I had one ...

[petcrazy213]

My 3 year old saw it and just had to have it for our SW tank. Being new to the hobby I didn't know any better and bought it to add to our several fish. It was fine for a while but all of a sudden fish started to disappear. then, 1 blue damsel, 2 royal grammas and 1 clownsigh later I caught the eel and isolated it. I traded it a week later for a more peaceful fish.

I found that it had a seemingly insaciable appetite ... loved tiny frozen shrimp, squid, mysis shrimp, some brine shrimp, ect. They are really cool fish to have and it was always really neat to watch swim around to feed. I really liked feeding it with a long tweezer as well.

If you decide to purchase this kind of fish I highly recommend having a LARGE tank and if you have other fish be sure that they are the bigger kind. I never had any problem with the eel going after my yellow tang.

[Gealcath]

Eels, especially Moray types are also expert escape artists, they can push around 20lb. rocks when they get big enough, so its easy for them to push up the aquarium lid unless its really secure, also smaller ones can fit through any cracks in the lid, so it has to be completely sealed. The Morays will eat anything they can fit in thier mouth, which can be 1.5x the size of its mouth, and they can and will go after fingers, and if they bite your finger they will NOT let go. Banded Eels are not as aggresive as Morays, but can be hard to feed.

[dward254]

Thanks for the replies. We had a small banded snake eel about 6 months ago. And, with a deep sand bed, we wouldn't see it for weeks. Then, we just stopped seeing it altogether. I am afraid that it perished due to a lack of nutrition. Before (if) we get another one, we want to be sure we can provide the proper environment and food that it requires. Here are our thoughts/options:

1. We were thinking about burying a 2-3 foot clear plastic tube that could be used to place food in so it won't be eaten by other fish in the tank. This is probably the most practicle idea.

or,

2. After reading in other forums, eels and other sand sifting creatures can be limited to the depth that they burrow by placing some type of screen about half way into the sandbed. However, we are not sure of the type of "screen" to use. Obviously, it shouldn't be made of metal, so what should we use? Also, it is going to be extremely difficult to remove all of the lr and 2 in. of sand in order to place the screen in there. Any suggestions?

Thanks