Peacock Eel Concern

[EschTheEel]

Hello,

We are new tank owners. Two weeks ago, as of yesterday, we got ourselves a wonderful little Peacock Eel. For lack of gender identification, we just call it a 'he'. He is an extremely playful little guy, and seems to love his new home.

However, we have a slight concern. Ever since we got him, our eel has displayed a great fondness for rubbing himself all about the decorations in our tank with a great amount of vigor, almost like he is scratching himself. I understand that if this happens we should be concerned about ich. Before we go medicating the tank, however, we wanted some advice. Never over the past two weeks have we noticed any white spots on his body, nor on the bodies of any of our other fish.

So, the question is this: is it possible our eel is just being a playful little guy, trying to scare his new parents. Or, do we need to worry about something bigger going on here?

We have other fish - some zebra danios, glass catfish, and a plecostomus - and none of them have expressed any signs of distress or sickness (and we have had the catfish about as long as the eel).

I also know it would be helpful to post our water's parameters, however we do not currently own any testing supplies (something we plan to get shortly). Our last trip to the pet store, however, included a water test, at which time the associate said our water was within acceptable parameters, especially for a brand new tank.

Much thanks for any advice you can give We're just worried new parents and don't want to over react with medication if its not needed.

 

[OldMan47]

If you had a n ich infestation, the zebras and glass cats would be showing it by now. I would write off the eel's actions as simple exuberance.

 

[EschTheEel]

Well, it turned out we did have some ich hiding in our tank, on our plecostomus. So, he might have had some on him, but there was hardly any at all - none that we could see.

I think we caught it pretty early, though. Only the plecostomus had it. Our eel was the only other one showing signs, but none of the other fish (including the eel) had a serious case, or any at all.

Thank you very much

I think you're right, though. He is a pretty playful little thing. We wouldn't have noticed much of a difference if we hadn't gone looking for our plecostomus!