Hi there, I apologize for not posting back, the past few days just flew by, I'm surprised the ingredients aren't on the packaging, that's a bit odd, then again I couldn't find anything on it either. - I definitely know the feeling of adding something into your aquarium without the thought of it hurting your fish crossing the mind, I'm pretty sure we all have done it, at least once.
A thought just crossed my mind, which actually has recently been happening to my fire eel, he slowed down on his intake of food lately, normally he'd have about a quarter cup of fresh and frozen food each feeding (every second day), but that slowly went to a tablespoon or so, I had noticed that his slime coat was slightly damaged and I just figured he rubbed up against something a little too rough. About a month prior to that, I added a 14" Sailfin pleco to my aquarium, normally I won't keep Sailfins or common plecos in that tank because they've had a history of sucking the slime coat off my eel and bichirs, I honestly didn't even think of that, there was just no room for it in my 120 gallon cichlid tank due to there being a lot of rocks and driftwood, he didn't have much room to move, and he was being aggressively attacked by them as well, so out of the cichlid tank and into my oddball tank it went. After a little while I suspected the pleco was sucking on him because the damages were only getting worse, and this morning I finally caught the pleco sucking on Squishy's head, so I ended up taking the pleco out and put him in a bucket because I have nowhere else to put it. This has actually happened a few times, a four times with plecos (it NEVER got this bad though, he is just not well at all), and he's been bullied by a large synodontis catfish to the point where he wasn't eating. -In summation, Squishy is usually a fish that all the others ignores, but when he gets picked on there's not much that he can do to defend himself, so he will then get stressed and stop eating, but still act fairly normal, not as interactive with me though. As I said, I've had problems with aggressive synodontis catfish before, one of them being a featherfin squeaker, and I see you also have a pleco, so perhaps it would be a good idea to just sit and watch the tank, and see how the other fish interact with him. It can be difficult to see breaks in the slime coat, on my eel, it's not that hard because he is black for the most part, what you could do is take a flash light and hold it up to the tank when your eel is out and about. Also, just out of curiosity, has your eel ever sat in a "C" shape? With his tail end on the ground, body curved and head facing downwards? Or have you seen it "spaz" out, for no reason, or perhaps rub himself on the substrate and/or decor? If it is the pleco doing it, those would probably be the signs to look for, and if it's the synodontis then it can be difficult to pick out any signs that it's happening, the only way to know for sure would be to just watch for it.
Regarding the mysis shrimp, most of it that's available are indeed quite small, however, I found "Large Mysis Shrimp" I'm trying to think of something it can be compared to, however, nothing comes to mind, but I can definitely tell you, they're much larger than blood worms, they would be comparable to small krill, I believe Hikari makes it, you can Google it. It can be difficult to find at the stores, I actually have to get them to order it in, but it is the PERFECT size for cichlids, bichirs, rope fish, clown knife, and medium catfish, also my spiny eels love it, it's a bit small for Squishy's big mouth, but I'll often gather some up in hand and let Squishy eat them all at once.
