Poorly Fire Eel, Help!

[Kev_A]

Tank lights switched on this morning and my fire Eel was swimming about franticly, he usually stays at the bottom, weaving in and out of plants and objects and comes out to feed,
But this morning he was just randomly swimming around, close to the surface, I tried giving him some bloodworm (the only food he eats) he had a little then continued swimming, then I noticed he was gasping and he has pale patches on his body (like the pigment has gone?!)

At present I have nowhere to put him, I have a 24L tank that I keep a pair of Kribs in but at the moment they're breeding and they're not the friendliest at the best of times so may actually kill him in his weakend state, I have netted him and put him in a breeder net just so nothing happens to him and I can get to him easy to treat, he's only a juvenile size, around 6-7" long and has never had problems before, I do fear it is a result of me treating the tank, my PH had always been at 8.0 and where this didn't affect my other fish, some Danios I added died quickly, when I took a water sample into pets at home they said it was the PH that killed them, they recomended I used Api PH down to which I voiced my concern that too quick a change in water chemistry could kill my fish, they assured me it was ok as this stuff only reduces the PH by 0.2 over a 24 hour period, my PH is now down to 7.2, my other water parameters are as follows...

Amonia - 0

Nitrite - 0

Nitrate - 20

I stopped using the PH down around tuesday just gone.

All my other fish seem healthy and are all feeding and swimming fine, but what can I do about my eel? He is one of my favourite fish and I really don't want to lose him!

A friend of mine once used a chemical which treats the whole tank, Methylene blue I think it's called, obvioulsy I don't want to put it in my 240L tank, I was thinking if it would be worth buying a small tank and an internal power filter to set up, fill with my tank water then seed the filter with some mature media then treat with this stuff, other than this I don't know what to do, can anyone help?!

 

[Chris and Alana]

Hi Kev, I got your text but my phone battery is dead and I dont have a charger.

My silver tank is empty, I emptied it on thursday as it just sits there doing nothing and costs money to keep running. Money I would rather not spend. without seeing him it is hard to tell what is wrong. Is he swollen in any way? Having problems balancing ect or is he just pale?

As far as I know eels and other scales fish dont tollerate meds well at all. I used methylene blue to treat mine as I didnt know what else to do. I couldnt diagnose his illness and half dose salt treatment didnt help so I used methylene blue as it is a broad treatment for many ailments, except internal bacterial infections, which I believe is what he eventually died of

The problem with PH reduceres is that they will only be temp, yes they will reduce ph but your tap water when your doing water changes will then increase your ph, I think what is happening is that by reducing the ph with ph reduceres in your main tank (7.2 now ) and then doing water changes with water of ph 7.8 ish your probably causing slight ph fluctuations. Fish can tolerate the 'wrong' ph but they cannot tolerate ph fluctuations. a steady ph is the goal. I very much dought that ph killed the danios, it was probably stress. Now that you have stopped using the ph reducer you will find that over tome your ph will rise again to 7.8-8.0ish as it was before. I dont think they are a good idea unless really neccessary and you reduce your tap water to the same ph before adding it to the main tank.

I have my own problems at the moment with pets at home. I bought 3 gold rams and two bits of bog wood and now my tank is riddled with white spot. I have already lost 1 polk-a-dot loach, 1 twig catfish, 2 red claw crabs and 2 gold rams. The odd thing was is that the fish that died did not have white spot. Anyway, I have lots of scaless fish and worried about there well being with the half dose of meds salt and raised temp. Being away from them for the last couple days isnt good and Im dreading going home incase my loaches are gone but fingers crossed.

I dont know what to suggest to you except try to diagnose his illness and treat him in a seperate bowl, container with the aquarium water, changing 50% each day with water from your main tank. If you cant diagnose his illness, put him back in the tank and leave him be, raise the temp to 28c as eels like warm water and add more airation with a little salt. make sure nothing is bullying him or causing him to be stressed out.

Hope it goes well.

 

[Kev_A]

Hi Kev, I got your text but my phone battery is dead and I dont have a charger.

My silver tank is empty, I emptied it on thursday as it just sits there doing nothing and costs money to keep running. Money I would rather not spend. without seeing him it is hard to tell what is wrong. Is he swollen in any way? Having problems balancing ect or is he just pale?

As far as I know eels and other scales fish dont tollerate meds well at all. I used methylene blue to treat mine as I didnt know what else to do. I couldnt diagnose his illness and half dose salt treatment didnt help so I used methylene blue as it is a broad treatment for many ailments, except internal bacterial infections, which I believe is what he eventually died of

The problem with PH reduceres is that they will only be temp, yes they will reduce ph but your tap water when your doing water changes will then increase your ph, I think what is happening is that by reducing the ph with ph reduceres in your main tank (7.2 now ) and then doing water changes with water of ph 7.8 ish your probably causing slight ph fluctuations. Fish can tolerate the 'wrong' ph but they cannot tolerate ph fluctuations. a steady ph is the goal. I very much dought that ph killed the danios, it was probably stress. Now that you have stopped using the ph reducer you will find that over tome your ph will rise again to 7.8-8.0ish as it was before. I dont think they are a good idea unless really neccessary and you reduce your tap water to the same ph before adding it to the main tank.

I have my own problems at the moment with pets at home. I bought 3 gold rams and two bits of bog wood and now my tank is riddled with white spot. I have already lost 1 polk-a-dot loach, 1 twig catfish, 2 red claw crabs and 2 gold rams. The odd thing was is that the fish that died did not have white spot. Anyway, I have lots of scaless fish and worried about there well being with the half dose of meds salt and raised temp. Being away from them for the last couple days isnt good and Im dreading going home incase my loaches are gone but fingers crossed.

I dont know what to suggest to you except try to diagnose his illness and treat him in a seperate bowl, container with the aquarium water, changing 50% each day with water from your main tank. If you cant diagnose his illness, put him back in the tank and leave him be, raise the temp to 28c as eels like warm water and add more airation with a little salt. make sure nothing is bullying him or causing him to be stressed out.

Hope it goes well.

Cheers Chris,

Well I've obviously spoken to you on the phone since then, my tap water PH isn't 7.8 mate it's 7.2, just for whatever reason my PH was at 8.0 constantly, Mr Eel is dead now anyway and as you know my tank has also fallen victim to the dreaded Pets at home whitespot

I'm convinced it came from friday evening when I put my clams and shrimp in, whilst tending to the clams the shrimp bag sunk thus leaking all of the PAH water into my tank

Never again will I buy livestock from that place!

Currently raised my temperature to 28 degrees c, will up it to 29/30 before I go to bed, removed my carbon, added Protozin, 10ML to my 240L, hopefully the loaches & knife fish won't become distressed by this, will just have to see how things go I guess...

 

[Davo86]

Do you have sand in the tank? young Eels rarely survive in tanks with a gravel bottom and often end up getting a range of bacterial conditions,
Just out of curiosity which knife do you have?

 

[Kev_A]

Do you have sand in the tank? young Eels rarely survive in tanks with a gravel bottom and often end up getting a range of bacterial conditions,
Just out of curiosity which knife do you have?

No, I have sand substrate mate, and it's a black ghost knife fish

 

[Davo86]

No, I have sand substrate mate, and it's a black ghost knife fish

Be sure to watch the BGK whilst using Protozin, sometimes the BGK will react badly to the meds and not recover, for this reason I always half dose

 

[Kev_A]

Just made a new thread regarding my sick fish but I'm aware of the risk to my BGK, I have a 240L tank and am using 10ML (bottle says 5ML for every 75L)