Eel trouble

[fishyvet]

I went to visit a friend last night and saw his zebra moray eel is in serious trouble. Both eyes were completely opaque and the eel acted as if it were blind. Its nose was also severely red and abraded. I also noticed that there was some areas of excess mucus on his snout and around his head back behind the gills. This trouble has come on in the past 4 days and the eel has not eaten in this time period.

The eel is currently the only resident of a 65g FOWLR tank (ate the yellow tail damsel about 4 days ago). There have been no new additions recently. My friend does monthly water changes and the system has been pretty stable for the past 3 years.

Well, we caught the eel and I have him QT at my house in an 18g rubbermaid tote with some PVC to hide in. It's not a cycled QT so I plan on doing daily 10-20% water changes using my reef tank's water to maintain water quality. I plan on treating with a double dose of Maracyn2 for 5-10 days. I am also adding stress coat to the QT water and adjusting the salinity down to ~1.020 for osmotic support. I really have no experience with eels and any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Percula9]

Sounds like your doing just fine with what your doing. Though I wouldn't double dose. More is not always better. Put in the recommended dosage.

 

[fishyvet]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10482271#post10482271 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Percula9
Sounds like your doing just fine with what your doing. Though I wouldn't double dose. More is not always better. Put in the recommended dosage.

Erythromycin is typically a bacteriostatic agent but at higher concentrations in can be bacteriocidal. That was my reasoning for choosing that dosing regimen in addition to the other threads on the treatment of cloudy eyes which recommend a double dose of Maracyn2.

I have never addressed this problem personally before. There is no change in the eel (Cucumber) today. The Maracyn2 package says its a 5 day treatment that can be repeated once if necessary. How long into treating should I see improvement in Cucumber's condition before I rethink my approach?

 

[fishyvet]

Not much change in Cucumber today. I think the snout maybe a little less red but I've been obsessing over it and I think it might just be wishful thinking. The eyes have not improved at all which has been the more concerning issue anyways.

The eel hasn't eaten since this all began so today is day 6 without food. I know they can probably go a couple of weeks without food but a healthy appetite would make me think the eel is recovering.

I got Cucumber an appointment to get some diagnostics done tomorrow. Hope I can find a camera and get some good shots.

 

[fishyvet]

Well, Cucumber's vet appointment went well. She got sedated and had skin scrapes and corneal scrapes performed. There was no evidence of bacterial infection but some ciliated protozoans were seen (kind of like uronema only smaller). The vet wasn't sure if they were parasitic or free living ciliates so we decided to treat for the treatable and administer a 24hr formalin bath.

Cucumber was also weighed, measured, and tube fed. A comprehensive water analysis was performed and everything checked out fine except the pH was 7.6 :eek2: That's sure not what my seachem test has been telling me :mad2: I think I know why my acros STN now. I was also prescribed a sulfadiazine creame to apply to the abraded snout every other day until it heals.

The vet said Cucumber should be healed and ready to go back into a tank in 2-3 weeks. Ah, happy endings