question
QUESTION: Dear Tina
Have been very successful at with taking care of a large reef tank for 8 years now with over 25 different corals and 12 fish. Thought I would try a separate seahorse tank. I started a 49 gallon upright tank with a marineland emperor 280 waterfall return filter, a remora skimmer,and a small koralia for current. Tank had been running for 2 months under low led lighting and water was testing perfect so I figured it was safe to add livestock.I first added a couple of nasariun snails to stir the live sand bed, and a couple of cleaner shrimp,and a small pencil urchin. 2 weeks later I added 2 Female Mustang horses from Ocean ryder with a couple of banded pipefish. Everything seemed fine after 2 months so I added 4 Sunburst female horses to the tank with 2 additional pipefish.Everything seemed great for 3 more months,and was just doing simple 5 gallon water changes every Sunday, Feeding frozen mysis one a.m. one p.m. feeding. 3 weeks ago one of my sunbursts stopped eating. Under advice from ocean ryder I was told to try some live food. Everyone feasted except the one sunburst. Even though I felt my water parameters were perfect using American marine pinpoint monitors (Temp 75F, Ph 8.2, alk. 9dkh, cal.420, salinity 1.0225, nitrites & ammon 0, nitrates 6-10 ppm) I took a sample to my local shop I get my reef stuff from. They said everything test perfect, maybe internal parasite. Called ocean ryder and they said not to worry for at least 7 days that maybe she just wasn't hungry but to do a 25%water change immediately to be on the safe side. Well I chose to premix 15 gallons for 24 hours then do three smaller water changes over a three day period. Woke up to find all 4 pipefish dead,and the sunburst still not eating. I quarantined her and gave her a methylene blue dip,and tried some B-12 to increase her appetite but she finally just died on day ten. Now 2 weeks went by and everything seemed back to normal then I woke to find another horse dead,one that seemed completely healthy the day before! I am totally frustrated and do not know what to do,and it now seems that overall horse activity is on the decline. None seem active or hungry can you PLEASE help and give advise! Afraid to water change, its been 8 days since last loss PLEASE HELP.

ANSWER: James,  All your specs. are good. Let me do a little research on this and confer with a friend....who is also a vet. It may be bacterial. Everything in there is so delicate. I will get back to you in the morning. Hang in there. We may have to move the urchin. , Tina

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QUESTION: Thanks so much for your help so far. Forgot to mention a few other things. Besides a 7 lb. piece of live rock on the live sand bed,most of the tank has fake deco and fake coral from living color. The stuff was said to be saltwater safe and seems to be holding up,any danger there? Also the shrimp and snails seem very active almost overactive at feeding time for the horses. One last thing,yesterday I pulled some macroalgae from my reef sump which needed trimming,and placed it in the seahorse tank in an effort to help water quality and a more natural place for them to hang out,was this a good idea? Also tomorrow will be ten days since I did the last of the three day water change cycle I mentioned earlier. Should I stick with my regular maintenance schedule and do a small water change, or do you think I should leave the water alone for a while. Would sea chems "stability" be helpful in adding to the new water when I do my normal changes. Thanks again, I truly appreciate all the help.Wait to hear back tomorrow.

Answer
James,    You need to start treating your tank now. We decided what is best right now is going bacterial and not parasitic. You need to get Maracyn 2 and I am sure you know the drill. Make sure your carbon is out and no water changes right now. We were both unsure about freshwater dipping them. If it is parasites we would definitely use coppersafe it in a more diluted amount but, there is something called stop parasite that is great and copper free. The thing with this is they are so delicate so we have to start some kind of treatment now. In the meantime I just found out about a woman here by me who has permission to have sea dragons. She is trying to breed them. How lucky are we. She uses all kinds of exotic remedies and is truly an expert on seahorse's.  She has raised allot of different species. She has a friend who is a biologist. I should here from her by Thursday or Friday. Hopefully your problem will be fixed by then but, I could get you in contact with her maybe and you guys could talk seahorse. I can't wait to talk to her. In the meantime, let me know if there are any changes. Get your tank medicated., Tina