Snowflake eel, any tips?

BrownCow · Nov 8, 2020

I'm seriously considering turning my 50 gallon into a snowflake eel tank, but I am having a hard time believing the 50 gallons is big enough. Can anyone with experience with the eel confirm that it is or is not?
Also, if I'm going to go through with it I am going to add plenty of pvc pipe, so my question is, how thick do these guys typically get and are 2" pipes thick enough?

Hugh Mann · Nov 8, 2020

I'm not as familiar with snowflake eels, however I do believe they can grow up to 24". As long as they have enough length to stretch out their body without bending it, eels are usually fairly content. I've got an 18" moray of a different species in a 55 and he doesn't use it besides his two caves.

As for thickness, I do believe 2" should be sufficient.

If you decide to it can work, all I can say is eels are awesome. No regrets.

flampton · Nov 8, 2020

It's fine. I had one in a classic 55G (48in/12in) and he basically disappeared into the dead coral skeletons ( yup 30 years ago). He was a weirdo though, he always would try to get into the undergravel filter tubes.

As I was very young at the time and the LFS just didn't care I had a bit too much in that tank but surprisingly it never crashed. (Snowflake, lionfish, Picasso trigger, raccoon butterfly, hippo Tang). The snowflake was 18 inches, the lionfish was 9 inches, the Picasso was up to 5 inches, the raccoon was 4, and the hippo was 6 inches). Did have to sell them back to the pet store though as I wasn't taking care of the tank well once I hit Junior year in high school and developed other interests, lol!

flampton · Nov 8, 2020

Oh and snowflakes are invert killers so snails, crabs and shrimp won't make it so be prepared to be your own CUC. Didn't have to worry about that back then since inverts weren't even a thing in my area at the time.

flampton · Nov 8, 2020

2 inch pipes are huge, so I'd go 1 inch. Hopefully you get a juvi to start and so 1/2- 3/4 inch would be fine for quite awhile.

flampton · Nov 8, 2020

Oh I know I'm blowing this thread up but make sure you have a tight fitting lid. At night I would occasionally find him pushing against the heavy glass lid. If it was very light like the current style lids I would imagine the flake would have just pushed it off and ended up dried on the floor.

DaddyFish · Nov 8, 2020

I've kept two different snowflake eels in a 54-corner, no problem! One was about 28" long.

You will be amazed at what they decide to adopt as their home. I wouldn't put too much effort into PVC pipe as I have found that eels prefer things they can wrap around rather than coil inside.

Example, both my snowflakes traded elaborate 2" black pipe structures with Tees, elbows etc. for a sunken submarine from PetSmart, go figure! I had to move the submarine to another tank to move the eel. Even after pulling it out of the water he stayed put inside. Most of the time he coiled around the bottom of the submarine and lived half in, half out.

Point being, experiment with decor and give them options. Plastic pipe isn't always the best. And Oh, they do like sand!

lion king · Nov 8, 2020

I think a snowflake would be fine in a 50g, that is a 4 foot right. They do get to 2' and will get to about 1.5" in diameter. So a 2" pipe would barely suffice, they need to turn around in it. I'm not a big pvc fan but I had it for my ribbon eel, ribbon eels are like thin, he was in a 2" pvc. Building a den and a run with rocks is so much better and better looking. All eels won't use the pvc anyway and if not it just a dietus trap. Build the rocks to allow the eel to have a run down the whole back of the tank, with like 3 openings along the front and sides. Try to feed him fresh when possible, get your shrimp with shells, include squid and octopus. Although a pebble tooth I would also offer fresh fatty fish for the efa's. Try not to feed krill as the thiaminese content is very high and will bind vitamin B1. If it's a species tank I would also include live gut loaded ghost shrimp and live fiddler crabs. Most people are keeping snowflakes for 2 to 4 years while their lifespan in the wild is like 20 years. This almost assuredly has to do with nutritional deficiencies. If being fed properly they will reach full grown in several months. It's best to keep on a gorge/fast feeding routine to give a few days between feedings for proper digestion. Keeping reef levels of mg may also help with digestion.