Peacock eel sudden death?

[Moloch]

Are they prone to this? I brought one home from a petsmart 2 days ago and put it in my 65 with a JD & 15 tiger barbs. I brought another home the next day from another petsmart and put it in my 55 with bichirs pictus cats & a knife.

The next day (today) I had noticed the second eel seeming much more comfortable with the stock in the 55 than the first was doing in the 65. I saw the barbs & the JD pecking at it so I decided to move it over the 55. Everything seemed fine, the eels weren't very active, but they weren't running or hiding either, normal right?

Tonight its 1am and I'm in this room packing, I decided to do a latenight feeding of some beefheart for my bichirs (this is raw, frozen & thawed for a few minutes in a glass of hot water, the meat itself wasn't hot). Eventually I noticed that one of the eels was in the corner where a lot of the fish accumulate from time to time, but seemed a bit off. Very much dead.

No signs of abuse, nothing crazy I could see just from looking it over. All I noticed was a dark spot about 1/3 of the way down its underside, maybe it choked on something? I'm FAIRLY certain this is the eel that I got second and added directly to the 55, but I'm not 100% sure.

I know it might bother a few of you but I'm not going to break out my test kit and get water param's for you. My ph is somewhere in the mid 7's, temp is 78-80, nitrite/ammonia stay 0 or minimal & nitrate shouldn't be too high as I did a wc a few days ago.

My standard feed for the tank is 8 or so hikari carnivore pellets & 5 or 6 NLS shrimp pellets. Once a week or less I toss in some beefheart, although I'm going to cut that out entirely, nothing really eats it anymore.

Ah one thing I forgot, when I brought home the second eel I also added a bunch of anacharis plants to the tank out of petsmarts live plant tank (this one doesn't have the new packaged plants yet)

Just curious, it has me stumped.

 

[Laticauda]

Well, "breaking out that test kit" is the best way to start diagnosing. You'd be surprised what can happen to your cycle. Just today, I had an ammonia spike in a tank that's been well cycled for almost a year, and I did nothing different than I normally do.

How much of a water change did you do? In my experience, nitrAtes creep up faster than expected, and small water changes just don't cut the mustard.

 

[Moloch]

I do anywhere from 30-50% regularly depending on how much attention I pay to the siphon Usually falls somewhere around 40% weekly, twice a week if I have the time.

I'll test the water tomorrow when I do another change, but its 2am and its been a very long week...I love my fish, but right now water parameters are in the very dark recesses of my mind.

Only other thing I can think of is that there was about a 1/4" 'bloody' stripe/mark running lengthwise on its body right at the left pectoral fin when they bagged it up at petsmart. I haven't noticed it after its first night and I'm not even 100% certain its the same eel. I don't know.

I think the only explanation is that it attempted to eat a pellet or a chunk of beef and choked to death. These are my first eels so I'm not familiar with their eating habits at all, except for their reputations of being extremely finicky & picky. So far my, 'tough luck, learn to eat what I'm feeding you' process has worked on all my other fish. Granted, of course, my 2 senegals are the only ones that may have had issues with pellets, but thats besides the point I'm hoping the remaining eel picks up on its food source without me needing to go get a pair of feeding tongs & new types of food, but we'll see. I'm getting side tracked.

I guess tomorrow I'll post water parameters if I end up with time for it. Are spiny eels more sensitive than other fish to toxin spikes? The other thing that makes me think its not anything like that is the fact that another of the same species is still alive, as well as a 1/2" convict fry.

I don't know. Definitely has me perplexed.

 

[Laticauda]

Well, if you rule out water parameters, you have to keep in mind the terrible conditions they are in at the pet stores, during transport, etc. They aren't fed for a very long time, and I know with fancy goldfish, they are shipped so young, they are often times starved for just too long before they are bought, and fail to thrive/die within 72 hours of getting them home when the stress proves too much for them.

 

[EmrePekdeniz]

Plants in tanks really help a lot. I have a paludarium type setting with aquatic plants and esp. water hyacinths which are capable of soaking up a lot of nitrites and nitrates. My nitrate level has dropped to 0 after I added the water hyacinths. Even a single plant per tank helps a lot. They need no carbon dioxide setting, only lighting.

 

[Moloch]

Well, if you rule out water parameters, you have to keep in mind the terrible conditions they are in at the pet stores, during transport, etc. They aren't fed for a very long time, and I know with fancy goldfish, they are shipped so young, they are often times starved for just too long before they are bought, and fail to thrive/die within 72 hours of getting them home when the stress proves too much for them.

Yeah this was my other thought, that the stress just got him. They're both fairly sizeable to have come from petsmart imo. The survivor is probably 4" and the one I lost was around 5", maybe .5" bigger on both accounts.

 

[Saterus]

I've found that any spiny eel ordered came in very hungry but too stressed to eat. Even without tankmates it usually took a week or two of "handfeeding" with a turkey baster or syringe for me to get them eating. This was true of the small peacocks through to foot long tiretracks. I refused to sell spiny eels that hadn't had at least one good meal, I doubt most other places are that particular. Any I added to tanks with other fish that could compete for food took longer to eat than those I put in a 20g by themselves no matter the decor. They spook easy, they definitely recognize their feeder (and if it changes they may refuse food that day).
Any injuries on one just arriving in the store and then purchased, IMO, could easily kill one. They are stressed and hungry as it is, they can't handle an infection while trying to adjust to new water parameters without a healthy immune system.

 

[MonsterMinis]

I've found pretty much the same thing to be true. how did you acclimate the fish? I've also found spineys to be as sensitive as rays to what chem changes and always reccomend a drip acclimation when introduced. I would get the remaining one eating asap. forget the "tough love" method. imo you'll lose it if you wait for it to take pellets. I would swap out the beefheart feedings with bloodworms. frozen bloodworms are generally what they are fed at petsmart if the employees have any knowledge of spineys, otherwise most starve to death..