Snowflake eel dying???

[katherine]

Today I woke up to find my snowflake eel breathing very forcefully and lying on its side. I bought it exactly two weeks ago, and it seemed to be doing great...swimming around a lot and going through every possible crack in the live rock. However, it has not been eating for the last 12 days. At the store, it was fed a rather large Krill shrimp. Once I put it in my tank, I fed it another shrimp and ate it no problem. The following day, I offered another shrimp and it also ate it in seconds. Great appetite, I thought. Since then (Monday, April 8) it has refused any food, even though it was pretty active. I read an article which stated that eels may eat only once or twice a week, so I didn't worry too much when it stopped eating. Now I'm really worried!!! I placed it on a separate tank to see what would happen, and it is just lying on its side even though it is not breathing as hard as before. Any ideas on how to make it better? My daughter is heartbroken...

 

[katherine]

About my tank:
35 gl, 28 lbs live rock, whisper triad power filter 2000, bio.filter, protein skimmer, Ammonia 0.1, Nitrite 0.0, Nitrate 4, pH 8.0, SG 1.022, Temp 80. Just did a 5 gl water change with distilled water.
Fish/Inver.:1 purple tang, 1 yellow tang, 1 trunk cubicus, 1 percula clown, 2 condylactis anemone, 1 flame scallop, 1 cleaner shrimp. All fish and inver. eating very well and are very active.

 

[katherine]

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Well, I'm sad to say that my eel did not make it after all...poor little guy.
I have had my tank set up since March 16, roughly a month. Param. were perfect by April 6 when we decided to get our fish, so according to the guy at the store we bought our first two clowns, anemone, and eel. The following saturday, he said it would be okey to add the other fish we wanted, the tangs, cubicus, scallop, and another anemone. Needless to say, after reading many entries and articles, we now know that we are way overstocked. Thankfully all the fish are juvenille, and are okey for the moment. We are eventually going to get a much larger tank to set up what we already have and hopefully then, we will be okey. It is amaizing what people tell you just to make a buck!!!
Today, we also realized that our bio filter was not working properly. After changing a part, we now believe to have the correct water flow through it. Maybe this was the reason the ammonia was not zero ... I don't know. Tomorrow I will test the water once again to see any changes. I use Aquarium system fasTest kits, I thought they were the best available.
I will let you know how every thing goes, as of today, all our fish seem very happy and perky and are eating very well.
Until then...thanks for your reply