Anyone play with eels

[daharley]

Right now I have basically a fowlr potentially someday a reef. 210 gallons. been looking at eels. Mostly the chain eel and the zebra moray. anyone have any experiance with these?

[zygote2k]

I had eels for awhile. I can show you the scars on my fingers from feeding them. I can also attest to the durability of large eels- when they latch onto your thumb and you fling them across the room and they hit the floor with a wet thump, throw them back in and they keep swimming.

[zoltarblue]

Lol a wet meaty thump I am guessing. I had a 150 reef in Florida and we had a dwarf banana eel. Had him almost three years never bothered anyone in the tank. Came home one day he had somehow gotten under my mess cover and went carpet surfing. Was to late to save him

[daharley]

That doesn't sound like a good experiance. Actually neither do

[davelin315]

Knock on wood, I've never been bitten by an eel. I've had zebra morays, snowflakes, chain link (I'm assuming the same as what you're referring to as the chain eel), and a few others. The zebra morays are about as calm as can be, very slow and methodic. The snowflakes are much faster and a bit more aggressive. The zebra morays are great except that they resemble cucumbers a lot of the time as they sit around and do nothing. They get very large and are very thick and strong so if you have loose rockwork, don't expect it to hold up. The one I currently have used to "host" a pair of gold bar maroon clownfish.

[daharley]

Do you think the zebra or the chainlink is a better candidate?

[davelin315]

Chainlink is typically much smaller but can also be a bit more aggressive. It all depends on what you want in your tank. I can say in my experiences I've never had a zebra moray eat a fish, but I can't say that my chain link didn't eat some (it ate goldfish while zebra morays have no interest in my experience).

[Coral Hind]

Another bad experience to go along with the two Z-men above. I had a snowflake kill a large purple tang during feeding time. The eel was in a frenzy and lunged out and took a bite out of the bottom of the fish which died minutes later.

 

Other then that incident they are a lot of fun to keep. Keep a tight lid on the tank and always keep thing like rock work, power heads, and piping low in the tank so the eel can't use them to help get out of the tank. Use a feeding stick and do not feed them from your hands. Once they learn that the hand brings food they tend to bite the hand that feed thems. It makes it hard to clean a tank when an eel is following you around sizing up your thumb constantly.

 

I would go with the zebra over the chainlink.

 

 

[daharley]

My tank includes: percula clown, maroon clown , flame angel, coral beauty angel, pixie hawkfish, dragon goby, moorish idol, hippo and yellow tang and soon a dwarf zebra lion. I hear my crabs dont have much of a chance with either eel or the lion and my coral banded shrimp may not last either. It seems that the zebra has little chance of hurting the fish but will get to 5 ft and is 150 bucks and the chain link has a bit larger chance of hurting fish only gets about 2 ft and is only 50 bucks. does this sound like an appropriate appraisal?

[FearTheTerps]

if you really like your fish I dont think I would put an eel in with those. The general rule of thumb I have always heard is that if a fish can fit in the eels mouth it will most likely eat it at some point.

[daharley]

Bump

[davelin315]

I'd say wait it out if you want the zebra moray. It won't eat your fish (there's always the exception, though) and if you are patient, they become available every once in awhile for far less than the current online prices.

[daharley]

How about the golden dwarf eel. Other than the price tag would he be a better candidate than the zebra?

[davelin315]

No experience with them but they stay nice and small.