I currently take care of a Snowflake Moray Eel (Echidna nebulosa) at my university, I currently feed him whole fish (probably from the Sprattus genus) which he normally takes like it's his last meal.
However, upon feeding him this morning he would not feed at all, upon visual inspection I noticed that he was visibly paler than normal.
As it is the protein skimmer is not working due to me still waiting for a new pump to be delivered but this shouldn't be a problem as I am doing water changes on a regular basis.
If anyone could help me find out what is happening asap that would be fantastic.
ok as it is I have found out what may be the problem and that is that overnight the:
Salinity level shot up to 44.9ppt (Lots of evaporative loss maybe someone left the door open or something)
Ammonia level rose a little, not sure what could have caused this as I have not been increasing feeding and I have been ensuring that I remove all large debree created by half eaten food when possible (will shortly be asking a question relating to this)
Calcium levels dropped a bit and again no idea what happened here, partly because I'm not fully aware of how calcium levels in closed aquarium systems are managed.
I have however done a water change and the ammonia has dropped back to 0ppm and salinity is down to 31.0ppt and going to investigate with my lecturer as to how I can put in a form of calcium buffer.
I will continue to monitor the condition of the Moray just in case but I think the paleness was an osmotic stress symptom so should regain colour over time, however any ideas about other possibilities would help as I have also noticed lots of redness on the bellies and around the barbels of the sharks.
This may be stuff you know already so apologies if it is. When morays stop feeding and something is amiss I always pull back on feeding to ensure that I don't potentially compound water quality problems. A healthy moray can safely go a couple of weeks without food which buys time to resolve (potential) water quality issues.
Additionally every now and then I've encountered individual morays that refuse to eat a food type they have usually eaten. A week of holding back food and a change of diet seems to reset the animal. E.g. with my freshwater morays earth worms or live shrimp ffire them up!
Echidna nebulosa love chinamans hats from the shoreline.
Good luck
Ebb
Thank you Brendan I will be switching to frozen whitefish fillets (as a student I don't have many options for food) and again I have done a water change and the sharks have returned to normal so will change the diet and monitor the moray
I have noticed now that the moray has an injury on its tail with a chunbk of it missing which could be why its not feeding
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