Just venting, puzzling death

[LukFox]

I noticed that one of my fimbriated eels, Stripes, had thrown up her squid from the night before so I cleaned up all I could find. I caught it early before it really dirtied the water, and I think she just threw up because I fed her too much (though it was a new batch hmmm). I leave and hours later I find the other fimbriated, Spots, has thrown up probably as a result of the little spike from earlier, or maybe the squid itself if it is a bad batch. This time I decide it is best just to change out all of the water so I get the eels in a bucket with some water from my other tank.

As I'm draining this tank the eels are doing perfectly in the bucket. They're alert, they look fine. I fill the tank back up and it is taking some time for the sand to settle, plus I notice the corals are sliming up and are dirtying the new water. I clean up the corals that are pretty far gone and do ANOTHER complete water change. I am checking on the eels frequently and both are doing just fine, angrily gaping at me when I check on them as usual.

Since they had been in a bucket a while I decide it would be a good idea to add a little Prime just to hold them over a little longer. At this time the eels were still acting 100% normal. I check on them maybe 10 minutes after adding the Prime and both eels are lifeless laying limp on the bottom, not breathing. I'm half in disbelief and reach in and grab Spots who gives a twitch. Stripes is totally unresponsive.

Realizing there is still a small hope I plop them in a Kritter Keeper and put them in quarantine (currently housing a small fish, which is why the eels didn't go here first). To my surprise Stripes starts breathing after a couple minutes, but Spots never comes back despite holding her up to the filter outflow for a while. By morning Stripes makes a pretty complete recovery, but I'm still really upset about this whole thing. I wouldn't have expected a small amount of Prime to do that so quickly, and if it was not the Prime I am not sure what happened. Both were fine until that addition of Prime... Just really hard to accept because I definitely didn't expect to lose one over this.

Old photo of Spots

 

[matt randazzo]

Aww... My condolences, she's a beautiful eel...

 

[Sonicblast12]

Maybe it was a bad batch of food and the prime caused some sort of reaction?

 

[LukFox]

Maybe it was a bad batch of food and the prime caused some sort of reaction?

That's what it looked like, but I'm not sure what kind of reaction could have happened. I know Prime reacts badly with Cupramine, but as far as anything else I don't know.

 

[barbianj]

Too bad the ell had to die. Why change out all of the water, though? Especially with corals in the tank, and having to take the eels out. Was it a matter of a small problem turning into a bigger one?

 

[LukFox]

Yeah it started as a small problem, but then I went out and didn't find the second eel barfed until later. The water was cloudy by then and ammonia was spiking pretty good. I figured it would be faster just to replace all of the water, and I wanted the eels out of the gross water fast.

 

[SDguy]

I am so sorry to hear this, Alexa!!

 

[Recty]

That really sucks.

For what it's worth, Prime temporarily lowers the pH of whatever volume it's added to. I was told that on this forum and verified it through a pH test when I didnt believe it

Most likely scenario is your pH dropped when you added Prime, that would be my guess. pH shock/burn could have occured and if they were doing crappy anyway, that just pushed poor Spots over the edge.

Critters breathing in a small volume of water lowers the pH anyway, not a lot but over time it will, and couple that with adding Prime... plus there is a good chance oxygen was getting low if you had two large eels sitting in there breathing for a while without any kind of flow or surface disturbance going on.

Anyway, I'm not saying that is 100% but it's a likely scenario. Sorry for your loss, that really sucks.

 

[LukFox]

Thanks everyone for the condolences!

That would make sense as to why the Prime really kicked it for them, Recty. Gosh that bites!! It helps knowing what to do differently in case something like this ever happens again.

 

[mrwilson]

Puzzling - any chance there may have been Cupramine residue in the bucket, which then became essentially a toxic dose when you added the Prime?

 

[ashtree68]

That sucks I'm sorry! Very nice looking eel. How are they aggressive wise?

 

[LukFox]

No chance of Cupramine contamination, so I'm still thinking it was pH.

Aggression-wise, I wouldn't house them with any fish, but then I never tried. Lightning feeding responses and very alert to any movement going on in or around the tank.

 

[ashtree68]

Darn, I read a couple other places that keeping em with other fish usually ends in problems.

 

[LisaD]

I'm so sorry for your loss. Those are the most frustrating situations, when you try to make things better and they get worse, and you're not sure if you did something wrong or not... That's happened to me more times than I like to recall.

 

[zukharla]

Sorry to hear that. I was thinking it could be an oxygen issue aswell being stuck in a small bucket with, I'm assuming, no airstone to keep the surface moving.

 

[LukFox]

I agree Lisa, that is what really sucks the most. I really thought both of them would be fine without a hitch, and that adding a little Prime wouldn't hurt.

Zukharla, I tried to manually move the water now and then, and for oxygen it might have happened a little fast, but maybe not, no prior experience with that.

One of Stripe's eyes has looked odd since her near death experience, though. Only now is she really letting me get a better look at it, and the pupil looks like a sideways cat eye. I'm not too worried about it as she can still see out of it and appears to be doing all right, and she ate some fish today. I only offered a little bit though in case her system needs more rest. I chucked out the squid.