Snowflake Moray Eel

[jumpinjoker]

Just got a juvenile. Any advice on feeding or care from your personal experience?

 

Thanks

[Origami]

I believe that DaveLin315 has one in a school tank. He could probably pass on his experience with it.

[Coral Hind]

Make sure you have a good lid on the tank as they can easily climb out. Dropping the water level in the tank helps some as well as keeping the rock work lower so they can't push off of it to climb out.

 

Resist the urge to feed them from your hand, us a feeding stick. It may seem cool but they quickly learn that when the hand is in the tank there could be food. It can make tank maintenance a little exciting when they are trying to taste you fingers. They have poor eye sight so even when they try to grab the food from your hands they may grab a finger.

 

I only feed them about once a week. Normally just rinsed raw table shrimp.

[davelin315]

Same advice, although feedings with smaller ones need to be more often so that they can grow properly. When older, eels can go on hunger strikes and not eat for months at a time. I have always fed anywhere from 1-2 times per week, sometimes even stretching that to once per 2 weeks. They are primarily crustacean eaters, although they will take the occasional fish here and there. As David said, they have very poor eyesight so when you feed, try and make sure the snowflake gets its fill before others start eating the shrimp. One thing I have noticed that happens an awful lot at school is that the trigger we have eats the shrimp first, starts smelling like the shrimp, and then when the snowflake comes out to eat he more often than not grabs the trigger first (quite comical considering how many times the trigger has been grabbed by the head or side and not learned its lesson). I would feed a variety of foods and not just the shrimp (go ahead and leave the shell on as they will digest most of it, but snap the end of the tail off), including mussel, clam, scallop, squid, etc. Snowflakes can be very fun, we had one donated by Chris Mahoney years back that was lost during summer vacation a few years back, but it grew to what I would consider larger than maximum size (almost 3' and thicker than a broom handle) and was the MPEOC (most popular eel on campus!). If you have a small eel, one of the juveniles the size of a pencil, I'd feed it tiny pieces of shrimp and mysis a few times per day. The last time I had one that small I put it in a critter cage that I sank to the bottom of a sump and fed it there to ensure that it didn't get eaten by something else.

[overklok]

They are jumpers and carpet surfers, make sure your aquarium is secure.

[davjbeas]

I had one. It was very tricky to feed. They don't see well enough to find the food.

 

David

just my experience