two eels similar symptoms

hotelbravo

hotelbravo

Active member
not sure if this is in the right section because i doubt its a "desease" however i feel like its an illness that is affecting them both. so here is the story.


I just had a tank crash in my 180g and everything in the tank died with the exception of my zebra moray and my snowflake eel. so its been about two weeks and ive done numerous water changes. but they are not acting any better. they are having what looks like muscle spasms and keep rolling against rocks and breathing abnormally hard. they will not eat but they do come to the feeding stick when i try to feed them and they just kind of bump the shrimp with their mouth but never bite down on it.

i have bought 2 clowns from a guy and put them in the tank a few days ago they do not show any signs of distress. so with that being said i do not think its a water quality issue. i have had my water tested over and over again and its testing great.

any ideas on what to do with them?
 
well i guess since no one is responding i should just let the eels continue convulsing and having their seizure looking fits and to continue looking like they are slowing dying.
 
It sounds like your water parameters are way off. Have you tested everything ? I would see if you can find a temporary home for them( LFS) until you can figure out what is going on. You said the tank crashed but you didn't mention how long it had been running for? As you know Moray's are very tough and forgiving but when they start showing signs of stress something is very wrong. I wish you the best.
 
You might want to just get them into separate Styrofoam coolers with fresh salt water for now. try to match the PH as close as you can. also add air stones. keep the light dim.
 
onebberr said:
It sounds like your water parameters are way off. Have you tested everything ? I would see if you can find a temporary home for them( LFS) until you can figure out what is going on. You said the tank crashed but you didn't mention how long it had been running for? As you know Moray's are very tough and forgiving but when they start showing signs of stress something is very wrong. I wish you the best.
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the tank was recently upgraded from my established 90g i transfered everything over. it appears that my caulerpa brachypus nuked my whole tank and all fish, inverts, and coral died with the exception of the two eels. the water has been changed numerous times and the parameters read ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate <10, salinity 1.025, temp 79, phosphates .06, calcium 420.

the eels would be difficult to get out of the tank and even harded to keep them inside something like a styrofoam cooler. was wondering if there was anything i could treat them with in the water
 
hotelbravo said:
the tank was recently upgraded from my established 90g i transfered everything over. it appears that my caulerpa brachypus nuked my whole tank and all fish, inverts, and coral died with the exception of the two eels. the water has been changed numerous times and the parameters read ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate <10, salinity 1.025, temp 79, phosphates .06, calcium 420.



the eels would be difficult to get out of the tank and even harded to keep them inside something like a styrofoam cooler. was wondering if there was anything i could treat them with in the water
Click to expand...



Then again you can't treat them without knowing what's up. Bacterial bloom? Is the water cloudy? And that's why I don't mess with that macro!
 
jbvdhp said:
Then again you can't treat them without knowing what's up. Bacterial bloom? Is the water cloudy? And that's why I don't mess with that macro!
Click to expand...
no. like i said the water has been changed and changed. the caulerpa remains have been removed.
 
I would assume whatever nuked your previous tank has lasting damage (potentially to their lungs). Not sure what course you can take now :\
 
new clowns are doing great. ive added clean up crew a few days ago and all are also doing great. i have added a few glass shrimp into the tank last week to see if the eels would hunt them down and they are all still alive and well and the eels have no interest in them when they normally will hunt down the glass shrimp aiming for extinction.

i also suspect some sort of lasting damage and im really hopeful there is something i can do for them because they look in pain.
 
Have you dipped either of the eels to make sure they don't have flukes? With everything dying like they did it sounds like flukes or velvet. Ich usually won't wipe out all tank inhabitants
 
Dmorty217 said:
Have you dipped either of the eels to make sure they don't have flukes? With everything dying like they did it sounds like flukes or velvet. Ich usually won't wipe out all tank inhabitants
Click to expand...

i do not believe it to be flukes, velvit, or ich.
the inverts and coral died at the same time which leads me to believe that it could not be any of those.
 
It sounds like it could be leftover damage from when everything else got nuked. Your tank probably saw an ammonia spike, especially after all the corals died. Or some corals (mostly softies) will spit toxins into the water when stressed. Those toxins may be gone now, but for how long were your eels exposed to such before the water changes/carbon cleaned up the water?

I know prolonged ammonia exposure can damage a fish’s gills, and then the liver and kidneys. The only thing I can think you could do is use Methylene Blue or Malachite Green (as a bath) to help heal the damage to the gills. But if the damage has already gone to the internal organs, the eels will most likely die. :(
 
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