Fire Eel vs Freshwater Moray

[zekni]

Alright guys. I'm at the fish store today buying ghost shrimp for my freshwater moray eel and see a huge fire eel in with the baby freshwater morays.
The pestore people of course assure me that they get along fine.

True or False?

My guess is the thing's too stressed to eat those baby morays...

Nifty looking fish, but I can't find much info on them. My FW Moray, I've had in a 75 gal tank by himself for about 3 years. He's about 2 feet long. I add some marine salt to the water, but not enough to register salinity on my little guage, as when I tried to take him brackish he stopped eating (6months is a long time to go without food) until I took the salt back down. No, I didn't just drop in a bunch of salt in one day either.

So question is, obviously my tank is too small for both at this point, but buying a new tank would be no problem if the FWM wasnt likely to try and kill the Fire Eel...

Can I do it?

My hopes aren't up, (never has a fish survived "Sniper" as a tankmate - never tried an eel companion though) but it never hurts to ask right?


Thanks!

Zek

 

[brackishdude]

I have kept a fire eel and moray together with great luck at 1.004-1.007. The moray would not bother anything it could not fit into its ample mouth. I say go for it. I would recommend that you add some marine salt, however, even if you have to do it achingly slowly. I just can't believe that the moray would do better without it! My experience suggest that the fire eel will do just fine with very light brackish, though cdawson may disagree (see post below).

 

[cdawson]

I do disagree because FW morays need SW as they get older, because it worked for one person doesn't mean it will work for others. Another example is that brackishdude's moray should have killed and eaten several of his other fish, likewise with other fish in the tank.
Putting a fish into conditions unnatural to them jeopardizes their health and well being.


The reason the eel stopped eating was you probably added too much salt too fast, this will cause the fish in the tank to have salinity, or osmotic shock. Any fish under this kind of stress will stop eating. You definately want to use marine salt for the moray, but get yourself a full range hydrometer and raise the salinity 0.002 points every week until you reach a salinity of about 1.015.

After about two years you should then bring the salinity up to full marine.

 

[Rocketman]

We keep Fire Eels at the Pet Store I work at. They usually stay in the store for a few weeks and then sell. We've had about 5 of them and none have died. We haven't added any salt either.

 

[zekni]

cdawson,

I do understand my FW moray (Echidna rhodochilus) should be brackish, and some think even saltwater. I did exactly as you suggested in raising the salinity very slowly, over a period of months. I did do my research, use marine salt, have a hydrometer and other water test kits, and followed the advice of the knowledgable members of this board when it came to aclimating him to avoid shock.

For the entire attempt, until I'd taken the salinity (again, very slowly) back down to unregisterable levels on my hydrometer, he showed no interest in food. Before, and after to this date, he's a voracious eater and has grown from a tiny 8inch eel to nearly two feet in the 3 years I've had him.

It really was a six month period between meals for him, and I'm a bit gunshy about trying it again. No one seems to know just how long a FW moray can go without eating, but the general concensus seemed to be that four months (when I started lowering the salinity again) was waaay too long to go without. It took another two months to take him back to pretty much freshwater before he started eating again, and he'd lost a visible amount of body mass.

I have not misidentified this eel. I've read probably everything regarding them you can find on the internet and consulted other people who've owned them. I even enlisted the help of a marine biologist from a local zoo to help find info and give me insite, and he couldn't come up with an explanation into this particular eel either.

So far I've found that there's not much info to go on when it comes to this species, and the info there is is hit or miss in accuracy. Unfortunately, my attempts to ask him directly how he wants his tank setup have been less than fruitful.

If you have any suggestions or insite you think might help out with him, please, feel free to comment.

How long have you owned yours?

Thanks,

zek