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Beautiful tanks!
Can you please tell us more about the ribbon eel?
A very cool fish, they seem to be extremely difficult to keep for most, I have a few friends that have tried unsuccessfully. I've had this guy for around 2 years. I got him as a 12" juvi and he's now been turning blue for over 8 months. The juvi form is the black ribbon, then they turn blue as the male form, then to green as a female. I imagine in captivity the change is likely stunted, I bet in the wild with some females around, he'd be full male by now(hehe).
As with most predators, all the ones I've been talking about in this thread, feeding is very difficult. They will likely never take dead food right away, and will take alot of coaxing and a delicate hand to get them to dead food. The next important thing is de-worming and parasite treatment. These guys will likely be chowing on diseased and dying live food along the way, to keep them alive just long enough to end up your tank.
My method for acclimating this guy is not much different to any of my most difficult predators. They go into an observation tank alone, treated with general cure, and initially fed live food. I acclimated a few small mollies and a few ghosties to just live with him for the first few days, and just let him hang. I would corral a fish or shrimp towards him after a few days. They did all disappear after a few days. I kept him on live food with no pressure for a couple/three weeks.
Once he seemed settled in, I started to attempt feeding him dead food. I noticed this guy has what I will call a "soft mouth", very delicate, very flinchy. I'd see him stumbling to catch his live food, and although he should be able to take them down, seemed much better with smaller ones. I found him to be very jumpy and timid, so I ended up using a very slim pair of tongs, and found that thin slices of food worked best.
Other eels I've kept would attack the food and wrestle down even pieces that I thought later should have smaller. Not this guy, I found slicing his food into strips about the width of the tip of his mouth and a couple inches long worked best. I would have to tease him with the food, sometimes letting in go at just the right time, for him to chase it and maneuver it down. You need to be patient and delicate. Some of the food I feed him: silversides, squid, octopus, silverfish(not the same as silversides).
I usually don't go for pvc, but these guys do seem to be comfortable inside of a pvc pipe. Because they are so slim, a 1" pvc is fine, and easy enough to hide. The reason his pvc is exposed now is because that is not his original home. I had to move him and he now resides with 3 lions in my lion's reef.
Even after 2 years, feeding is still a delicate operation, he still has that soft mouth. I'm sure he tracks down a stray live ghostie during the night, and I make sure he gets a molly or a couple of guppies at least every couple of weeks. With all that, this is a fish that does take hands on care, in the feeding department, and anyone not up to it, should leave this one alone.
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