Any one successfully kept a black ribbon eel?

[v_dubb_it_up]

I just bought one the other day cause I trusted my LFS when he told me these eels are very easy to keep. Anyway, I brought him home and checked out some more info on the net and apparently they are very hard to keep animals. I was kinda freakin' cause I really did not want this beautiful animal to die. Almost every source I checked out on the net said that that usually die because they are picky and refuse to eat. So I added some guppy's to the tank and hoped for the best. He ate like five or six of them at least within' the first few hours on my tank. When I got him he was VERY skinny! Now he is all fat, much happier. Anyway, just wondering if anyone else is having success with one of these eels and any more useful information

[yoshiod9]

ok...first off, you shouldn't have an eel in a nano(unless its a dwarf eel...and then, only under certain circumstances). secondly, you shouldn't be feeding your eel freshwater foods. absolutely unacceptable. take it back to the store and demand your money back and explain to them why you want your cash back.

 

eels aren't actually very hard to take care of...feed them, do big water changes/skim heavily because they are heavy polluters, and make sure that you have a tight fitting lid so that the eel can't slip out.

[Kogut]

Ditto.

[Physh1]

Eeeek....that size critter in a nano is pretty cruel IMHO. In no way does a nano have the volume or spaces a critter like that needs to feel safe and comfortable. It's good that it's eating since that says so far he's ok but I'd HIGHLY recommend returning it.

 

Cameron

[BKtomodachi]

Ribbon eels are almost nano material... like 25-30 gallons + material.

 

All color variants (red, yellow, black) EXCEPT for blue are nearly impossible to maintain.

 

If you can get a blue, it would be better.

[phergus_25]

well from what I'v read getting them to eat is the hard part if he is eating then you might be set. What size tank? and even tho they can get like 2' they are so skinny that they can be kept in a 40 gal at full size.

[v_dubb_it_up]

I have him in a 39 g, and yes, if you know anything about these eels they do not alot of room as they should only very rarely leave their home in the LR, and do not need swimming room. And if he'll eat guppies, thats what I am feeding him as they are VERY picky eaters, most never eat at all and die shortly after purchase. Also, I do not want to return him as the store I bought him from would not care for him properly. For one, when I bought him he was in an open top tank with many tank mates and not even one peice of LR, he was just swimming freely which is definetly not his natural behaviour. I will also be trying some ghost shrimp for some variety. I will also try soaking the guppies in diluted selcon for a short period of time before introducing them into the tank. And about not feeding fresh water fish to him, aren't guppies better off in brackish? That's what I thought anyway, correct me if I'm wrong. I have two skimmers going right now, and do 15% water changes everyweek, so I should be alright in that department as well. I fed him more guppies tonight just before the lights went out, he mowed down, ate like 7-10 of the little guys. I will be getting the shrimp tomorrow to see how he does with those. A may also try feeding SOME frozen food with a feeding stick if he will take it. Oh, and about blue ribbons being easiest, their is technically no such thing. The blue ribbons are just mature black ribbons, then the blues turn into an almost white with old age. And black's are much easier to keep in there juvenile stage as you can get them to eat more readily as a mature eel would be harder to get accustomed to captivity. Anyway, I would not recommend these guys to anyone with out alot of time to care for them as they require alot of attention. So no one on here has had any experience with these amazing creatures?

[supernip]

i sometimes contemplate buying one myself.

[v_dubb_it_up]

oh, also, he is NOT in a reef tank. I set him up his own. Only other tank inhabitant is a yellow wrasse (which also seems to love the guppies). The two never bother each other except sometimes in a feeding frenzy the ribbon mistakes him for food, until he realizes that the wrasse is MUCH too big for his little tiny mouth to consume. The tank only has about 15 to 20 lbs of some VERY porous LR, and about 15-20 lbs live sand. No invertabrae at all, as he will either eat small crustaceans, or be stressed by corals, anemones ect.

[v_dubb_it_up]

If I would have researched first, I would have been scared silly and NEVER even considered one. So many sources say 99.9% of these things die from either refusing to eat or finding them dried up on the floor. Maybe I got lucky in getting one that will eat, or maybe they just take extra care, either way mine seems to be doing very well. I definetly do not regret buying him, not for one second. I can watch him for hours on end. If anyone on here does consider one, make sure you provide him with all his needs and do as much research as you can find. One cool fact about these guys is that in nature they form groups of lets say one thousand, and they are all males. Well approx. only one of these males will turn female. The female mature ribbons turn completly bright yellow, magnificant looking creature and VERY VERY VERY rare. It's literally like a 1 in a thousand chance of getting a female. Anyone ever seen a female first hand? Was it for sale? Price? If mine somehow ended up a female, I figure it would be worth a hefty price.

[Cloudy]

If he's eating you are doing great, and I think he'll do well if you can stay on top of parameters. You didn't really mention anything about your set-up so i'd like to know...

 

It would be good if you could ween him onto some other foods, you know... all the good stuff from the seafood counter at safeway. I've only kept a dwarf Golden Moray, but i took care of my friend's ribbon for a while... it was accepting food from a feeding stick, so that's what you should go for i think...

 

man, ribbon eels are so cool, good luck.

-S

[yoshiod9]

feeding freshwater fish leads to fatty livers (read: death) and can cause cross contamination parasites. personally, i would return it...if no one buys them, the stores will stop stocking them. simple supply and demand.

[gcrowptc]

The stores will always buy and stock the creatures that are hard to keep because there is always a fool that will believe the lfs employees know everything, so returning it is not an option imho, as for the guppies, you can get a few pairs and raise your own fry in a true saltwater enviorment, so this way they are true saltwater guppies and as V said they are basicly brackish to begin with, I actually commend V on his/her comitment to care for this animal and research what it takes to keep it alive and report back what is working again returning it is not an option he/she already stated the lfs had it improperly housed, so at least it went to a good and caring home with V, this is just my 2 cents worth and with over 30+ years in the hobby I can tell you that lfs will never stop bringing hard to keep animals in. It was less than 10yrs ago it was said sps could not survive in an aquarium and look at the sps dominated tanks of today!

[v_dubb_it_up]

Today I had him mowing down on some sort of shrimp (can't remember what kind). It took him awhile to eat them all, cause the shrimp are just too fast for him. It was kinda cool watching him eat them cause the shrimp would go in and out of the live rock and my little ribbon would just keep following the little guys until he had his body wrapped all through the rock. If I touch the glass near him he follows my fingers, I thought that was kinda neat too, as I'[m pretty sure these animals are generally pretty shy. Anyway, just an update on the shrimp feeding.

[v_dubb_it_up]

oh, thanks for the idea with the guppies gcrow. How would I go about doing that? Would I buy a few breeding pairs, and slowly (over the course of like a month) raise the salinity in the breeding tank by like 0.001 a day until they are surviving in true SW? Or should I start two tanks and seperate the males and females so I don't have them breeding before the water has become true SW? Slowly get the salinity up there in both tanks and once it is SW in both then put them in the same SW tank for breeding?

[BKtomodachi]

v_dubb.... I would not feed guppies at all. They often cant live at full salinity.

 

Better foods include frozen shrimp, mysis, scallops, and clam. If he isnt eating prepared foods, its probably not healthy.

 

Also, could you give me a link or indication of where you got the whole color change/maturation differences. For right now, I'm going to trust AFM over you... sorry.

[gcrowptc]

Guppies and Mollies both can be aclimated to full salinity with no problems and also spawn, we have a local store here that sells bred saltwater guppies as feeders www.aquatictech.com the owner of the store is no slouch either he is a former nasa engineer, I have also in the past just to see what would happen have tossed guppy fry into full salinity and they survivesd just fine, I also remember cycling my first SW tank in 1974 with a Black Mollie

[v_dubb_it_up]

bktomadachi, just google ribbon eel and any real sources other than fish sales will say the same thing. They had originally used seperate scientific names for the blue, yellow, and black ribbons, but now they are all under the same scientific name as they are the same species, only sex and maturity dictates colour. Some further research will tell you the same. Trust me, I have done my research (hours upon hours at a time) to find out any and every bit of info on the care and bio on these guys. Anyway, the guppies are just to hold him over until I can get him eating some frozen foods as you suggested. Most successful attempts at these guys were started on guppies or ghost shrimp, as a little more research will show you this as well. And so every one knows I am not encouraging any one to keep these guys in captivity, I purchased mine by mistake as previously stated and I do not need to be told these guys do better left in the ocean (every fish would do much better in its natural habitat) or comments such as this. Any useful tips or suggestions on the care of these guys is welcome. So no one else has any success stories with these guys?

[v_dubb_it_up]

also, I think the guppies definetly will work if they are acclimated very slowly until they become completely SW. Also, so no one gets the wrong idea, once I have the SW guppies that will not be all that is offered. I will be trying all sorts of different inverts and see what he likes. I thought of this while I was at work today, LMK what everyone thinks. I was thinking of getting some cheap hermits and setting them up in a seperate tank. I would then try FW dipping them to get them out of their shells and then try putting them in with my ribbon as he was a little too slow to catch the shrimps. Anyone think this would work? Would the FW dip even get them out of there shells? ANy other suggestions on getting them out of there shells?

[v_dubb_it_up]

Oh, and here is one of the better resources I found on these eels

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/rhinomuraenafaqs.htm

[v_dubb_it_up]

I need a suggestion. I noticed today some small amounts of algae in his tank. I was wondering if there would be any suitable tank mates he wouldn't make snacks out of that would help get rid of this stuff before it gets bad. I don't want any larger hermits in there as they may bother my ribbon. I've cut the lighting back to 7 hours a day, hope that helps. Are there any other ways of ridding my tank of this stuff? I am going to start doing my water changes twice a week, and see what that does. any other suggestions would be great. Thanks in advance!!

[drbegalke]

Originally posted by yoshiod9

feeding freshwater fish leads to fatty livers (read: death) and can cause cross contamination parasites.

 

Do you have any references for these statements?

 

1) I would think fatty livers has to do with the caloric content of the food and relative inactivity of aquarium kept fish, not what type of water the food source is grown in.

 

and

 

2) Wouldn't freshwater parasites die in saltwater, and vice versa?

i.e. To treat ich, you can dip a freshwater fish in saltwater. You can also dip saltwater rock in freshwater to kill parasites....

[Caesar777]

On the topic of fatty liver disease: it's true, it's known by many "pundits" who have been in the field of marine biology as well as reef husbandry (check www.wetwebmedia.com, folks like Anthony Calfo and Robert Fenner).

 

First off, know that guppies, whether raised in fresh or salt water, are still freshwater fish. It's like if you could take a Percula clown and acclimate him to freshwater--it's still a marine fish. The issue is the content of their bodies. There are fatty acids present only in marine animals, which are necessary to the carnivorous marine animals to live long-term. Think about it: why would a saltwater animal eat freshwater fish? (One that lives in the reefs or open ocean, that is, not by an estuary, where things get mixed insanely.)

 

The main point is that it's been proven that using only freshwater fish as food for saltwater fish will lead to a very premature death, and, upon inspection of the physical signs as well as dissection, it can be seen that the cause is fatty-liver disease.

 

Not sure what else to try as food, but try to "gut-load" whatever you feed to him. Give them marine foods like seaweed, marine fish pellets, etc., to maybe help build up some fatty acids, or at least some vitamins. Ghost shrimp and guppies are basically the celery of the fish food world.

[v_dubb_it_up]

I will be "gut-loading", and also before they are taken from my guppie tank and put in with my ribbon, they are soaked in some selcon as well for a short period of time (just enough that they won't die before I put them in). Also, yesterday I had him eat one piece of frozen krill from a homeade feeding stick. He wouldn't take any more than 1 piece though. He would be interested, but sort of shy away. I think the next time I put the gupies in I should try with the feeding stick so maybe since he will be ibn a feeding frenzy he might take a little more krill. Also, does anyone know anything about what I was saying about the hermits? Cause I really think that would be the best and easiest way to feed him. Oh, and about the fatty liver, I am not sure that SW guppies would have the same problem. There was a couple on one site I checked out that said that they have been keeping a ribbon for 15 YEARS!!! Kinda unbeleivable, but they said the LFS that has been supllying his food (guppies) for the last ten years can verify that. So if they have got this thing to live 15 years in captivity, what is premature? If that's premature than I should be able to get what, 30 years if I feed frozen food? Seems a little extreme to me.

[v_dubb_it_up]

My poor ribbon died today for no apparant reason! HE has been eating fine, water quality was perfect, I don't know what happened. These guys are just not meant for captivity I guess. I just don't understand, he was doing so good. Weird. I will be going to the LFS who sold ti to me in like 5 minutes to go freak out on him. He should have never had one of these in stock, nor should he have lied and sold it to me. Now there is another dead eel. I really hope that these beautiful creatures are just left alone in the ocean one day. I WOULD NEVER PURCHASE ONE WITH THE KNOWLEDGE I NOW HAVE! Maybe we should put a sticky of all fish that should not be purchased and supported in the SW aquarium industry so noobs are aware if there LFS are bull****ing them nd selling them a rare, endangered, or just so ridiculusly hard to keep that they should be left in the ocean. I was so happy when I thought mine was gonna live but it just died "mysteriously" and I found him just lying there. There should be a ban on the capture of these things, plain and simple.