my snowflake eel

hey everyone.

I have had a snowflake eel since March. Up until recently he had been doing very well...but I noticed about a week and a half ago that he had begun twitching violently. I asked a friend about it and they said that I shouldn't worry about it, but I looked it up online and found that many eels twitch when they are malnourished? Water levels are fine...Tank is very clean, fish all get along very well. Two days ago he developed red sores on his left nostril and under his chin, and when I looked at his chin closely, I noticed the top of his mouth almost looked like it was bowing.

I am very frightened that I will lose him. He is very picky and I have tried to feed him other things but it seems the only thing he will eat is shrimp--which he hasn't eaten for almost 2 weeks now. Today he showed signs he was hungry and tried to bite at it but seemed like he couldn't see it. I have a maroon clown who divebombs the shrimps every time I lower it down and usually my eel will scare him off and take it, but today he didn't bother trying to fight or scare off the clown. He is breathing a bit heavily and I can tell he is hungry but it almost seems like it hurts for him to eat.

Can anyone help me right now? I am growing very nervous as I love him dearly. He was quite the character up until I noticed the twitching. It seems as though everything is lethargic. I have 2 places for him to hide and he still swims back and forth to them, so he is somewhat active, but something is definitely wrong and I feel really bad!

Anyone know what I can do?

I'm sorry I don't have any experience with eels, however there are some on here that do. They will chime in soon. I'm sorry your eel is suffering. Wishing you and your eel better days ahead.

I know my ribbon eel only made it 7 months, pretty sure it starved to death. Eels can just be tough to get to eat in captivity. Hope everything works out.

You could try soaking the shrimp in garlic extract. Garlic sometimes stimulates the apetite in fish. Making the food taste better i guess. It will also boost the immune system

Alright, lets see where to start... I too have a snowflake eel and the lack of eating is probably caused by stress or being sick. it seems more like being sick because of the sores you mention....

Mind if i ask how large is your eel and how long is the maroon clown? is the clown violent towards the eel alot? reason being is clowns tend to be very very terrortorial and will kill or attack just about anything to get what it wants (in this case it seems to be the food).

Try feeding your eel some crab or maybe some live fish if its large enough ot take them. eels are pretty finnicky and wont eat if they feel sick. how often are you feeding him and is it live or frozen? my eel gets a mix of both live shrimp (ghostie ones) and fresh from the grocery store (the guy there saves me some real good stuff :3) and crab meat every once in a while... I've had people tell me that they will also eat chunks of any fresh fish, mines sorta small to be giving chunks to so i cut them up for him.


can you get a clear picture of the sores on his mouth? I know eels are hard to get clear pics of (my kona is a booger) but it might be able to help us check some things out. whatever you do DON'T use copper.... its not good for them at all! stick with the garlic, he might take to that and get better... 2 weeks is a long time without food though, their body system is setup like a snakes and digests things pretty fast

yea, i have one thats somewhere between 18 and 24 inches long, got him with the tank i got in march, and mine loves to eat cut up chunks of red fish and other things that i catch when i go fishing down in the gulf of mexico...

he also loves to eat frozen krill, i just take a whole krill and stick it on a "feeding stick" and put it inthere,

my clown will challenge the eel for it, so what i have started doing is that i will pour some frozen mysis shrimp in the tank just before i feed the snowflake... the smell of the food allways wakes the tank up, the crabs start moving, and the eel will come out of hideing looking for food.

If i dont keep the clown busy with other food, he will scare off the eel.

as for the sores, i'm sorry, i just dont have enough experience with all of this yet to know.... but one thing that i was thinking when i was reading your post was, could they be abrasions? like he was swimming and ran into something and that is the "sore" that you see?

Sharkie said:

Alright, lets see where to start... I too have a snowflake eel and the lack of eating is probably caused by stress or being sick. it seems more like being sick because of the sores you mention....

Mind if i ask how large is your eel and how long is the maroon clown? is the clown violent towards the eel alot? reason being is clowns tend to be very very terrortorial and will kill or attack just about anything to get what it wants (in this case it seems to be the food).

Try feeding your eel some crab or maybe some live fish if its large enough ot take them. eels are pretty finnicky and wont eat if they feel sick. how often are you feeding him and is it live or frozen? my eel gets a mix of both live shrimp (ghostie ones) and fresh from the grocery store (the guy there saves me some real good stuff :3) and crab meat every once in a while... I've had people tell me that they will also eat chunks of any fresh fish, mines sorta small to be giving chunks to so i cut them up for him.


can you get a clear picture of the sores on his mouth? I know eels are hard to get clear pics of (my kona is a booger) but it might be able to help us check some things out. whatever you do DON'T use copper.... its not good for them at all! stick with the garlic, he might take to that and get better... 2 weeks is a long time without food though, their body system is setup like a snakes and digests things pretty fast

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Corneelius is about 15 inches long. I am pretty sure he was a bebe when I got him, he grew really fast, too. I meant to say Clarkii clown, I dunno why I said maroon (woops). Other than biting at the shrimp, he pretty much keeps to himself. He chases the damsel around occasionally, but other than that he is a decently well behaved clown. I had heard about garlic before, maybe I will try it. I am going to head to the grocery store this evening and get him some goods, hopefully this helps. Thank you very much! I will try to get pictures.

project5k said:

yea, i have one thats somewhere between 18 and 24 inches long, got him with the tank i got in march, and mine loves to eat cut up chunks of red fish and other things that i catch when i go fishing down in the gulf of mexico...

he also loves to eat frozen krill, i just take a whole krill and stick it on a "feeding stick" and put it inthere,

my clown will challenge the eel for it, so what i have started doing is that i will pour some frozen mysis shrimp in the tank just before i feed the snowflake... the smell of the food allways wakes the tank up, the crabs start moving, and the eel will come out of hideing looking for food.

If i dont keep the clown busy with other food, he will scare off the eel.

as for the sores, i'm sorry, i just dont have enough experience with all of this yet to know.... but one thing that i was thinking when i was reading your post was, could they be abrasions? like he was swimming and ran into something and that is the "sore" that you see?

Click to expand...

I am not sure whether the sores could be abrasions...they pretty much look like reddish holes....not scratches, although I would hope they would be the latter. I try to feed my clown at the other end of the tank while I attempt to feed the eel, but as soon as he sees the skewer go in to the water he literally bombs through anything to get over there and bite at the shrimp. Maybe I will try to just leave the food in there for a little while? I am super uptight about ammonia issues so I tend to not let food just hang out in there for too long, aside from my tang's algae. Thanks for the response!

good luck and keep us updated.. and if you can pictures..

Hey guys. After failed attempts at distracting the Clarkii, having him steal the meat twice, and having to wiggle his house around to get him to drop it, we got Corneelius to gobble it up in no time! I tried to get the hard things out of the meat, but I think there was still one in there when he ate it, is that bad? He didn't seem to have much trouble eating it, either, as he did with the shrimp when he did actually try to eat it. The fact that he is eating makes me feel much better, but I am still extremely wary of his other symptoms. Is there anything else I can do aside from the garlic and feeding him different things? I wish I could take him out and cuddle him in a watery blankie, but I can't. boooooo.

good to hear!!!!
if he is eating, that is a very good sign. In the wild, there are bones and shells in the things that he eats so I wouldnt worry too much about it. Just keep an eye on his sores

thats great!! my Kona is about 15 inches and eats all that good stuff... i wouldn't worry too much about hard sections... in the wild they eat bones and shells so thats nothing to worry about it.

try and post some pics of him even if they are blurry... there are some different medicines you can get but i'm not too sure its a good idea, I don't put any meds in my eel tank because my buddys eel gets all nasty looking and wont eat for weeks when he puts in any type of meds.... keep up with the garlic and try feeding the clown a piece of shrimp the same time you feed the eel so hes occupied with that :)

There is a picture. You can barely see the spot on his chin but it's definitely there. awww love this little fella!

is there anyway you can post a bigger picture? lol. i really can't see anything at all

Eels are way cute :)

My eel i've had for about 2 months, his name is Malo Kelekona, which means sea dragon in hawaiian :) they def have their own lil personalities, my first eel burton was shy, and kona here is very friendly and likes his lil head to be petted and his teeth to be cleaned by hermie the cleaner/dentist shrimp :)

Glad to hear he's eating. Good sign indeed.

awwwwww look at him! he's so cute!!!! I will try to post a bigger picture when I get home today, for sure. Your little guy is so adorable! haha.

awesome to hear.. an appetite is a great indicator...

mine eat the krill(little shrimps) shell legs and all, he just gulps 'em up.. just like everyone else said, thats the norm for them, its not like they have little hands to peel the shrimp with first.. hehehehe

cant wait for the bigger picture

so, you did the garlic thing? exactly what do ya'll mean by soak it in garlic? what do i buy? how do i prepair it? how long do i soak it, and can there be anything bad happen by using garlic in the tank?

Eating is a good thing. Hopefully he will make it. Mine died a few months ago after a couple years. I miss him very much