I'm into eels!

F

fish addict

AC Addict
Mar 6, 2005
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Wilmington, NC
I have a 30g brackish water tank with a gymnothorax tile ("snowflake moray"). It is doing great and readily eats the fish and shrimp that I catch for it in local estuaries. It is an easy eel to care for and awesome to watch.

I have a 50g fresh water community tank that has 1 striped peacock eel and 1 recently purchased yellow spiney eel? (not really sure about the stores stats on this fish- they said it would reach 28", but I'm not so sure about that). Does anybody know if the yellow spiney eel is just the small generic spiney eel?

I have a 20g african cichlid tank with several dwarf cichlids and an ornate bichir. The information that I found about these bichirs is that they appear in Lake Tanganyika. I have him in a Tang setup and he seems to be doing fine. I have some concerns that when he gets bigger that the dwarf cichlids could be in trouble, but they are pretty quick and he seems to get along with them pretty well for now.

Does anybody have any info that they would like to share about any of these eel species? (I am particularly looking for info about the "yellow spiney eel", but would like to hear about anyone's experiences with any of these species of fish.
 
I didnt know they had FW eels.

They do have a SW eel called the Snoflake eel as well, its a moray.


What you said about it eating shrimp and fish reminded me...

The LFS has a lionfish in a big tank, its about 12" big. Its quite a big fish.

Anyway he fed it for me! He just took one of the live goldfish out of a FW tank and threw it in there. In a FRACTION of a second, it ate it. Its like it "snapped" and it was gone. I guess it just jumped forward so fast and ate it so fast you couldnt hardly see it, lol.

It was pretty neat, I thought the goldfish would try to swim away or something but it never got the chance.
 
Dragonfish, FW eels

I need to find out what the fresh water eels eat? Although I bought one, the store man new nothing, which was ok, as I have some good books for indentity and care of fish. However when I went to look him up, I couldn't find a thing about it. So, I try to observe him, he is in my 55gal carptank, in cool water, he never eats! It looks like he is eating something by the fact that he's grown a little, but I don't know that he's getting all that he needs. He seems happy, he runs with the fish sometimes, but in fact, I know nothing about him, with one exception; he's very very ugly. Thank you for any facts about this particular fish.

Carplady
 
Snowflake morays are saltwater. Not brackish.
 
I'm pretty sure they yellow spiney eel, is just a new name fore a tyre track eel. Mine ate tubaflex works and really liked live ghost shrimp. When they get bigger they can eat night crawlers. When they get older they supposedly eat anything that fits in it's mouth although mine never ate a community fish.

P.S. If it is a tyre track eel, 28 inches is a conservative bet. Mine was about 2 years old (I'm guessing) and was about 18 inches when it died. I've seem one at the LFS that was about 3 feet and about 6 inches in diameter. The peacock supposedly doesn't get as big.

P.P.S make sure all the holes in your tank are covered they will get out.
 
i don't understand that, about them getting out. yes, i know they do it, but. . . don't they stick their heads out and realize that they've left the water? or do they just go for the escape so quickly that there's no time to turn around?
 
I don't know mine always poke around. I had a fish disaster recently where a whole bottle of food was dropped in my tank. My fire eel managed to get out of the tank (I have no idea how) I found him on the floor..apparently dead. I put him in a bucket and now a month later he seems to be doing ok (no longer in the bucket). I use that plastic knitting mesh and cut out little shapes to cover all the holes.
 
Eels are typically more at home out of the water than most fish, and don't have any issues with leaping out. However, a lot of people I've heard from (peacock eel keepers, at least) say theirs has never even attempted to escape.
 
there seems to be some confusion on snowflake moray eels. there are 2 species. one, echidna nebulosa, is the saltwater moray eel. the other, gymnothorax tile , is brackish, although it is often callled the freshwater moray eel. both are listed in the species profiles on this website

also, freshwater spiny eels, such as peacock eels, aren't really eels.

eels get out of the tank by curling their tail at the the bottom of the tank, then straightening it to propel themselves out of the water. their is a picture of this on www.aqualandpetsplus.com/Oddball, Moray Eel.htm

another so called "freshwater" moray eel is echidna rhodochilis (this too is really brackish)
 
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