Eel developing sores, lethargic and disoriented

katekhaotic · Nov 5, 2020

Hoping to get a recommendation/help with my current dilemma. I've had frosty for a year and a half now in a 55g/75g total system. Hes been pretty reclusive unless its dinner time so when I saw him sprawled out upside down a week ago I knew something was up. He got fed a mixture of shrimp/silver sides and krill with the occasional live grass shrimp since I've got him as a tiny noodle.
About a week ago I found him like that, with his recent meal of silvers barfed up and he appeared to have a swollen spot about half way down his body. He was acting disoriented and twitchy so I separated him to my frag tank. Couple days later he got a small hole, I thought he had been poked by one of the urchins or something, or cut himself on something in the fuge so I moved him to a smaller container right under my skimmer output to get clean oxygenated water. I tried feeding him some clam soaked in kanaplex/Metroplex in hopes of treating possible causes.. but he wouldn't eat it, and spit out the lil bit i squirted into his mouth in a desperate attempt to force feed some vitamins and meds.
Couple more days pass hes now looking like this. Still breathing, still preferring to be on his back, and progressively getting worse. Originally I thought maybe he had eaten a hermit shell or something but the swollen spot didn't feel hard when I gently tried to massage it up, hes possibly eaten my sea cucumber for all I know, haven't seen it in a while either. I don't know.
Main thing is hes getting worse and I have no idea how to treat this. Couldn't find anything online like it. At this point despite some treatments for general issues and attempting to feed him vitamin enriched food hes not showing any signs of recovery so I'm about to put him to rest since it seems like the merciful thing to do. I assume hes eaten something that's causing a back up , but the holes hes developing around the swelling make me think bacterial but the way he thrashes randomly he could be biting himself there for all i know.
Just hoping for advice or to find anyone else who has encountered this and maybe had any advice on possible treatments. Hes a fighter, and everytime I come over to check on him he tilts his head up and looks at me and it breaks my heart so I'm hoping someone may have suggestions of possible ways to help him.

Parameters
Ammonia: .001
Ph: 7.9-8.1
Temp: 77-78
Sal: .024

This is his set up and the first day he started acting weird, note my ability to handle him which isn't normal eel behavior.
Also are pics from today.

Jay Hemdal · Nov 6, 2020

I do not have any good news for you, sorry:

If the swelling caused the lesions and if the swelling began as an impaction or something similar, then the lesions may be aseptic (not infected). If that's the case, no medication will help since there is no pathogen involved. If the swelling was due to a bacterial infection, and it grew until it broached the surface, then there is no way you could have treated it before it became systemic (involving the entire fish). Early on, injectable antibiotics *might* have worked, but people can't do that in their homes.

I would recommend euthanasia. If you don't have a way to do that, (like MS-222) here is an excerpt from my upcoming disease book:

Clove oil (eugenol)
One product that aquarists can buy that is approved by at least some veterinarians and research biologists is clove oil, also called eugenol. A dose of 50 mg/l is usually sufficient in euthanizing fish. This equates to about 0.20 ml of eugenol in one gallon of aquarium water.

Because eugenol does not mix well with water, and because larger volumes are easier for hobbyists to measure out, it can be dosed using the following method:

1) Add 2 ml of eugenol to 100 ml of tank water in a sealed container and shake it vigorously.

2) Add 10 ml of this suspended solution to each gallon of water needed to euthanize the fish.

3) Place the fish in this solution and keep it covered to prevent it from jumping out and to help keep it calm.

4) Wait at least twenty minutes after it stops breathing, and then remove the fish from the solution and freeze it for later disposal.

Other methods
A variety of other methods have been proposed for the euthanasia of fishes, but none are fully accepted by veterinary experts. Still, home aquarists need some other tools to use, so the methods are listed here in roughly descending order of suitability:

Ethanol
Regular alcohol at a dose of 25 ml per liter will cause respiratory collapse and death in fishes within 30 minutes. The trouble is that alcohol is not available in pure form unless it has been “denatured” by the addition of distasteful chemicals such as turpentine. Vodka is about 40% alcohol by volume, so using it 62 ml per liter will give an effective dose.

Jay

katekhaotic · Nov 26, 2020

Jay Hemdal said:
I do not have any good news for you, sorry:

If the swelling caused the lesions and if the swelling began as an impaction or something similar, then the lesions may be aseptic (not infected). If that's the case, no medication will help since there is no pathogen involved. If the swelling was due to a bacterial infection, and it grew until it broached the surface, then there is no way you could have treated it before it became systemic (involving the entire fish). Early on, injectable antibiotics *might* have worked, but people can't do that in their homes.

I would recommend euthanasia. If you don't have a way to do that, (like MS-222) here is an excerpt from my upcoming disease book:

Clove oil (eugenol)
One product that aquarists can buy that is approved by at least some veterinarians and research biologists is clove oil, also called eugenol. A dose of 50 mg/l is usually sufficient in euthanizing fish. This equates to about 0.20 ml of eugenol in one gallon of aquarium water.

Because eugenol does not mix well with water, and because larger volumes are easier for hobbyists to measure out, it can be dosed using the following method:

1) Add 2 ml of eugenol to 100 ml of tank water in a sealed container and shake it vigorously.

2) Add 10 ml of this suspended solution to each gallon of water needed to euthanize the fish.

3) Place the fish in this solution and keep it covered to prevent it from jumping out and to help keep it calm.

4) Wait at least twenty minutes after it stops breathing, and then remove the fish from the solution and freeze it for later disposal.

Other methods
A variety of other methods have been proposed for the euthanasia of fishes, but none are fully accepted by veterinary experts. Still, home aquarists need some other tools to use, so the methods are listed here in roughly descending order of suitability:

Ethanol
Regular alcohol at a dose of 25 ml per liter will cause respiratory collapse and death in fishes within 30 minutes. The trouble is that alcohol is not available in pure form unless it has been “denatured” by the addition of distasteful chemicals such as turpentine. Vodka is about 40% alcohol by volume, so using it 62 ml per liter will give an effective dose.

Jay

Thanks for your response man, wish I had thought to check back sooner but the result would have been the same. I went through a few easy to grab fish treatments and of course none really helped (melafix, API EM and even tried rubbing his sores with some polysporin) . I kept him going for another week before he passed sadly. I was going to open him up but i didn't have the stomach for it, I'm still wondering it he either choked on a hermit or he ate my sea cucumber because i haven't seen it in quite some time.