He has some type of growth arising from the front half of the upper jaw, extending downward into his mouth. Because of it he cannot close his mouth all the way. Nonetheless it has not affected his appetite in the least, he is readily eating frozen squid and krill. And he wasted no time in hunting down and eating two pearly jawfish... and probably a purple firefish who is MIA for a longer amount of time than usual...
Whatever this is, iit was present when he arrived from Hawaii. I would not have taken the eel, but my wife picked up him up, so by the time I saw it he was already in our tank. It hasn't changed much over the past couple weeks, it certainly has not improved. To me it looks a somewhat separated from his jaw, like it could just fall off at some point. There are some small red spots in it, the rest looks like nondescript tissue.
It is certainly unsightly. Hard to say whether it is affecting his behavior. He is definitely not a friendly guy, my research showed these usually have a decent disposition but at least so far he is rather pugnacious. I've seen him make threatening gestures towards a very mellow copperband butterflyfish and a few others. And he raids my bluespot jawfish's burrow at least once a day, stressing both the jawfish and me! Luckily the bluespot is huge -- I feed whole krill to him and my fuzzy dwarf lionfish -- and and he has grown to a size more typical of a Bali tiger than a blue spot !
Sorry the pictures aren't better. If I can get one that is properly focused I'll post.
Any ideas/suggestions would be appreciated. Also would be interested in hearing a good way to catch a dwarf eel in a fully stocked reef tank. I was thinking something along the line of a oversized bristleworm trap, i.e. piece of pipe with food at one end.
Whatever this is, iit was present when he arrived from Hawaii. I would not have taken the eel, but my wife picked up him up, so by the time I saw it he was already in our tank. It hasn't changed much over the past couple weeks, it certainly has not improved. To me it looks a somewhat separated from his jaw, like it could just fall off at some point. There are some small red spots in it, the rest looks like nondescript tissue.
It is certainly unsightly. Hard to say whether it is affecting his behavior. He is definitely not a friendly guy, my research showed these usually have a decent disposition but at least so far he is rather pugnacious. I've seen him make threatening gestures towards a very mellow copperband butterflyfish and a few others. And he raids my bluespot jawfish's burrow at least once a day, stressing both the jawfish and me! Luckily the bluespot is huge -- I feed whole krill to him and my fuzzy dwarf lionfish -- and and he has grown to a size more typical of a Bali tiger than a blue spot !
Sorry the pictures aren't better. If I can get one that is properly focused I'll post.
Any ideas/suggestions would be appreciated. Also would be interested in hearing a good way to catch a dwarf eel in a fully stocked reef tank. I was thinking something along the line of a oversized bristleworm trap, i.e. piece of pipe with food at one end.
