Looking for some advice regarding my fire eel

[Bean Jonkus]

Hi all, I bought a baby fire eel roughly 8 months ago and put him in my 180 loach grow out tank (roughly 4 inches). he had been doing very well and growing super fast. 1 day roughly A month ago I noticed he had been swimming super funny and laying upside down a lot, upon further inspection it looked to be as if he was crushed by a piece of wood and or a rock in the tank. (there is a lot of smaller rocks and such for the loaches to play and hide in.) anyways I put him in a my quarantine tank and have been adding salt here and there to try and help with his recovery but I haven't really noticed much progress. Is there anything I can do to help him or medicate him with? even though its a physical injury with possible internal damage? or is he going to be stuck all kinked and beat up for the rest of his life? just looking for some advice as I'm not sure what I can do with him. thanks in advanced.
You can see in the image I tagged in the post where he took the "hit" if you will. He is roughly 10 inches now.


Quarantine tank water parameters
Ammonia - 0 ppm
Nitrite - 0 ppm
Nitrate - 5-10 ppm
water temp is 80 F

 

[tlindsey]

what I can do with him

I suggest just keep observing the fire eel and hopefully it gets better. Is the fire eel eating? If so that's good.

 

[Conchonius]

Maybe I'm wildly off the mark, but this looks more like a birth defect than a poorly healed injury to me. It's unlikely that a fire eel would get crushed by a falling object or wedge itself in such a way that getting out results in damage, they're experts at navigating narrow crevices.

Do you have any images of this fish prior to his injury? It's possible that he always had the kink and it was just too small to realize. Defects in fish embryos are common, and scrupulous breeders (especially of goldfish and koi) are supposed to identify and cull these fry early in development, but fish farms and importers can't afford that level of care. I've seen bent spines, fused fins, "hare lips" etc. in smaller farm-produced fish and it's possible that your eel just had an unlucky spin of the wheel of Darwin.

In any case fish are made of tough stuff and can survive such things with little to no loss in quality of life. I'd focus on keeping his water as clean as possible and feeding a varied diet rather than any medication, and keep observing as tlindsey recommends.