Snowflake Eel Question

[Mare100]

Hi...

Can anybody out there give some advice about a snowflake eel? Mainly....are they easily stressed or affected by temperature changes?

Our eel, so far, has been pretty much indestructible. Tolerating some major tank "overhauls" and the stress of our huge wrasse swooping by and stealing his krill off the feeding stick all the time.

He's been very "out of sorts" the past 3 days and not really wanting to eat. Which is unusual for him as if he misses a night...he's very eager to eat the next.

The only things happening in that tank lately was a minor rock-slide....(I know he wasn't trapped as he's been swimming around the tank). I don't see any injuries on him, so I don't think he was hit by the rocks. And the other issue we had was the tank temperature dropped a few degrees the other day, so my husband turned it up a little too much....and it went from about 76 - 80 in a matter of a few hours.

That evening, I saw him out toward the front of the tank....swimming up to the top and back to the bottom again as if he was agitated.

I got him to eat 2 krill off the stick tonight....but that's it. He just hid down in his rocks. He also looks like he is breathing a little heavy....but I've seen him do that alot and I believe eels just do that open mouthed thing.

Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks,
M

 

[super stooge]

what are your water tests reading?

 

[Mare100]

I did some tests this evening ....

Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - .001 (could be because a snail died in there?)
pH - 8.4
Nitrates - 20 (we've been battling Nitrate issues for awhile now...
but he's had them WAY higher and has been OK).
SG - 1.024

M

 

[super stooge]

your readings seem to be fine (the nitrates at 20 shouldnt make much of a noticable difference to him.)
him eating a bit tonight is encouraging, he may just have been slightly traumatized by the rockslide and temp swing combination.
my brothers snowflake also does the "open mouth thing" seeming to breathe a lil heavy so either were both doing sumthing wrong or its normal.

keep a close eye on him to make sure nothing has decided to bother him all of a sudden, oh and what type of wrasse do u have?

 

[Mare100]

Yes....he's frightened me many times with his "gasping for life" act. That doesn't worry me as much as the not eating.

We have a Moon Wrasse in there with him. He's about the worst "brat" in the tank. He's getting huge and everytime I feed the eel....the wrasse has fun stealing the food from the tongs. He's quite a riot. He's actually more of a clown than a threat. He never bothers anybody....well....except he has this habit of trying to lay on everybody.

Nobody else in the tank would tangle with him. There's a yellow tang, a flame hawkfish and a clownfish.

M

 

[super stooge]

yea my brother had one of them in his old tank a few years back with a different snowflake. it never gave the eel any direct grief but like u say, what a brat. made feeding the lion and eel a lil difficult (is urs obsessed with shiny things aswell? lol :lol: ). dont underestimate him tho, our 1 got to a point where he simply WOULD NOT allow any new fish into the tank. he annihalated a queen trigger as soon as it hit the water.

that being said i dont see why he would suddenly turn around and start bothering the eel. if anything ud think hed choose an easier target to bully. try feeding the wrasse first to keep him distracted then try especially hard to feed the eel. he may just be in a lil bit of shock, do u have any kind of variation in his diet?

 

[Mare100]

No....in fact the ONLY thing he will eat is frozen krill. We used to get him all kinds of fresh stuff from the market....clams, shrimp, etc....but he won't eat it. Only his frozen krill.

Yes...the wrasse has always slightly harassed any new additions to the tank. He and the clown were the very first things in the tank. But after a day or two of just nose-poking around them, he just ended up making friends. The tank is a 55 gal. and we're not even going to think about putting anything else in there. I think the nitrate issues we were having were caused by the "output" levels of the two big guys (the wrasse and the eel).

We do try that trick of feeding the wrasse first. He wolfs it down and just doesn't want to stop. He's a pig with fins. We're getting pretty quick at getting the stick down to the eel though. LOL.

I'm hoping you are right and that it is just a combination of the rockslide and temperature thing. He's not exactly the easiest guy in the world to catch and isolate for observation!

I can't believe your wrasse went after a trigger! I'm not sure about the shiny object obsession though. I'll have to put a mirror up next to the tank and see what he does! LOL.

M

 

[super stooge]

maybe try getting a second pair of the tong things and getting ur husband to distract the wrasse with the first pair while u try and feed the eel free of harrasment?

interesting that hes so picky, tho i understand. my brothers lion refuses to touch anything thats not alive (grrr :mad2: ).

yea trust me, we couldnt believe it either. the poor thing was only in there for 1 minute before we could get it out but he had already done to much damage, it didnt last the night in qt.

are all ur other fish behaving normally? if not there may be a slight electrical current in your tank from a malfunction somwhere in ur system.

other than that i cant think of anything else right now that could be wrong. sorry i cant offer more help. keep this thread bumped tho and hopefully sum1 witha lil more experience than me can help u out.

whens the last time u offered him sumthing different btw? maybe try offering him a prawn or sumthing new every month or two just incase he changes his mind. just a thought

 

[Swanwillow]

I agree with the other types of foods to feed, and, well, one other thing that you won't like to hear...

bigger tank.
less stress, he's probably stressed out, living with the big pig of a wrasse in such a small tank... GOOD reason to go out and buy that 150 gallon you NEED, and get a few more brassy fish...

 

[macronut]

you might try adding a couple of pepermint shrimp at night when your wrasse and other fish are tucked away sleeping. I bet the eel would dine on them. I agree on trying other foods. Stay way from freshwater feeder fish as I believe they don't have the nutritional value needed for reef fish. Have you tried some popcorn shrimp from the supermarket. Get it fresh from the case and not bagged as many of the bagged shrimp have been cooked and other ingredients added. I use to feed a large brittle star popcorn shrimp, and he loved it. It's worth a try.

 

[Mare100]

Hi everybody!

Wow...it was great to wake up this morning and see so many great suggestions! Thanks for all the advice!

So far...all of the other fish in the tank are acting normal, so I don't think there's anything too bad going on in there.

I will definitely keep trying different foods. I think I have some frozen clam strips in the freezer. Maybe since he is so picky, he just is tired of the same thing? I don't know if I could put Peppermint shrimp in there though. I know it's a "natural" thing...but I remember when I bought some live brine shrimp to feed my tanks.....God...I felt so guilty I almost cried! I'm such a whimp.

Stooge, that is a good idea about making the feeding a 2 man job. That might just work to distract "Mr. Piglet!".

Swanwillow...my husband will LOVE that advice! LOL! We have actuallyl been talking about getting a bigger tank for those guys just because the eel and the wrasse are getting so darned big. Funny story....we started out 1-1/2 years ago wanting to get a little 10 gal. "fishy tank" for our daughter. That tank turned into the 55 gal. We then went out and bought and started up a 120 gal. Then our 10 gal. QT took on a life of its own and is now sort of a "mini-reef".

We still are kicking around the idea of changing over the 55 to a bigger tank. If we add ANOTHER tank...we'll have to build another room on to the house! LOL!

He is looking fine this morning......I'll let you know how it goes at feeding time. Thanks again for all the advice!

M

 

[Swanwillow]

WELL, theres always a 220 aggressive tank, with a tang (take a look at all of them-the only limit there are the schoal and the unicorn-get too big) and, hmmm, you can keep butterflies and angels because there no coral.

yea yea yea. Here's your encouragement.

 

[Mare100]

Okay.....we'll go to the bank Monday and talk about taking out a second mortgage on the house...LOL! Bigger tank = bigger sump = bigger skimmer = bigger lights, etc, etc, etc. Ka-Ching. This is definitely an addictive hobby.

I'm scared of a butterfly. In fact, we have an awful aiptasia problem in our 120 and the Peppermint shrimp aren't doing anything. I actually bought a mini-batch of Berghia's to try to combat it. I heard that only a real pro should try to keep the Copper Band Butterfly.

I do, however, really really want a puffer!

M

 

[macronut]

Maybe the eel is being stung by the aiptasia.

 

[Mare100]

I hadn't thought about that. We've got stinking aiptasia in the 55 gal. too (where the eel is). Could they really give him enough of a sting to stress him out? I have noticed a couple of big white ones (different than the usual brown ones) low on the rocks where he hangs out.

I'm so frustrated by these darned aiptasia's. We've tried the Joe's Juice....but that didn't help. We started using that when there were only a few in each tank. I thought we got them all. Next week....there were 20 others to take their place.

The 55 is harder to get them because we can't put peppermint shrimp in there because of the eel.

Frustrating.

M