What eels can go with a Tesselata eel

reefer arno · Oct 23, 2023

Hello I am currently looking for a eel to put with my current Tesselata who is only small at the moment what other eel types would be able to go with him?

SaltyT · Oct 25, 2023

@Slocke @lion king

lion king · Oct 25, 2023

I have one that is alone right now, he's grown from about 9" to about 22" in a year, he's about the size of a full grown small fang tooth right now. This is my 1st tessa, ones that I have known from others have always ended up being deadly towards fish, but I have seen them live happily with many varieties of eels. I think this does come down to the individual, but starting small is definitely a big advantage. How big are they now, you would want to get one that would physically match up. What eels are you interested in? What size tank?

reefer arno · Nov 2, 2023

lion king said:
I have one that is alone right now, he's grown from about 9" to about 22" in a year, he's about the size of a full grown small fang tooth right now. This is my 1st tessa, ones that I have known from others have always ended up being deadly towards fish, but I have seen them live happily with many varieties of eels. I think this does come down to the individual, but starting small is definitely a big advantage. How big are they now, you would want to get one that would physically match up. What eels are you interested in? What size tank?

Hi he's about 11" at the moment in a predatory tank with grouper, puffers and others. I'm after something quite active for a eel anyway, I also like the wired and waky types, it's a 900L tank with sump 7ft by 2ft by 3ft

littlefoxx · Nov 2, 2023

reefer arno said:
Hi he's about 11" at the moment in a predatory tank with grouper, puffers and others. I'm after something quite active for a eel anyway, I also like the wired and waky types, it's a 900L tank with sump 7ft by 2ft by 3ft

I dont have a tessa, but when I asked my LFS about them one of the guys told me he had one for a long time with predatory fish. He left to go to work one day and came home and the eel had killed and eaten all of his fish. He said the eel was always well fed and had no idea why it suddenly ate everything. :0

Beautiful eels though!!

reefer arno · Nov 27, 2023

What does everyone think about adding a skeletor eel

lion king · Nov 27, 2023

reefer arno said:
What does everyone think about adding a skeletor eel

There's really no case studies to point to, when it really comes down to it, in the long run no eel would really measure up to tessa, if they decided to turn. If the skelator you see measures up to tessa or is larger, they would be a fine eel to consider. The skelator is a pebbletooth and will not be as evenly matched, another fangtooth would really be the best choices.

lookingforahome · Dec 28, 2023

reefer arno said:
Hello I am currently looking for an eel to put with my current Tesselata who is only small at the moment what other eel types would be able to go with him?

Hi. I’m trying to rehouse my Tesselata eel. It’s getting to big for my tank and I would like to give it a good home.

Rifken · Dec 29, 2023

A story of three eels
It's a little long but bear with me. So my wife wanted an eel for "her" 125 as a Christmas present. We have a snowflake in "my" 125 and I wanted a different type of eel. After much research I decided to get her a Skelator or a Chainlink. I told my fish guy to get me one or the other, didn't matter which and I wanted one about 8 to 12 inches.

After a month of none being available thru his supplier I took things into my own hands and found two Chainlinks in Florida. I ordered them about 2 weeks ago; one for my wife and one for my fish guy as payment for receiving and quarantining my eel. One was about 10 inches and the other about 12 inches. The larger one was also much thicker than the smaller guy. They were qt'd in different tanks.

Over the last week I have stopped in a few times and saw them eating. The smaller one was very easy to feed. The larger one was kinda sporadic feeding and I saw him mouth a Snowflake eel a few times that was also in the tank while searching for food. I told fish guy that he needed to move one of the eels but he wasn't worried for the little guy.

Now these are supposed to be very much like a Snowflake; very peaceful and easy to care for eels. Yesterday we decided to take the smaller one and the fish guy could keep the larger one. This morning the larger one bit the head off a small blue and yellow Damsel. Now fish guy was concerned about the little Snowflake and decided to move the Chainlink into another tank but he needed to move a few fish out of that tank first.

Now we get to the the Tesselata part of the story. He has a 350 gallon with several fish in it and it has a, wait for it, a Tesselata in it. This eel has never bothered any of the fish in the tank. Well as soon as he put the two fish in form the other tank, the Tesselata grabbed one and ate it before you could say Boo.

So it seems that everything I have read about Tesselata eels is probably true, They can and probably will be fish killers. From my readings this seems to be true for all fanged tooth morays. Even the pebble tooth eels (Snowflake, Chainlink, Skeletor and other Echidna eels) can be fish eaters, but from my research that seems to only happen with adult eels. Seems very weird for this little guy to have ate a damsel. Glad we choose the other one

Here's the little guy