Snowflake eel

[pescado]

I bought a snowflake eel and introduced it to my 100 gallon african cichlid tank. I am noticing unusual behavior from the eel, but my observation may be due to my lack of experience and knowledge. Every so often the eel opens its mouth very wide (as if it is suffocating). It hasn't eaten any of the ghost shrimp or small goldfish. Will someone please give me info and tips re: snowflake eels? Thank you.

[Lance M.]

... Snowflake eels are pure saltwater. You need to take him back asap. He probably is suffocating in the freshwater. Hurry up or he'll die soon.

[pescado]

Lance, initially I heard what you mention but after doing some research I found that there is a type of freshwater snowflake. The lfs also told me that the snowflake would be fine with my african cichlid setup. What do the rest of you think?

[Lance M.]

Hmm. I've heard that you can slowly lower the amount of salt in the tank over time to freshwater and it would be fine. Maybe they didn't do that? And I've heard of people buying snowflake eels and lionfish marked as freshwater, but then the fish die in the freshwater after a couple of days. Is it a credible lfs?

[LestWeForget13]

im gunna get a little scientific on you guys here......

a saltwater animal introduced to a fresh water surrounding does not suffocate it but instead makes its cells actually pop. the saltwater creature is used to much salt around it and is adapted to it and its cells also have salt in them so they sort of balance out. but in fresh water it isnt balanced out so the salt brings un the cells the water into the cells and causes them to swell and pop and over time your fish will slowly decay if left in there.


its like the opposite of what happens to a slug when you put salt on it

[Toirtis]

This is a fish that needs at least fairly heavily brackish water....its not going to live long or well in your cichlid tank.

[rhetor]

If it helps, when looking at eels in the LFS and at Petco, they all have odd breathing habbits like that. It almost looks like they are filling lungs instead of gills.

They sit there for a couple seconds, then take a nice big inhale and small sacks seem to inflate behind their heads. Then they let it out and sit for another couple seconds.

I do not know if this is healthy behavior or not, but i have only seen a handful of eels, and all of them breathe like this.

[LestWeForget13]

no, its not healthy

[DanW0007]

I've seen snowflake eels for sale as brackish water before, but yesterday at my LFS, I saw a 2 foot one for sale as pure freshwater. On it's info card it just said it needed a large tank (grows to 6 feet) with numerous hiding spots.

[AtodaJ]

pescado - Please read the following article. Also, contact the lfs where you bought the eel from and get its scientific name. If they can't provide you with that information then definately take it back.

http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/eel...a/aa082901.htm