Moray Still Hasnt Eaten.

[Marine/Freshwater?]

My 19 inch moray is having issues. it stoped eating a while ago(1 mnth.). It is starting to thin out. I have him in in the right water parameters(1.016, PH 7.9,...). I am worried about a previous post about eels being egg bound. I live in Florida and it is quite hot. I also am to brke to get a chiller. My moray wont touch anything. I ve tried shrimp, minnows, scallops, squid, mullet, frozen mahi mahi. My staple diet for all my eels is frozen shrimp and occasional strips of raw mahi mahi (Dolphinfish). It just turns its nose up at everything. It is begging for food like it normally does. I am getting really frusturated. Ive had this eel for 8 mnths and i dont want to loose it.

 

[Eel-Man]

Eels can be picky eaters and this has happened to me before with my old snowflake, but I have heard of people who actually season the food, maybe you should try rubbing garlic on the food, but dont let the eel eat the cloves, just get the scent on the food, this as I have heard, can help, but I have personally never tried it. Eels don't have very good eye sight and rely a lot on the senses of smell. Or possibly your eel may be sick. If this continues, I would take him to LFS or LPS and see if they can help you. Well if you need anymore help regarding eels I can try to help you. Hope he gets better!

 

[Lhutch]

Try the guppy,get 2,kill one and swish it around his cave or home,drop it infront,see if he eats it,if he eats it put a live one in there and see if hell eat that,this is how i got mine to eat,mine wouldnt eat for atleast a week.I kept trying and trying and he eventually went for it

 

[nmonks]

Which moray species is it? Echidna spp. are most invertebrate feeders, while Gymnothorax are most fish eaters, if I recall correctly. So tailoring the food offered to the species will help.

Temperature may be an issue, but that seems unlikely.

One option that sometimes works well with truculent brackish water fish is to change the salinity. These fish come from variable salinity environments, so anything that "seems" a constant, happy medium to us is a compromise at best. Trying taking the SG down to 1.010 over the next couple of weeks, perhaps even lower if the filter accepts it. Leave it there for a week, and then gradually bring it back up again.

Cheers, Neale