Snow flake eel question...

[mike388]

Im upgrading my tank pretty soon and want to get a snow flake eel eventually but my question is can they get ick and stuff like that ??? Thanks

 

[killafins]

saltwater don't get ick.
Although, saltwater fish can get a bacterial infection due through stress and bad water conditions. I used to have a snowflake and I havn't seen or heard of them being common to getting this infection.

 

[mike388]

thank you!

 

[fishieness]

i have a snowflake eel and also an outbreak of ick at the same time. He didn get it though. They have a very thick covering of mucus around their skin so the ick cant realy stay on long enough to attatch. I would assume if they were relay unhealthy and their mucus coat deminished, it would be possible, but for this to happen, it would probably kill them first. So their chances of not getting ick are much greater than other types of fish.

 

[guineawhop]

snowflake eels can't get ick because they don't have scales that ick needs to latch onto like fish do

 

[fishieness]

hmm... didnt know the scale aspect was necessary, i thought it was the mucus aspect.... there you go then! lol

 

[guineawhop]

that's the second part of it. fish have that slime coating to protect them and then if they don't have that slime coating that makes it simple for the parasite to latch on. well if a eel's coating gets thin it doesn't matter because the parasites have nothing to hold onto.