Any Gymnothorax Tile Pros Here?

[AquariumFish]

Gymnothorax Tile has a COLLAPSED lung - only the one side expels water.

My wife wants to know if it is something a vet can fix.

I know it is NOT possible.

I was advised that these Gymnothorax Tile are NOT actually fresh water and required at least brackish water.

I very slowly elevated the water to minimal brackish and the my little buddy lost his lung.

So; I added fresh water and removed some salt water and added more fresh and he is doing a LOT better.

He was actually falling over upside down (exposing his belly).

ANY ADVICE?

I don't want to spend hundreds on a twenty dollar eel if I can help it.

 

[nmonks]

This is all very odd. For one thing, moray eels don't have lungs. Even if one side of the gill cavity is blocked, the fish shouldn't come to any harm in the short term.

Yes, Gymnothorax tile is a brackish water fish. When kept in freshwater permanently they *invariably* sicken and die, usually from starvation, because they lose their appetites. The ideal conditions for this species, which naturally inhabits estuaries, would be around SG 1.010, or 50% seawater.

Acclimating a brackish water fish from freshwater to SG 1.010 is very easy and should take no more than an hour using something like the standard drip method. HOWEVER, changing the salinity in the aquarium suddenly will stress the filter bacteria. Above SG 1.005 the freshwater filter bacteria die and the aquarium has to cycle once more with salt-tolerant filter bacteria. This is usually where people go wrong, and blame the bad reaction of their fish to elevated salinity on the salt water rather than water quality.

Please also confirm that the eel is in fact Gymnothorax tile; other eel-like fishes like spiny eels are sometimes mistaken for morays. Spiny eels do not (normally) like brackish water. If it is Gymnothorax tile, then adding brackish water should cause no problems at all, and in fact will be essentially for the long term of the health. For more on keeping this species, read something like the Aqualog book on brackish water fishes or my book. Both of these have long chapters on brackish water moray eels.

Cheers, Neale

PS. Your wife is quite right. Many vets can treat and even operate on fish. Even if your local vet cannot, he or she will know a vet who can. That said, if something is blocking the gill cavity, it should eventually clear itself out. If not, you could gently massage the gill cavity from the back end forwards to push any obstructions towards the mouth (not the other direction). Handling moray eels is to be done with utmost care though, as they have sharp teeth and strong jaws. While not venomous, the saliva of many species causes nasty infections in people.

 

[AquariumFish]

This is all very odd. For one thing, moray eels don't have lungs. Even if one side of the gill cavity is blocked, the fish shouldn't come to any harm in the short term.

Yes, Gymnothorax tile is a brackish water fish. When kept in freshwater permanently they *invariably* sicken and die, usually from starvation, because they lose their appetites. The ideal conditions for this species, which naturally inhabits estuaries, would be around SG 1.010, or 50% seawater.

Acclimating a brackish water fish from freshwater to SG 1.010 is very easy and should take no more than an hour using something like the standard drip method. HOWEVER, changing the salinity in the aquarium suddenly will stress the filter bacteria. Above SG 1.005 the freshwater filter bacteria die and the aquarium has to cycle once more with salt-tolerant filter bacteria. This is usually where people go wrong, and blame the bad reaction of their fish to elevated salinity on the salt water rather than water quality.

Please also confirm that the eel is in fact Gymnothorax tile; other eel-like fishes like spiny eels are sometimes mistaken for morays. Spiny eels do not (normally) like brackish water. If it is Gymnothorax tile, then adding brackish water should cause no problems at all, and in fact will be essentially for the long term of the health. For more on keeping this species, read something like the Aqualog book on brackish water fishes or my book. Both of these have long chapters on brackish water moray eels.

Cheers, Neale

PS. Your wife is quite right. Many vets can treat and even operate on fish. Even if your local vet cannot, he or she will know a vet who can. That said, if something is blocking the gill cavity, it should eventually clear itself out. If not, you could gently massage the gill cavity from the back end forwards to push any obstructions towards the mouth (not the other direction). Handling moray eels is to be done with utmost care though, as they have sharp teeth and strong jaws. While not venomous, the saliva of many species causes nasty infections in people.

got to answer in sections - comp is shot again

when I took it to brackish - I did it over multiple weeks - never converted a tank before - took it to 1.008 in that time frame.

the eel actually went belly up - that was when I noticed the problem was serious and started switching back to fresh water.

it responded quickly to the addition of fresh water

 

[nmonks]

This is extremely unusual, and without seeing your aquarium and the fish, it is difficult to know what's going on. My assumption would have to be that the filter bacteria stopped working at or above SG 1.005, and so nitrites increased, and the fish sickened. When you brought the SG down, the filter bacteria recovered to some degree, and the nitrites went down.

There's no argument about G. tile needing brackish water. To say otherwise is rather like saying polar bears prefer desert conditions or lions do best kept at the bottom of the sea. The science is totally unambiguous here, and acclimated properly G. tile is healthier in brackish water than fresh. But aquaria are about more than water chemistry, and if your filter didn't adapt to brackish water, then the fish will get sick.

As I've said before, as have others, you cannot adjust a freshwater tank to brackish water at SG 1.005 or more and expect the filter to make the switch painlessly. It won't. The bacteria in a brackish water tank do not seem to be the same ones in a freshwater tank. So, when you made the salinity changes, did you monitor ammonia and nitrite? Did you seed the filter with media from another brackish water aquarium?

Because going from freshwater to SG 1.008 is effectively killing off your old filter and cycling another, you can't expect to keep good water quality in between the changes. You will have at least 6 weeks in between where the tank is unsuitable for a fish as sensitive as a moray eel. What you'd want to do is move the eel to your quarantine tank, and then cycle to wannabe-brackish tank with something like mollies, which are fine at SG 1.008 and under such conditions nitrite-tolerant. When you're done, move the mollies out and the eels in.

One last thing: freshwater morays appear to be copper-intolerant. If you use any kind of medication, make 100% sure it contains no copper.

Cheers, Neale

when I took it to brackish - I did it over multiple weeks - never converted a tank before - took it to 1.008 in that time frame.

 

[AquariumFish]

This is extremely unusual, and without seeing your aquarium and the fish, it is difficult to know what's going on. My assumption would have to be that the filter bacteria stopped working at or above SG 1.005, and so nitrites increased, and the fish sickened. When you brought the SG down, the filter bacteria recovered to some degree, and the nitrites went down.

There's no argument about G. tile needing brackish water. To say otherwise is rather like saying polar bears prefer desert conditions or lions do best kept at the bottom of the sea. The science is totally unambiguous here, and acclimated properly G. tile is healthier in brackish water than fresh. But aquaria are about more than water chemistry, and if your filter didn't adapt to brackish water, then the fish will get sick.

As I've said before, as have others, you cannot adjust a freshwater tank to brackish water at SG 1.005 or more and expect the filter to make the switch painlessly. It won't. The bacteria in a brackish water tank do not seem to be the same ones in a freshwater tank. So, when you made the salinity changes, did you monitor ammonia and nitrite? Did you seed the filter with media from another brackish water aquarium?

Because going from freshwater to SG 1.008 is effectively killing off your old filter and cycling another, you can't expect to keep good water quality in between the changes. You will have at least 6 weeks in between where the tank is unsuitable for a fish as sensitive as a moray eel. What you'd want to do is move the eel to your quarantine tank, and then cycle to wannabe-brackish tank with something like mollies, which are fine at SG 1.008 and under such conditions nitrite-tolerant. When you're done, move the mollies out and the eels in.

One last thing: freshwater morays appear to be copper-intolerant. If you use any kind of medication, make 100% sure it contains no copper.

Cheers, Neale

when I took it to brackish - I did it over multiple weeks - never converted a tank before - took it to 1.008 in that time frame.

I still have some algae blooms on the glass and my numbers have been real good - the one time when I added a bit extra salt - the numbers did a slight spike but leveled out on a test a day and half later.

Since I don't know much about these eels - I am real careful to make sure it is all on the nose.

 

[nmonks]

This is a dumb question, but I'll ask it anyway. What kind of salt did you use? And for that matter how did you make up the brackish water?

Cheers, Neale