Do you QT an eel?

[jasonrusso]

Going to be getting a Chainlink eel after my beloved GDM passed. Who QTs eels? I've been peroxide dosing with great results, and I've heard eels are pretty parasite resistant.

 

[Goaway]

I quarantined my ribbon eel to check for marine leeches. Treated her for flukes with general cure. Fortunately, no leeches.

 

[jasonrusso]

I quarantined my ribbon eel to check for marine leeches. Treated her for flukes with general cure. Fortunately, no leeches.

Did it have flukes?

 

[Slocke]

They are parasite resistant as are all fish that have a thick slime coat but can still carry them. The issue they usually have is that they tend to not eat while in copper. Now most eels will do fine without eating for a month but if have one that is already half starved and stressed from being shipped across the world you may have issues. Also I know @lion king used to say that copper had long term health effects on eels but I don’t know if there is any science to back it up.

Personally I just do a 2.5 week prazi QT and preferably a month of isolation. This is also a good time to train the eel onto dead foods if it is a more difficult species.

 

[Goaway]

Most likely. Fluke treatment is overly easy. I seen no reason to not treat for them.

 

[jasonrusso]

They are parasite resistant as are all fish that have a thick slime coat but can still carry them. The issue they usually have is that they tend to not eat while in copper. Now most eels will do fine without eating for a month but if have one that is already half starved and stressed from being shipped across the world you may have issues. Also I know @lion king used to say that copper had long term health effects on eels but I don’t know if there is any science to back it up.

Personally I just do a 2.5 week prazi QT and preferably a month of isolation. This is also a good time to train the eel onto dead foods if it is a more difficult species.

I'd never do copper. I don't agree with copper. If anything I use Chloroquine Phosphate. Every "pre treated" fish I have had died within a month

I may just set up a QT observation tank, with no meds. This way I can match the shipping water for acclimation. It will also allow me to stick feed the eel without competition.

 

[jasonrusso]

Most likely. Fluke treatment is overly easy. I seen no reason to not treat for them.

GC is pretty easy on them from my experience

 

[Goaway]

I guess I should say. I held my ribbon eel in quarantine tank for observation. Did not run copper. Only the metro-prazi medicine.

This also got her comfortable enough in captivity to be a fiesty eater.

Personally I just do a 2.5 week prazi QT and preferably a month of isolation. This is also a good time to train the eel onto dead foods if it is a more difficult species

Yes, it works well!

GC is pretty easy on them from my experience

Its very safe. Eli's first dose nearly gave me a heart attack. She did not do well and looked to be dying. Did 40g water change. Waited, ramped full dosage of gc over a few hours watching for ill signs.

Just letting you know. You might want to ramp up as well. Im not sure about chainlink reactions to meds.

 

[Slocke]

Just letting you know. You might want to ramp up as well. Im not sure about chainlink reactions to meds.

I find chain links to be quite easy and my snowflake, which is closely related, did well in qt and even copper.

 

[littlefoxx]

I have 3 eels. I never QTed them because of the copper thing. Havnt had an issue with them at all. All 3 ate for me on day one or two!

 

[jasonrusso]

I have 3 eels. I never QTed them because of the copper thing. Havnt had an issue with them at all. All 3 ate for me on day one or two!

What kind?

 

[Tired]

HTTM is an option for eels, I believe. Or you could always get the eel eating and fattened up in QT, then treat with copper.

 

[littlefoxx]

What kind?

A jeweled moray, snowflake moray, and a white eye moray!

 

[rhitee93]

Personally I just do a 2.5 week prazi QT and preferably a month of isolation. This is also a good time to train the eel onto dead foods if it is a more difficult species.

This is what I did with my snowflake. I didn't do the copper because of LionKing's warnings. Just Prazipro or General Cure. I don't remember which now.

Having it in isolation really helped me get used to feeding it, and it used to eating from me. That alone was worth the time in isolation.

 

[jasonrusso]

I find chain links to be quite easy and my snowflake, which is closely related, did well in qt and even copper.

I found an online supplier that has a few, but they said they run low dose copper in the fish system. Would you shy away from that?

 

[Slocke]

I found an online supplier that has a few, but they said they run low dose copper in the fish system. Would you shy away from that

Im not an expert. My snowflake seems perfectly fine after copper but I don’t know if it gave it long term health affects. I asked my friend who does QT for a living and they do not treat with copper unless they see evidence of parasites. Maybe @ISpeakForTheSeas has a scientific opinion

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Maybe @ISpeakForTheSeas has a scientific opinion

Surprisingly, I can't find any studies at all on moray eels and copper toxicity; the only related study I've come across so far dealt with freshwater eels, and found that high copper concentrations didn't impact species abundance in the areas tested (interestingly, they were found more abundantly in areas with high mercury concentrations though).

That said, I know lion king believes/d copper would drastically shorten the lifespan of predators exposed to it - I'd guess that's plausible, but probably unlikely.

Jay Hemdal took some issue with that belief, though, noting that he's only found acute toxicity issues, not long-term issues in most predators (I'm not sure about eels specifically here though).

When I don't know, I defer to the pros and those with more experience - so, to quote Jay Hemdal:

I would not use Cupramine or any ionic copper with eels. You can sometimes use amine-chelated copper products with hardy eels (coppersafe and copper power) but the eels will likely go off feed for a time. Hyposalinity will work, but if you are worried about that, then the only two other options would be chloroquine or TTM.

The eel is not going to handle copper well. It will likely go off feed. If it is in good shape, it will survive though. If it is thin, or a new acquisition, you may want to rethink it.

Eels are a special problem - they don't handle either treatment really well. Hyposalinity is likely to be better tolerated.

Importantly, though, hyposalinity isn't effective for velvet, which seems to be more important for eels:

Generally, people develop lists of fish that DON'T get certain diseases, or are more resistant to them. For example, eels don't get ich, or Lymphocystis, but do get velvet.

Morays don't typically develop full blown ich infections (they do get velvet though) but they can be "carriers" and then the infection can remain active until the treated fish are added back to the tank, starting the infection over again.

So, given the risks associated with velvet, my personal thoughts currently (subject to change upon receiving more information) would be to treat the eel for internal parasites with Prazipro and Metroplex (or General Cure), then run the eel in a 45-60 day observational QT to feed train it, fatten it up, and observe for signs of velvet (or other issues) - the main reason for the lengthy observational period being to ensure that any ich tomonts the eel brought it have died off and that the eel seems healthy before adding it to the display tank. If velvet pops up (hopefully in the QT, not the DT), then I'd probably try treating with copper and hope for the best though.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Surprisingly, I can't find any studies at all on moray eels and copper toxicity; the only related study I've come across so far dealt with freshwater eels, and found that high copper concentrations didn't impact species abundance in the areas tested (interestingly, they were found more abundantly in areas with high mercury concentrations though).

That said, I know lion king believes/d copper would drastically shorten the lifespan of predators exposed to it - I'd guess that's plausible, but probably unlikely.

Jay Hemdal took some issue with that belief, though, noting that he's only found acute toxicity issues, not long-term issues in most predators (I'm not sure about eels specifically here though).

When I don't know, I defer to the pros and those with more experience - so, to quote Jay Hemdal:



Importantly, though, hyposalinity isn't effective for velvet, which seems to be more important for eels:



So, given the risks associated with velvet, my personal thoughts currently (subject to change upon receiving more information) would be to treat the eel for internal parasites with Prazipro and Metroplex (or General Cure), then run the eel in a 45-60 day observational QT to feed train it, fatten it up, and observe for signs of velvet (or other issues) - the main reason for the lengthy observational period being to ensure that any ich tomonts the eel brought it have died off and that the eel seems healthy before adding it to the display tank. If velvet pops up (hopefully in the QT, not the DT), then I'd probably try treating with copper and hope for the best though.

Good thing I’m fairly consistent in my posts, that was a lot of them to come back and haunt me (grin). I should point out that I write each post with an eye towards how that particular thread is leaning, so I may downplay an issue slightly in one thread, but play it up in another.

One thing I am 100% consistent on is that ridiculous idea that copper causes latent mortality in fish, years after exposure. Not true at all, no data to back up that assertion. In the public aquaria groups, and these are the people who would know; we commonly use copper and then also keep those fish for years/decades. We also have veterinarians to do necropsies on our dead fish….no sign of this happening AT ALL.

Why am I so firm on this point? Because it adds to the “copper is deadly” mindset that keeps people from properly treating their fish - and that DOES cause fish loss.

Jay

 

[jasonrusso]

Surprisingly, I can't find any studies at all on moray eels and copper toxicity; the only related study I've come across so far dealt with freshwater eels, and found that high copper concentrations didn't impact species abundance in the areas tested (interestingly, they were found more abundantly in areas with high mercury concentrations though).

That said, I know lion king believes/d copper would drastically shorten the lifespan of predators exposed to it - I'd guess that's plausible, but probably unlikely.

Jay Hemdal took some issue with that belief, though, noting that he's only found acute toxicity issues, not long-term issues in most predators (I'm not sure about eels specifically here though).

When I don't know, I defer to the pros and those with more experience - so, to quote Jay Hemdal:



Importantly, though, hyposalinity isn't effective for velvet, which seems to be more important for eels:



So, given the risks associated with velvet, my personal thoughts currently (subject to change upon receiving more information) would be to treat the eel for internal parasites with Prazipro and Metroplex (or General Cure), then run the eel in a 45-60 day observational QT to feed train it, fatten it up, and observe for signs of velvet (or other issues) - the main reason for the lengthy observational period being to ensure that any ich tomonts the eel brought it have died off and that the eel seems healthy before adding it to the display tank. If velvet pops up (hopefully in the QT, not the DT), then I'd probably try treating with copper and hope for the best though.

Thank you for the terrific in-depth response!!

I found a vendor that catches their own fish and doesn't store the eels in medicated water. This is ideal, because I know they weren't caught with cyanide as well (company is in Florida with a good reputation). I decided on a small chainlink.

My plan now (I set up w 20G long QT) is to put the eel in and get him stick trained and observe. They are pretty small so 20G should be good for a while. I'll throw in some crabs and snails so he can hunt.

I might proactively treat with GC, but hold off on anything else. If a parasite does pop up I have chloroquine to dose. I personally agree with Lion King about the shortened lifespan. I equate it to chemotherapy. It's really rough on the body hopefully killing the cancer first.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Good thing I’m fairly consistent in my posts, that was a lot of them to come back and haunt me (grin).

Haha, yeah sorry - it's a lot of good info though!