Need more advice on SnowFlake Eel...

[1st tank]

Steve,

I took your advice and started tube feeding my Snowflake Eel about 6 weeks ago. He is much better now. Thank you!

I still have concerns though. He is still not able to chew/bit his food so I am still tube feeding him. He has more energy and is more active but he is not gaining weight. His head is still caved in behind his eyes and his bottom jaw still doesn't line up with the upper jaw.

I am feeding him every other day. I am feeding him oysters, krill and marine fish vitamins that were liquified in a blender. Is there something I can add to give him more calories? I was thinking about adding code liver oil or something similar... He is a very small eel and I am not sure how much to feed him. I only have been putting about 1.5 ml of food in him per feeding. I am afraid that I will hurt him if I try to feed him more.

Should I add a greater variety of seafood or add some flake fish food to his diet?

I had hoped that he would be well enough to eat on his own by now. I hope I an not doing something wrong. The poor little guy has been through alot.

Also, what is the intelligence level of an eel? He seems to know that I don't want to hurt him and he is used to being fed or is this just my imagination?

 

[leebca]

Lynne,

Steve is on a break for one more week. However, I may be able to provide some help with regards to nutrition.

You need to be adding fats to the food. Both Selcon and Zoecon are fat additives that I use. This will be an important fat source. The vitamins are definitely the right addition, plus the fat. Cod liver oil is another reasonable fat additive and don't hesitate to use it too, but along with the other fats mentioned above and below.

Since you are making your own food and feeding through the tube, you can also include other fat sources the eel wouldn't normally have access to, such as Cyclopeze, decapsulated brine shrimp eggs, baby brine shrimp, fish eggs (caviar that has no preservatives or added ingredients -- salmon eggs are one such source), and fish fat (such as fresh milk fish belly).

You can also add raw scallop meat to the diet. This will include some additional carbohydrates into the diet and 'sweeten' it a bit.

If I read your post correctly, you are only feeding krill and oysters. Both of these are 'whole organisms' and that is of great benefit. You should include other whole organisms such as silversides, clams, mussels, and plankton. As for additional flesh besides the scallop, you might add fresh cleaned squid and raw saltwater shrimp tails.

Lastly, see if you can get some spirulina powder 'down the hatch.' At more than 60% protein it is a prime vegetable source, even though the eel is a carnivore. Add about 2% by weight if you can get away with it (i.e., the eel will still eat the blend). When eels consume their natural prey in the wild, the prey may be herbivores with vegetables in their intestinal tracks.

I'm not sure how much of the above is available to you. Most of the above can be found in large oriental food stores or specialized seafood markets. The packaged fats, spirulina powder, and some prepared foods are available through you LFS or a sponsor here on Reef Frontiers.

Most flake foods contain land products such as wheat, flour, spinach, lettuce, or other such things. Your eel will not benefit from this as much as it will benefit from marine-based whole foods.

Eels are alert and if you equate that with intelligence, then they are on the higher end of marine life intelligence. Like many marine fishes, they will come to trust humans that are trustworthy! They are capable of learning habits and taking cues from various visual, chemical, and vibrational signals (the site of you, the 'smell' of food, the 'sound' of moving a cover, etc.)

 

[1st tank]

Lee,

Thanks for your fast reply and the great info! I have been adding Selcon and Marine Zoe to the food mixture. (Glad to know this is good stuff.)

I will add some cod liver oil, decapsulated brine shrip eggs, cyclopeze and other stuff you mentioned. I wil try to add silversides, which I have in the freezer, but I am not sure I will be able to blend them enough to go through the 2.7 mm catheter/feeding tub. This was the largest feeding tube the vet had. He is such a small eel, that the airline tubing was tramatic to insert. I would rather not go back to using that large tube.

I will also get some powdered spirulina this week from the health food store.

Do you have any experience with goiter in eels? I don't know how long he has had this condition. His head was definitly sunken in behind the eyes when I got him and he wasn't eating at all. I hope he isn't permanently damaged by this. Do you know if this type of condition is curable?

Thanks again! Have a great new Year!

 

[leebca]

Sorry Lynne. I have no experience with a goiter in marine fishes. I haven't seen much in the literature regarding this condition.

Usually a thyroid condition is in one of two groups: swelling or tumor. The swelling is often treated by iodine. The tumor is often treated by an operation to remove it. I know what you are likely to ask next. . .I don't know how to treat it with iodine. :|

You might check the iodine content of your aquarium water and keep it at the maximum level of iodine typical of marine water, or make additions of iodine according to an iodine supplement. :doubt:

I think the condition you mention is beyond the aquarist/hobbyist level. It probably has a better chance with a professional fish vet and many $$$.

I think one has to consider the likelihood of recovery and the 'quality of life' the eel has. Perhaps you'd say I was cruel, but I'd prefer euthanasia and putting your available resources and obvious talents towards other marine life.

Good luck!

 

[OldManOfTheSea]

Hi Lynne,, how this happened? Was it in your tank that your L/R came down on your SFE?
Form what your saying, it sounds as the eel needs surgery done, and if this only just happen a while ago, you need to monitor the eel and as your doing now, tube feeding by chopping its food.

If the only way your sfe is feeding now is by force, you need to feed just so much to the eels size and every third day until further determination of the eels final position. And do look for in your area for a specialist who does do either examinations and surgeries on marine fishes. For it almost surely sounds as that is what will be needed here.

So call around to animal hospitals and if there is one in your area somewhere, most of them should know where you might go. Also its best if you call a special type of animal hospital which only functions be examinations (of past injuries) and surgery.

Do add a variety of seafood's if at all possible and fresh (chopped) crab too if you can in which is one their main diets. So if your feeding as you say by a feeding tube, your not doing anything wrong, so just do as your doing now and im afraid that you best not expect any major change for the better of your sfe, im sorry too say

Eels intelligence levels are high, no matter of the species, they never over feed themselves and most aren't so aggressive other then what they normally prey upon.

Adding fats to the eels food might be helpful and that you not feed as much as well by force, so if your any salmon (Buy the tail section only, no bone). Only the salmon season hasn't started as yet, and your only fresh wild caught that been frozen and farm raised, stay away from farm raise, its is artificially colored. Also if you can, stay away from silversides, once in a while might be OK, under the present condition. And do include some additional carbohydrates into the diet for being that none of us can see how much your eel eats, it be rather difficultly to say on the portions.

Not unless you remember each time how much it eaten and you try to stick with that to the best of your ability and do location if there happens to be a special fish doctor somewhere around you. For as well, im sure that the eels bones were damaged badly for its jaw to be as you had described. Also if you can locate one, the doctor there should be more able to best help in your sfe case once they see the eel.

You not have to worry as long your eel is being force feed and it is happy with it, for eels aren't stupid if you can follow me on that. For like for me to get you to understand this, fish preying eels when catch a large fish and they have to battle with it for too long, are forced to release their prey for a very good reason they do this, in their necks they have a ligament, I guess you can see my meaning in why eel are forced to release their prey, for they can always catch another, if injury happens there due to their causing injury to the ligament, they not be able to feed for a number of months if not longer.

goiter? in this area is the eels thyroid gland is, im not sure of what it is your looking for, but im sure with all the bones an eel have that there be much damage to your eel, the eels body is far more complex then many think.
I too hope the eels not permanently damaged, and if you can locate what im trying to describe to you for the eels medical problems, im afraid that it will remain as is if not better a bit somewhat, but that force feeding will become necessary for the rest of your eels life span.

Sorry your new years is off on a bad start

Buddy

 

[1st tank]

I don't think the eel was injured. I think he was just living in very bad conditions that made him sick. The people who had him were not taking care of the tank.

Here is the previous post about my Snowflake Eel and also Steve's response talking about the condition goiter...


http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19996

Lynne,

Is the jaw slack and loose or simply odd looking, especially near/behind the eye area?

This can be a very unfortunate circumstance of bad nutrition and a poorly maintained system. By the sounds of what you describe, either the eel was severely injured or more likely it has a vitamin deficiency which has caused a condition known as goiter. It is very common in animals feed meat only diets or mainly freeze dried/dehydrated foods for too long. Eels, sharks, rays, lions and puffers being the more commonly afflicted.

About the only thing you can do is force feed the eel a vitamin loaded mush meal. Do a google search on force feeding puffers. The technique is the same. I do fear though that the stress of the procedure will be too much for it.

In future, do not feed any marine organism to any of your livestock unless it has been frozen first. The risk of introducing parasites is very high. Place it in the freezer for two weeks minimum. Nothing wrong with feeding fresh frozen but do not feed fresh off the boat.

 

[OldManOfTheSea]

Lynne, It is always a possibility that ones body could become mangled, and again it is something that would be needing to see too believe for I can tell you a story on a very old friend that one ,morning he awaked and discovered that he couldn't walk anymore. But a body, any body just by lying around could become mangled is something else, that something had to happened to this eel for the condition you described its in.

Also even without the variety in its diet, this eel not would be as your saying now, but it could however have a much shorter life span. I mean, how many people we know who feed some eel? I see many who feeds mostly feeders and silversides due too that its a lot cheaper. You not hear that their eel had became mangled and all, or their eels jaw bone appears to been injured that the eel jaw bones is out of place, this had to happened from some misfortune thing to had happened.

I picture would help a lot to see what condition your sfe is in for you said earlier that,

His head is still caved in behind his eyes and his bottom jaw still doesn't line up with the upper jaw.

An eels body can develop open sores or skin infection and so on, but not a mangled body simply by lying around. I know your sfe would not stand much of a chance if I had it instead of a larger thicker body eel when his body weight had caused the L/R to shift and nearly had crushed him from two sides (not from above) and this eel was about on his last leg as was about to die, was flatly turn over and breathing as it be his last. No, this eel didn't died because of the accident it had, and in a few weeks had made a full recovery, for this happened about six months or so ago.

There can be something that I still not had learn of the eel on every medical situation, but I feel that by reading of your eels condition that something most likely had to happen. Also if this eel is a very young species, if its body were deformed that you would had seen this, I think you said that you got the eel like that? Ask the person if that's so if they had it as is from the very start. For there is one thing in which is a very possible condition, and that is that the eel could had been born with this medical problem. Things like twisted or not so normal ankles or something of the human body, I hear of something like this often and that mostly it is of a young child, that their parents have to wait depending on their condition. For I know this young mother who happens to be a good friend of my daughter, that her oldest son had developed a medical problem such as I described to you and only two weeks ago went through surgery.

So if the jaw appears crushed out of place, you will need to do the same thing, or you might simply try to wait it out and being I myself cannot examine this eel, that all I can do is make some point from speculating what is the true condition of your sfe. I had eels all my life, for more then 57-58 years of the more then 60 years while in the hobby, and never seen anything as your describing and only from laying around. I also had kept through the years, a large number of eel species that I know I had kept somewhere around 150 too 200 species, but do not quote me on it for its kind of difficult to remember for at most I had kept from 5 to 7 different eel species at any one time period.
The thing there was, when I first had the thought on trying to own every single species of moray eels, it was somewhere about the 10th to 12th year that I known that it would never happen. So im saying that a deformed body from birth is always a possibility to take place and that its not something that would happen much later in life.

In any case Lynne, you sound too have a good handle on things and I still say if the problem appears so bad as your saying to try to locate a fish doctor if one is in your area, by calling around the animal hospitals and specialist in animal care for they might know better where one might be.

Buddy

 

[OldManOfTheSea]

You will have to excuse me for I can never remember everything right away for while today with my youngest grandson, I was thinking of this thread on the situation of your sfe and I only then remembered that there is a situation to where depending on the species that the eel still in its juvenile stages can develop dermal bone formation. I had made a note on this to be sure too add this type of problem to the article for I wasn't going to add it, the only problem there be is that there is much to explain on this, for it begins from while still in the larval phases. Its something to do if I remember correctly of exposing a young eel to higher temps, so all this is during early development stages. For it is something in which I had learned from a man name Gilson who was born in the early 19th century if I remember correctly.

That if put through a method with higher temps, an eel, I not believe this should be added to all eel species for I myself find that eels do tolerate such temperatures, but this professional view is with much older species and not so young specimens. So if this is so what had happened to the eel, it can or could be corrected with surgery. I will again be sure to add this type of thing to the article and also at the stages I`m concern of this happening is at the pigment (pigmentation) stages.

So again, it is called "dermal bone formation"

Buddy

 

[steve-s]

Lynne, a picture wouldn't hurt but even with a clear image, it would be impossible to conclusively diagnose the problem. It may lend towards one way or the other but I would continue to work on the high fat/carb diet. Even after the eel eats without your aiding it (?), you will still need to keep up the food quality else this will return.

How is the fish's color and movement otherwise?

 

[1st tank]

Steve,

His color is good and he is active. Movement is normal. Here is a photo I took a month ago. I will get a new one and post it tomorrow.

 

[steve-s]

Looking forward to seeing the new pic.

 

[1st tank]

new pics

I took these with my cell phone.

The eel wasn't cooperating but I think at least one of these photos shows his condition.

He still isn't eating on his own.

 

[OldManOfTheSea]

Looking at the first pic tells me the eel is nevertheless is healthy still in which is part of your own doing into managing to feed the eels even if by force. It be difficult to say if the deform body of the eel is from the cause of a live rock or by a natural or if someone has put that eel while when a thin juvenile, still in its development stages through some misinform hobbyist not doing the right thing for the poor creature in the first place. So still it needs that someone might tell you where in your area if there be one of a fish doctor. One still need to examine this eel to diagnose what be the true reason for what is wrong that also an X-ray might be needed to do this as well.

 

[steve-s]

This is not goiter or a vitamin deficiency that I can see but an actual physical trauma. The eel has somehow been injured either through it's own efforts or the carelessness of the previous owner. In either event, there is a chance (albeit slim) the eel could recover on it's own and eventually eat offered foods once again. You will need to continue feeding via tube for now but be sure you try offering from a feeding stick now and then.

Please list your exact ingredients for the mush you are using and the approx cc's fed and how often.

FWIW, I am truly amazed that this eel has co operated thus far and doing so well. Kudo's for your great efforts.

 

[OldManOfTheSea]

Steve, Eels tend not to cause themselves harm and that I was asking that if under the carelessness the previous owner if they were as you saying, had been careless in taking care of the eel. For eels aren't dummies, for how much do you know about eels? I can tell you that the number of times you readied that some large eel had some prey (fish) in its jaws and were battling with it to take its possible meal in. That the time gone too long in the attempt to take its prey, that before long, the eel be force to release the fish.

The reason for it is really quite simple, in the eels neck is a ligament. The eel no matter the tess or green, that if it takes them too long to consume their prey that they release it not too cause any injuries to themselves.

There could be a chance and then perhaps not much of a chance for any recovery, for the only way he/she will know this is that someone could examine the fish up close. Like I said, the eel is looking healthy and that you did a great job of keeping it alive.

Eels are with a stronger will to live then other fish tank mates, that if it were to not do well, it will limp around for weeks and months before the end ever came.

Also, in your pics, I couldn't tell that the eels jaw weren't even that all I was able to see due to the fact of the size of the photo is the damage you mentioned above its skull or slightly behind it.

 

[steve-s]

I have kept/cared for eels for many years and know exactly what I am saying. They can and will injure themselves and actually do quite frequently. Some (more than others) are actually very clumsy animals especially SF's. This eel has definitely been injured, how or why is unknown and really, not going to help solve the problem either. The only thing that can be done for this eel is intensive TLC or euthanasia. Lynne has chosen TLC so our support and aid in her progress is all that will be needed from here on out

 

[1st tank]

food mixture and feeding

I blend all of the following into a liquid mush.

Oysters
krill
cyclopeeze
selcon
kent marine zoe

I bought a jar of osyters and froze them with selcon and marine zoe. The krill came frozen. The cyclopeeze came frozen.

I blend food about every 3 weeks and keep it in zip lock bags in the freezer. If I freeze the mush flat in a zip lock, I can break a portion off and thaw. I also add more selcon and zoe before I feed.

I have been feeding him every 2 or 3 days. I usually get 1.5 to 2 ml in him with every feeding.

At feeding time, I take some eel food from the freezer and thaw it in a small juice glass. Using a 3 ml syringe, I suck up the food from the juice glass. Then I attach a 2.77 mm feeding tube to the end of the syringe. Next I push the food all the way to the end of the tube so that no air is in the tube. (Air bubbles will make him throw up...probably not good for him either.)

He is in a 10 gal QT tank so catching him is fairly easy.

Catching the little guy...

First, I take the live rocks and other obsticals out of the tank. I have a small wash basin ready with a little water from the tank in it. I squirt a little Kordon PolyAqua on 2 papertowels, so that the solution is on the side that will touch the eel. Then I catch him with the papertowels and scoop him in the wash basin.

Feeding the little guy...

I make sure everything is ready to go, then I grab him using the same papertowels. He doesn't usually cooperate and it takes a few trys to get him in the proper position. His head and neck up to his gills needs to be visible, i.e. sticking out of the papertowels with the remainder of his body reasonably straight. He will usually try to roll and/or pull his head back into the papertowels. When he does this, I let him back down into the basin. Then I try to get another grip on him. I don't hold him very hard because I don't want to crush him. He will usually settle down and allow me to hold him and insert the feeding tube. I have to make sure that the feeding tube is going past his gills (on the inside, not the out side) and into his stomach. I insert the tube until I feel some resistance, (like it hit the end of his stomach?) Then I press the plunger until I get a good amount of food in him. With the tube inserted, he will usually hold still. When I take the tube out he starts to wiggle again. Then I put him back in the basin. Sometimes he spits up some food and I don't want that in the tank so I wait a few minutes to make sure he is ok. Then back to the tank...

The whole event usually takes 10 to 15 mins.

I am getting ready to blend a new batch of eel food. I have several oysters left so I will use them up. I will also include the krill and cyclopeeze. I am going to include silversides this time.

I am going to try to get some of those tiny oyster crabs from the seafood store. I guess I would need to freeze them first before blending them?

Thanks everyone for your help and advice. I will continue to feed him until he eat on his own...

 

[steve-s]

I have been feeding him every 2 or 3 days. I usually get 1.5 to 2 ml in him with every feeding.

How many inches long/girth is the eel?

I am going to include silversides this time.

Nix that, wrong kind of fat on a regular basis. Use frozen scallop meat especially. You can also include octopus and/or squid.

I am going to try to get some of those tiny oyster crabs from the seafood store. I guess I would need to freeze them first before blending them?

That would be fine as long as you freeze them two weeks before hand unless purchased prefrozen.

 

[1st tank]

8 or 9 inches long.

girth (all the way around?) approx 1.25 inches.

I used octopus instead of silversides....

Thanks again for your help.

 

[steve-s]

The eel is still quite young then so the damage could heal easily to a point where it should accept foods again. You'll need to be patient a while longer though. I know it's tough but try to keep handling/time out of water to a minimum. Also when attempting feedings from a feeding stick, do so at night. This eel is normally nocturnal and has useless eyesight anyway. I would be more natural for the eel and the success a little bit more in your favor. It by no means will make or break the success of it though, just give you a bit of an edge.