Snowflake eel is in rough shape

[Lionfish hunter]

I have had my eel since 10-8-19
I have used Chemiclean 6 times since then. The first time was immediately after I got him.
I have a second one as well.
Both seem fine.

I see many things claimed on R2R that don't agree with my own experiences. I no longer argue. I let the myths continue and grow.

Get ready for lionking to tell you your eel is doomed and will die shortly because of liver poisoning.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

@Jay Hemdal I have a question, since snowflakes and zebras natural diet almost entirely consists of crustaceans and rarely fish, how do they not become deficient in B1 in their natural habitat? Im not asking to contradictory, I was genuinely intrigued by this list and looking at all the species on it.

IDK - It seems to be Penaeid shrimp that are high in thiaminase, maybe crabs and other shrimp aren't?

Here is another list from the late Bob Fenner. I see he lists catfish as containing it, but my source says it doesn.t!

Thiaminase

www.wetwebmedia.com

Jay

 

[WVNed]

Get ready for lionking to tell you your eel is doomed and will die shortly because of liver poisoning.

My eel is still alive and dying. Like all living things.

I suspect Bear will die first. He has hemangiosarcoma. He has from a few days to at most 6 months.

 

[lion king]

The internet is full of myths, the ones I see are the ones I never see in real life. I think someone that has to rely on chemicals so often to keep their tanks has the problem, and I would be suspicious about any advice from this source.

 

[MnFish1]

The internet is full of myths, the ones I see are the ones I never see in real life. I think someone that has to rely on chemicals so often to keep their tanks has the problem, and I would be suspicious about any advice from this source.

didnt answer imho

 

[WVNed]

Saltwater is made from chemicals. People that imply some negative connotation to a common word are silly.

 

[Pazernaker]

This was the point I was trying to make - kind of. (Someone asked why no one is paying attention to the ammonia) - In order for your nitrate to be THAT high (assuming its real) in a weeks time - you must have had a huge 'ammonia load' - whether your filter could have taken care of that or not - I dont know - But - It could be part of the problem. I am not sure how you would get a 0.35 ammonia level with an API test (assuming thats what you're reading) - but unless your pH is high (and if you said it I dont recall) - your free ammonia is not likely (now) in the toxic range. I'm also going to be the heretic here again lol - API tests are IMHO - fine - BUT - you need to follow the instructions absolutely to the letter if it says 2 minutes - do whatever for 2 minutes. BTW - It's obviously stressful - to have such a beautiful fish so sick. My only other recommendation - is check and double check your results as I believe @vetteguy53081 mentioned - to be sure 1) your ammonia is not higher than you think - and 2) to be sure you're nitrate is really that high. Please feel free to keep adding information - and questions !!!!!

So I've been checking my ammonia and nitrates pretty regularly, I've done a 33% water change two days ago and a 5 gallon (10% ish) water change yesterday. Plan is to do that 5 gallon daily until I get the nitrates back down to about 10-20 range. Ammonia is still reading high (verified this morning), but the API kit has such a narrow color graidant change between .25 and 1, I'm guessing with the .35 reading (reads both NH3 and NH4+ combined, I assume based on the label of the color chart).

I also did a light cleaning of my cartridge filter yesterday and changed the MarineLand brand charcoal bag for a mesh bag that I put half a bottle of SeaGel from Seacheam. I also changed the floss filter and cleaned out the large pore base filter. Each time I do something like this, I dose with Pristine from Seachem to try and keep beneficial bacteria load up while getting a better balance of my ammonia and Nitrate. Nitrites have remained 0 as I've gone through this exercise.

Finally, someone asked how much live rock I have in there, I'd guess between 60 and 80 lbs. The live rock itself is 3 years old.

 

[Pazernaker]

Live foods and even fresh seafood will have more vitamin B1 to address the thiaminese issue. The problem is with frozen shrimp if not frozen or stored propzrly and used within the recommended time, nutritional values decline. Many hobbyist will just feed their fish old expired freezer burnt shrimp and think it is good. So buy fresh when possible and freeze in small batches to be used in a timely manner. And include other items like salmon and mussels, which although containing thiaminese contains a huge amount of vitamin B1

I'm definitely of the group buying shrimp in a bag and feeding from the same bag these last few months... Will be changing that method in the future.

 

[Pazernaker]

Also, to all those saying, "Conflicting answers don't help OP," etc. etc., I would beg to differ. I've worked in the sciences my whole career and to me, a group of people leaning on personal experience and data collections to discuss/prove a point, even if they're saying the exact opposite thing is heaven (as long as it doesn't turn nasty). Sure, it's going to have me asking more questions/confuse me while I try to figure out what I can do to make it better, but that's the whole point of a community I've learned more in this open discussion over the last 24 hours than the entire three months I've been in this hobby combined, and this whole discussion has been about one super specific topic in the marine aquarium world.

The longer I stay active in this community, the more I'm happy I finally jumped into this hobby. Thanks again for all the insight

One question I do have, how can I lower ammonia? I'm doing no dosing of chemicals other than capfuls of Pristine at WC (looking into peristaltic pumps to code into my Raspberry pi, but that's not going to happen quickly) and general maintenance of my skimmer/algae scraping my tank, I have about 12" of fish in my 20 gallon tank without my eel, what should I be doing to control ammonia better?

 

[Bucs20fan]

For your immediate ammonia issues, order or go to your LFS and buy some Fritz Turbo start, it is full of live bacteria that will munch on that ammonia. Keep doing your WC's and let your bacteria build back up. The chemiclean definietly took a toll on your nitrifying bacteria. The same thing happened to me.

 

[Pazernaker]

For your immediate ammonia issues, order or go to your LFS and buy some Fritz Turbo start, it is full of live bacteria that will munch on that ammonia. Keep doing your WC's and let your bacteria build back up. The chemiclean definietly took a toll on your nitrifying bacteria. The same thing happened to me.

I've been using Pristine from Seachem, is that the same? I also have a bottle of API Quick Start for some reason (Never opened/used, expires 2024).

 

[Karen00]

Hey guys! Update time, sorry, it's been a really frantic 12 hours. First off, this has been one of my favorite discussions to follow on here, I just wish it wasn't because my eel was dying. Thank you everyone for all the help, but things are getting really weird again.

First and foremost, I'm using the standard API saltwater test kit with calcium and phosphate testing added. All tests are within 1 year of shelf life and I test the water about twice a week now running a log. Ammonia is usually lower than that .35, but my wife was feeding dry pellets and probably overfed while I was on a trip for 4-5 days. I figured the higher ammonia was her overfeeding my fish. She fed the eel on the schedule I gave her with tiny chunks of frozen shrimp. For those saying malnutrition, the shrimp isn't frozen brine, it's large grocery shrimps I keep a bag of, cut pieces off of, thaw out, then feed to him. One question I have is if she didn't thaw a shrimp chunk out completely and he ate one with a frozen core, could that lead to his death?

Regarding the fate of the eel, by the time I got home, he was dead. I felt around his throat to see if something was lodged in there, but couldn't find anything.

I'm questioning everything now, as I did a 21 gallon water change (20 gallons, then an extra gallon for what was thrown out of the protein skimmer when I cleaned it) and the Nitrate level went from turning bright red in less than a minute to almost 0 the day after I changed some water. No other fish in the tank are affected by whatever affected the eel and as a reminder to something I said earlier, he only started showing signs of not eating a day or two ago. His stomach was not impacted and I had a friend take a look at him to let me know what he thought the condition of the eel was and was told he was the proper weight/thickness for his age/length, so it wasn't underfeeding.

So now, I'm questioning my test kit, the use of chemiclean, and everything else in my tank...

I bought some activated charcoal (I believe it was seaclear brand) that was recommended by a LFS and a large mesh bag. Since I've been using the Magniflow 360 canister filter cartridge and the marine land brand charcoal pouches, I've never liked that they don't cover the entire shelf they sit on, so hopefully this gets better filtration? Other than that, I'm at a loss for what I should do other than just watch the tank and see what it does.

So sorry for your loss! I was keeping my fingers crossed for you! I hope you find the cause but it might be hard at this point given so many things were done. A post mortem would probably be needed to determine cause of death. My only recommendation would be to get rid of the API kits. It's best to have tests appropriate for saltwater to help eliminate inaccurate results especially with sensitive creatures like eels. If anything it will remove the possibility of going down a rabbit hole of fixing water problems when it may not even be related to water. In this case though it might have been nitrates although I wouldn't have thought they would go from sky high to 0 with that one water change.

 

[Bucs20fan]

Im not familiar with quick start from API, but if it says it can be used in salt water im sure you could use it. I just say fritz turbo start because its, at least to me, some of the gold standard for nitrifying bacteria. To my knowledge pristine is a bacterial additive that is mainly geared towards sludge and debris. Im not saying it has no nitrifying bacteria in it, but more or detrivore species of bacteria not necessarily nitrifying bacteria which is what you desperately need currently.

 

[Pazernaker]

Im not familiar with quick start from API, but if it says it can be used in salt water im sure you could use it. I just say fritz turbo start because its, at least to me, some of the gold standard for nitrifying bacteria. To my knowledge pristine is a bacterial additive that is mainly geared towards sludge and debris. Im not saying it has no nitrifying bacteria in it, but more or detrivore species of bacteria not necessarily nitrifying bacteria which is what you desperately need currently.

Dosed with API Quick Start because of the nitrifying bacteria on the label. It called for 120 ml's for my marine tank, I put in 90 since it's not a "new" tank. We'll see how it goes.

 

[MnFish1]

Also, to all those saying, "Conflicting answers don't help OP," etc. etc., I would beg to differ. I've worked in the sciences my whole career and to me, a group of people leaning on personal experience and data collections to discuss/prove a point, even if they're saying the exact opposite thing is heaven (as long as it doesn't turn nasty). Sure, it's going to have me asking more questions/confuse me while I try to figure out what I can do to make it better, but that's the whole point of a community I've learned more in this open discussion over the last 24 hours than the entire three months I've been in this hobby combined, and this whole discussion has been about one super specific topic in the marine aquarium world.

The longer I stay active in this community, the more I'm happy I finally jumped into this hobby. Thanks again for all the insight

One question I do have, how can I lower ammonia? I'm doing no dosing of chemicals other than capfuls of Pristine at WC (looking into peristaltic pumps to code into my Raspberry pi, but that's not going to happen quickly) and general maintenance of my skimmer/algae scraping my tank, I have about 12" of fish in my 20 gallon tank without my eel, what should I be doing to control ammonia better?

Discussion is always helpful - IMHO. My comment was directed at people acting like something is a 'fact' - without any rationale. Its the rationale that I was trying to comment on as compared to the discussion - BUT - I've learned more about eels in the last 24 hours than I've ever known lol.

Second - Assuming your tank is 'cycled' - your ammonia should be zero. The fact that your nitrate is 160 - your nitrite is 0 suggest that ammonia is not an issue. If all of your other fish (Sorry I dont remember what or if you have some) and or invertebrates - I do not think ammonia is a key issue. To answer your question (and respond to a couple other people). You cannot extrapolate API tests like that FYI - the way they are read is to use your eyes - and - lets say its not completely yellow - but its more yellow than the first green - the reading is 0. Its not .10 etc. Second - Unless there is something dead somewhere in your tank - your ammonia should not be measuring at all. (IDK how long the eel was in the tank dead - but that could be part of the what you're seeing. There is nothing I could think of that would make ammonia jump between .25 and 1 lets say in a day - unless it was obvious.

1. Water changes will help. And here is a calculator you can use to see how long it will take (just with water changes) - to get your nitrate down with 5 gallon changes. https://www.hamzasreef.com/Contents/Calculators/EffectOfWaterChanges.php
2. Washing your filter - MIGHT have been a mistake. because you're getting the ammonia 'eating' bacteria lower rather than higher.
3. People have recommended Prime. There are huge threads debating Prime - many say its snake oil, others say it works, etc. I personally don't know - and I don't want to start up that debate - but if you search the forum - you can see that there is a lot of information about what Prime does, doesnt do - and why it might or might not be doing anything to ammonia.
4. I applaud your ability to listen to people, answer questions and respond - becasue - the BEST way (again IMHO) - is for people that have a problem - to update 'the community'. So thanks for your detailed replies
5. A bottled bacteria product for cycling - should help - but again - Your nitrates suggest (assuming the test is correct) that you do not have an ammonia/cycling problem. I agree (again based on studies done by @Dr. Reef ) that if you want to add some - use Fritz Turbostart
6. Chemiclean should not affect your biologic filter significantly - EXCEPT if you dosed it improperly. There are at least a couple studies out there - that say Erythromycin can inhibit/kill nitrifiers - but - its more in 'high concentration'. Unfortunately - we don't know the exact 'level' of erythromycin in Chemiclean once its in your tank - and second - the 'rumor' or comment I have read - is the chemiclean no longer contains erythromycin. However - one thing with chemiclean - you need to make sure you're using the 'correct version - I believe there are 3'. Second you need to markedly increase oxygen levels with use

hope this helps about the ammonia. And - what is your pH - and did you happen to get the ammonia verified with a different test?

 

[MnFish1]

PS - you're correct - the API test measures 'total ammonia' - NH3 and NH4. You can use this calculator - to calculate your NH3. https://www.hamzasreef.com/Contents/Calculators/FreeAmmonia.php

 

[GARRIGA]

Seachem sells Anmonia Alert which displays the toxic free ammonia. API has their ammonia test strip which I’ve found to be very accurate on total ammonia. I’ve used both when cycling and the latter when I’ve had a fish death because it gives me quick results and not a fan of having something in the tank full time unless out of sight until needed. Plus it takes a few hours to register.

 

[Pazernaker]

Update/Resolution:

Cheap digital thermometers are garbage. Mines been reading stable at a decent temperature. Every time I reach into the tank, I think, "That feels hotter than the indicated temp..." but because I trusted my equipment, not my gut, I took it as gospel. On a whim, I threw a second digital thermometer in there and come to find out, my water temp is around 85 degrees F and has been for god knows how long. I'm slowly working on bringing the temperature back down to 78, but am going to do it at one degree intervals for the next week to not shock the tank. How everything in my tank is thriving besides my eel is beyond me, but glad I found SOMETHING that may also be a smoking gun.

Is there anything that a hot tank can do that would raise ammonia level, like produce excess bacteria or something?

 

[Pazernaker]

Update/Resolution:

Cheap digital thermometers are garbage. Mines been reading stable at a decent temperature. Every time I reach into the tank, I think, "That feels hotter than the indicated temp..." but because I trusted my equipment, not my gut, I took it as gospel. On a whim, I threw a second digital thermometer in there and come to find out, my water temp is around 85 degrees F and has been for god knows how long. I'm slowly working on bringing the temperature back down to 78, but am going to do it at one degree intervals for the next week to not shock the tank. How everything in my tank is thriving besides my eel is beyond me, but glad I found SOMETHING that may also be a smoking gun.

Is there anything that a hot tank can do that would raise ammonia level, like produce excess bacteria or something?

Checked the log in my raspberry pi controller and yup, it's been like this for about a week and a half/two weeks...

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Update/Resolution:

Cheap digital thermometers are garbage. Mines been reading stable at a decent temperature. Every time I reach into the tank, I think, "That feels hotter than the indicated temp..." but because I trusted my equipment, not my gut, I took it as gospel. On a whim, I threw a second digital thermometer in there and come to find out, my water temp is around 85 degrees F and has been for god knows how long. I'm slowly working on bringing the temperature back down to 78, but am going to do it at one degree intervals for the next week to not shock the tank. How everything in my tank is thriving besides my eel is beyond me, but glad I found SOMETHING that may also be a smoking gun.

Is there anything that a hot tank can do that would raise ammonia level, like produce excess bacteria or something?

Warm water contains a lot less dissolved oxygen. Both fish and bacteria require dissolved oxygen for their life processes.

I can't speak to the corals/invertebrates in your tank, but lowering that slowly is way too long for fish. Get it down to around 81 right away, and then move more slowly down to 78. I tell people that this is akin to being outdoors in the winter with no coat. Which would you rather do, move into the house or first spend 6 hours in an unheated garage?

Temperature shock for fish really isn't a thing - except for temperate water species exposed to a change greater than 8 degrees. Corals, adapted to higher temperatures are a different matter, as are shrimp.

With 8 pages on this thread, I may have missed this, but what is the eels respiration rate? If the high temperature is the root cause, then the eel's respiration rate will be elevated - >100 to 120 BPM.

I've kept snowflakes at 82 degrees with no issues, remember, these are inshore fish and the shallow reefs get really warm there.

Jay