Eel came with LR, now what do I do with him?

[Chineseghoststory]

I bought some LR for my new nano today which I was just seting up. It took about an hour before I got the water ready and the salinity right before I put the LR in. In the mean time it was sitting in a plastic bag with just a teeny bit of water at the bottom. After putting in the LR, the salinity of the water just a tad too high, but I had to leave it that way for about two hours since i was unavoidably called away. Well I finally got back, got the salinity right and topped the tank off.

 

Sitting back to admire my work, I then see this frigging EEL poking it's head out of a crack in the rocks! I was amazed he had survived the 1/2 trip out of water and then two hours of elevated salinity!! Obviously he hitched a ride in the LR. This is no small eel, either...he's about 14 inches long, 1.5 inches wide and white with two rows of evenly placed brown spots all along the body. Sorry, no time to do a species ID yet. Somehow I feel he has quite a personality, don't ask why.....it is just my impression.

 

Well what do I do with him? What do I feed him? Should he go back to the pet store? What is the cost of a typical eel and how would he do in a nano with a damsel, shrimp and starfish eventually? I am thinking of bribing them into giving me at least a REAL primo piece of LR and a starfish for this eel back. I feel he is mine in the legal and moral sense, but I may want to exchange him for something else if he's better off going back.

 

Anyone care to share with ther group? BTW, this store is owned by the same guys at the LFS from my last post who tried the ridiculous move of selling me some of their used water out of an established tank to start my nano with. Jeez, I was almost laughed off the board for that one. Luckily I didn't fall for it.

 

Thanks,

 

Jeff

[Dave ESPI]

Sounds like a Juvie Snowflake Eel; Echidna nebulosa

They are EXTREMELY hearty and tollernt. Ive had them escape and go "walk about " fer a day or 2 at a time... Just to be put back in and restored to full health.

 

They make good inhabitants provided your rock work is solid and the corals are secured. They will hammer yer shrimps and any small fish though, but are really cool and fun to keep at times. MAKE SURE EVERY HOLE IS COVERED ! they are escape artist.

 

Oh., and #### on the LFS fer me

[tinyreef]

that is sweet! someone else just got an octopus from gulf-view (i think). i think that died tho, no surprise.

 

maybe you can trade it. i'd post in the various trade/sale forums and see if they're any takers.

[Twins Guy]

did she look like this...otherwise i'd be concerned that you have some other sort of moray. not all bad, maybe just a larger growing species

[Crakeur]

snowflakes are real cool but they get real big and they will find a way out.

 

I had one that lived in a wet dry for several weeks before we found him there. The same eel managed to pull my automatic feeder into my tank when I was away for two weeks. I finally got rid of the tank and a friend had the eel, which was several feet in length by then, in a bucket of about 6 inches of water. The eel stayed there for over a week and, last I heard, was gulping goldfish by the dozen in one of his monster tanks.

 

If you keep it (getting it out won't be easy), be sure to feed the eel directly (with a stick) or the eel will kill anything it can get in it's mouth. Also, when cleaning your tank, keep an eye on the eel. Mine took to biting the hand that fed it so to speak. I had it latch onto a friend who was cleaning the tank. Thankfully, it got the forearm and lost the tug of war.