Eel in a reef?

bizzle

Member
I have a snowflake in mine and he does fine. I have cromies and he hasn't touched them. Make sure you feed them everyday though, so they don't get hungry and go looking for food. I feed mine frozen food. A lot of people feed them silversides though. Mine is acustomed to eating the frozen though, so I;m not worried he's going to eat my fish. Another eel you could get would be a white ribbon eel. They are more doscile that a snowflake.
 

murph145

Active Member
ive had a white ribbon eel now for about a year and a half and he is great! hes about 24" long now hes probably trippled in size since i bought him and he eats straiht off a feeding stick.
the only draw back is that i have anemones and he bumps into them once in a while and gets stung but actually he is really smart he knows to kind of swim by them now and not touch them.
i have many small fish he could fit in his mouth but he pays no attention to them at all...
that would be my choice
 

fishieness

Active Member
i would recomend it. First of all it would be a lot cheaper. Also if he is in the reef when he is younge, he will be more acostomed to having tankmates when he is older. He would proaably see them more as fellow fish instead of food.
I am thinking of doing the same thing, only instead of having other small fish, i want to maybe put a small angler or lion in there. I dont knwo if it would work though because they would probably eat all the shrimp and clean up crews i can put in there. Any ideas anyone?
 

fishieness

Active Member
yeah, me too, but im going to have him in with a fuzzy dwarf and a snowflake eel. Im going to get one thats only about 5 inches, and im going to maek sure the fuzzy dwarf is full grown before i get one. Im not sure if i want one yet, but its in the cards
 

nm reef

Active Member
Most of the fish/eels discussed above may indeed be "reef friendly"...but the waste they generate and the disrupion they can cause may not be ideal for most reef aquariums. They can contribute to water filtration problems and can be very disruptive in nature....personally I'd avoid them in a reef ... much better options available in my opinion.:thinking:
 

fishieness

Active Member
a good point! Youd have to have a heck of a lot of filtration just to keep the water clean enough for the corals and such
but the thing id realy be worried about is eating all of the clean up crew. Shrimps and other such things probably would last to long with most eels. It would be expensive after a while.
 

murph145

Active Member
hmmm...
ive had my ribbon eel now for well over a year and ive never had a problem with him eating any of my cleaner shrimps in fact the shrimp chases him around to clean him.... i got him small and i think its because he was still young that he doesnt see other tankmates as food just friends....
i feed him everyother day some squid or krill on a feeding stick and that seems to suit him just fine..... he does swim around the tank alot so make sure however u set up your rocks they r in a sturdy position cuz they can knock them over as they get larger.
i also have a small fuzzy lion fish in my tank and he doesnt bother any of the inverts hes cool to watch good personality follows u around the tank.
i did have a prob once when i had bought a small panther grouper and as he got larger ate my $30 red shrimp but that was before i did my research to see what can live together safely
 

scott9311

Member
If you do decide to get one, make sure you put glass tops on your tank. When I bought my first tank (a 55g from a friend), it came with a SF eel. It had glass tops, but he had cutouts in the back for equipment. Well, the very first night it was setup, the eel evidently was swimming around, found one of the small openings, and just kept on going up till he was out of the tank. Unfortunately, I didn't find him till the next morning:nope:
 
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