I just bought a 19" or so morey eel.I went to the buddies lfs and he had the eel for 20$us so I got him. All together I ended up going home with him a albino ruby red beautiful, and a full grown upside down syno. cat. All for 20$us good to have friends that own stores.Anyway when I was first checking him out he looked ok, I watched him snap at a cichlid in the tank with him, and thought they better watch out.So we go to bag the big bastard, and I notice that he has a huge lump in his throat now. My only guess is he got hungry.So now all he does is lay on his side trying to digest what ever he ate.So my question is can they choke to deth?

Here is a picture of him exhaling I guess you would say.

Inhaling.

This one gives you an idea of his size, and how he's laying.

And just for the hell of it here's a picture of the albino ruby.Sorry could't get a picture of the cat he's already found a hiding spot.

If you can help please do.

This moray eel, theres a lot of ground to cover here an i know from personal experience.

The lump in there throat is a natural occurence, they pump a lot of water through thee and it is very stretchy to let the eel swallow large foods.

What concerns me is that he is laying on his side, with his eyes flush to his head. A healthy vish always tries to keep its eyes on a horizontal axis not gazing up into the sky, this points to something drastic, as the eel has no rotated its eyes to try an compensate. (this theory can be tested by watching "sleeping" loach, or if you fish holding a healthy captured specimenand tilt him to one side, you will notice they will shift their eyes to try and compensate).

Moray eels start out their infant lives as elvers, these are completely freshwater, but as they mature they begin to head towards the sea and so the salinity gradually increases. This encourages growth and an active immune system in these fish, it also prompts sexual maturity in true eels (anguilla species especially). As such there is no such thing as a completely fresh water moray eel. In many cases these eels will gradually lose their appetite and simply starve to death. I highly recommend that you add a small amount of salinity to a tank especially for him and work it up. This can only benefit the eel!

Just out of interest there is a syndrome known as enuch eels, these are extremely large adult eels that never make it to saline water! As such they never ever reach sexual maturity, but curiously they live longer and grow bigger! This sydrome is most prevalent in the Anguilla Anguilla (my native common eel) and as such ive caught a number of them and ran for dear life as theyve tried to bite, slime and constrict me lol!

Anyway, i really hope this helps, in the end i gave mine over to a dedicated marinne keeper, and since then its gained weight and grown like wild fire!

Making sure this stays at the top for ya ;)

Good posting Oddball.

yeah, if you have that big guy in completely fresh water that's prolly the problem :/

my ph is at 8.0 what hardness should I be at?Ph may be a little lower only .1 or .2.Before I bought him he wasn't laying on his side. I know he ate and I think he's still trying to choke the fish down I bought him last night at 5:00 It has been in my tank for 25.5 hours now. He is still trying to choke down the damn thing please help I don't want him to die.
:banghead:

In the same tank I have a needle nose gar, a black spotted green puffer, mono argentis,archer fish,and some peacock eels.They are all mature.So its actually more a brackish tank.

What is your salinity level?

Ok I have solved the mystery. Today I reached in and lifted him up and got him moving a little, next thing I know he throws up. Then he lays back down. I then check his body and could make out at least three fish working their way down. So I think he ate way more then he coud handle. These where pretty decent size juvie cichlids. They shouldn't have been picking at him. So hopefully throughout the next few days he will digest his gut full.

Great fish good luck with him!

Ok it's official he's toast. :banghead: Time to get a refund. :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

sorry to hear :/

:crybaby: RIP sno

You never told us your salinity levels?

But thats too sad to here. :( Maybe next time keep small fish out of the tank and feed him one - two feeders at a time.

kiding me right? i really thought he was going to make it, sorry for your loss that really sucks.

It ate cichlids in the tank at the lfs I bought it from. It had a total of three of them stuck in it. one of them must of been 1.5" or so. It just could not throw them up or digest them. It was out of my hands. :crybaby: