Eels, again… again.

[q8cyu]

Hi, I have continued research and I found the snake eel and garden eel

TLDR; I found 2 eels, garden and snake eel, what is the likelihood of a snake eel eating fish or what invertebrates will they eat/ tank size. Is 75 ok.
Garden eels what makes them hard to keep what sand bed do they need? Thanks.

First would a snake eel be a good idea, from what I heard they will only eat crabs and shrimps while leaving urchins, sea stars/brittle stars, snails, or fish. Is this true? What fish would they likely eat, would they be fine with a possum wrasse or burrowing wrasses/fairy wrasses, or a sand-sifter and shrimp goby? Do they need anything special? What is their tank size? I have found an inconsistent tank size across the web. Is a 75 ok, I’ve seen a 90 be the most common but a 90 and 75 are the same just a 90 is 3 inches taller.

Also I found the garden eel, I think my sand bed is between 4-6 inches deep would they be fine with that, I have seen that they are hard to care for, is it because of feeding or is there something else for this.

Thanks for the help.

 

[fishguy242]

@Slocke

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

I'll defer to others for the snake eel, but for the garden eel:

For garden eels, most people seem to struggle with them, but the person I’ve quoted below had them breeding in their tank (as of their last post in the thread, haven’t been able to get the young to settlement yet):

As far as my broodstock goes. (If my phone autocorrects that one more time to broomstick, I will scream!!!) I have 5 adults, 3 male and two females in my seahorse tank. They eat literally everything I put in there, including flake food. But they eat mainly a diet of PE mysis and whatever bits of the Gamma Marine Cuisine they fancy. SG 1.023, temp 22-23degrees Celsius. Sandbed of minimum 4 inches, rising to about 6 at the back. But they're happy in the 4" at the front.

The eels are some of my oldest tank residents, I've had a tank wipeout that these guys survived. I've had 3 (including the breeding pair) for around 5 years and two others for about two years. They eat literally everything I throw at them, including flake food and pellets. But because of the seahorses, they get mainly frozen food. But again, only twice a day. The biggest problem with garden eels is them escaping. My tank has a brace around the inside that's about 3" wide, there's a gap for the return pipes which I fill with filter floss because they will literally get through the tiniest gap, but only at the edge of the tank. I think the brace on mine is what's saved many of them from the carpet, unfortunately I've lost two newcomers from forgetting to fill around the return pipes with filter floss.

I feed the whole tank one cube of frozen gamma mysis, one cube of gamma marine cuisine and one cube of PE mysis, twice a day. The garden eels eat anything that comes near them, even the huge bits of mysis and happily take flake food too.
The shrimpfish prefer the mysis and aren't shy about competing with everything else for it.
I don't regularly add rots/pods or phyto to the tank. Just chuck some in every now and then if I have a surplus. The seahorses, copperband, filefish and mandarin means I don't have a large population of pods/mysis anymore.

I don't know if they're happy because of the other slow moving/careful feeding fish in there or because of the temp/salinity/rock placement etc. I keep the tank and 22-23degrees year round, SG at 1.022-1.023 and do about a 30% water change every 10-14 days.

Maybe I just got lucky!

 

[Slocke]

I'll answer for the snakes. Everything should be in my article but I'll answer you directly below.

Snake Eels: The Safe Moray Alternative?


What species of snake eel? There is this unfortunate thing with them that the more difficult their care the more fish safe they are. The Atlantic species are, from what I have seen more aggressive and enthusiastic eaters while pacific species are often more timid and harder to get eating.
They will eat shrimp and crabs but definitely not starfish and urchins. Most fish will be safe but I would not trust gobies or small blennies. I keep mine with sand sleeping wrasse and wrasse are generally fast enough to avoid these mostly. A possum wrasse may be pushing it though.

For tank size bigger is better. Unlike morays they occasionally swim free and to get the best out of it I would suggest a 5ft tank or more. Height does not matter but length and width do. They do need a soft sandbed or PVC pipes though given the choiice they will go for the pipes. I find 3/4" and 1" to be best depending on the girth of the eel and tunnels should be longer then the eel and mostly straight.

For stocking ideas here is my most recent video:

 

[lion king]

The limiting factor for a snake eel is a 4' tank.

 

[q8cyu]

thanks

 

[q8cyu]

The limiting factor for a snake eel is a 4' tank.

So no snake eel in a 4ft tank

 

[Hotelbravo]

I have 2 snake eels myself, neither of them go after any fish or inverts except frozen shrimp, frozen squid, and frozen oyster. I tried feeding live crabs once and neither would touch them.

 

[q8cyu]

I have 2 snake eels myself, neither of them go after any fish or inverts except frozen shrimp, frozen squid, and frozen oyster. I tried feeding live crabs once and neither would touch them.

I did end up getting an eel. It was sold to the lfs as a snake eel, I dint notice it wasn’t until after I added him to my tank. It is echidna polyzona the barred moray. From what I’ve read they are fairly peaceful And should be ok. He is currently scared of my fish so I should be ok.
sorry the Picture isn’t great. He‘s eating in that picture.

 

[lion king]

Echidna polyzona, the barred moray, are generally pretty mild.

 

[q8cyu]

Very s

Echidna polyzona, the barred moray, are generally pretty mild.

Very shy too.
Today it’s his turn to eat. It’s been 3-4 days. (Salmon today)