Eel's Neck Stuck Bent, Gills Are Red? Need Urgent Advice. Pictures Included.

[QuestionAboutThis]

Hi,

So my father is currently trying to treat an eel in a quarantine tank. At first he was put in there to monitor his eating because he wouldn't take food from him and now he's being treated for an infection because his gills are showing red coloration. His gills weren't red when he was first put into this tank and his neck wasn't bent until recently. About less than a month has gone by. He can't move out of that position and swims with it bent. He hasn't had any injury that we know of. My father doesn't use forums so I wanted to post here to seek some advice about what the cause could be and if he can treat it and what would be the humane way to euthanize it if not. We really don't want it to suffer anymore.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

What medication was used to treat it?
The only thing I know of that causes a fish to bend and stay that way is an injury of some sort.
If the fish is not eating, then you might need to consider euthanasia. Here is a post I made about that:

Fish Euthanasia

Euthanasia Euthanasia is a word derived from two Greek words that roughly translates to “good death”. In other words, euthanasia is the painless killing of an organism. In general usage, there is also the underlying understanding that euthanasia is performed on terminal patients only. This...

www.reef2reef.com

Jay

 

[vetteguy53081]

There are very few treatments safe for eels and best chance is with use of general cure for infection but as Jay stated, the neck issue may be an injury that is not self correcting and time will tell if its non healing

 

[QuestionAboutThis]

What medication was used to treat it?
The only thing I know of that causes a fish to bend and stay that way is an injury of some sort.
If the fish is not eating, then you might need to consider euthanasia. Here is a post I made about that:

Fish Euthanasia

Euthanasia Euthanasia is a word derived from two Greek words that roughly translates to “good death”. In other words, euthanasia is the painless killing of an organism. In general usage, there is also the underlying understanding that euthanasia is performed on terminal patients only. This...

www.reef2reef.com

Jay

He's using Melafix. He hasn't been eating anything from him or anything in the tank that we could tell so ultimately if he doesn't improve soon we will euthanize him. His quality of life just isn't good right now. Thank you for the post, I'll send it to him!

 

[QuestionAboutThis]

There are very few treatments safe for eels and best chance is with use of general cure for infection but as Jay stated, the neck issue may be an injury that is not self correcting and time will tell if its non healing

The only thing we can think of is he dug under a rock and somehow squished himself with it. He hasn't been eating for a little bit so that may also be linked to whatever happen with his neck. We'll try the infection cure and wait a week or so but if we don't see improvement I think it's best to put him down. He's just not doing good at all.

 

[vetteguy53081]

The only thing we can think of is he dug under a rock and somehow squished himself with it. He hasn't been eating for a little bit so that may also be linked to whatever happen with his neck. We'll try the infection cure and wait a week or so but if we don't see improvement I think it's best to put him down. He's just not doing good at all.

The cause is quite possible and eel can go 3-4 weeks without a meal. Hopefully if injury restores its shape

 

[lion king]

The tilted head can be a response to a neurological injury in the brain, how this happens can be anyone's guess. This does happen in other animals that have brain tumors. There would be no treatment but that doesn't mean they couldn't live with it for a while. As far as eating goes, the meds and move would have greatly diminished any feeding response. If his tank is set up comfortable with a den and you remove the meds and provide clean wate, if he wants to live he will eat.

 

[QuestionAboutThis]

The tilted head can be a response to a neurological injury in the brain, how this happens can be anyone's guess. This does happen in other animals that have brain tumors. There would be no treatment but that doesn't mean they couldn't live with it for a while. As far as eating goes, the meds and move would have greatly diminished any feeding response. If his tank is set up comfortable with a den and you remove the meds and provide clean water, if he wants to live he will eat.

When I was doing research it seemed he either injured himself somehow or developed a brain tumor. We had him in a large tank with multiple dens when he stopped eating. His neck was normal and he didn't have any red on his gills. We moved him to a quarantine tank to monitor him eating after a month and there was no improvement and he soon developed a permanent bent neck. We had offered food to him and even had live food in the tank. Some of the live food disappeared but we weren't sure if he ate it since we also have a cleaner shrimp in the tank that could of eaten it. After a month we noticed red on his gills and tried the infection cure. His neck was not getting better and he would swim upside down at times and run into rocks. At the point we decided since we don't know how long it's been since he's eaten anything and his neck was preventing him from moving properly, to put him down. We did so yesterday, and at that point he was getting worse so I believe we made the right decision. I don't know if there was anything that could of been done to save him because nothing was working and he was just suffering. It's sad that this was the outcome because we've had him for about 5 years and he's always been healthy until one day he wasn't. Unfortunately that's how it is with animals and sometimes the only thing to do is to help them pass humanly. Thanks for taking your time to offer advice, hopefully this thread will help someone in the future (I couldn't find anything about it online.) and the outcome for them is better.

 

[1112-425XL]

Sorry to hear... thanks for sharing

 

[lion king]

When I was doing research it seemed he either injured himself somehow or developed a brain tumor. We had him in a large tank with multiple dens when he stopped eating. His neck was normal and he didn't have any red on his gills. We moved him to a quarantine tank to monitor him eating after a month and there was no improvement and he soon developed a permanent bent neck. We had offered food to him and even had live food in the tank. Some of the live food disappeared but we weren't sure if he ate it since we also have a cleaner shrimp in the tank that could of eaten it. After a month we noticed red on his gills and tried the infection cure. His neck was not getting better and he would swim upside down at times and run into rocks. At the point we decided since we don't know how long it's been since he's eaten anything and his neck was preventing him from moving properly, to put him down. We did so yesterday, and at that point he was getting worse so I believe we made the right decision. I don't know if there was anything that could of been done to save him because nothing was working and he was just suffering. It's sad that this was the outcome because we've had him for about 5 years and he's always been healthy until one day he wasn't. Unfortunately that's how it is with animals and sometimes the only thing to do is to help them pass humanly. Thanks for taking your time to offer advice, hopefully this thread will help someone in the future (I couldn't find anything about it online.) and the outcome for them is better.

You did the right thing, there was nothing you could have done. I lean more toward the brain tumor and I had seen some live a while, still eating and seemingly otherwise healthy for a while. The speed at which the decline takes place is variable to each individual circumstance.

 

[QuestionAboutThis]

You did the right thing, there was nothing you could have done. I lean more toward the brain tumor and I had seen some live a while, still eating and seemingly otherwise healthy for a while. The speed at which the decline takes place is variable to each individual circumstance.

Once his neck started bending he just got worse so I definitely think whatever was going on internally in that area made him decline rapidly to the point he needed to be euthanized. I'm thinking since he wasn't eating before the neck got deformed it could of be an injury to his head/neck that didn't heal and worsen over time since you mentioned eels with brain tumors still had normal eating behaviors and he did not. He liked to dig under rocks so chances are he caved himself in with one and hurt himself badly internally because externally there was nothing wrong until the last month or so.