40 Gallon Eel Tank

[toruk]

Hey all so I wanted to do a blog about my 40B eel tank. I have always had a fascination with legless animals. Thier ability to do so much without limbs is pretty amazing. Snakes are a favorite of mine and eels are one of my favorite predators in the sea.

I kept a FOWLR 12 gallon nano in my dorm with a pair of ocellaris clowns for a year. I decided to break the tank down and go a little bit bigger. I setup this 40B specifically with an eel in mind. Besides some cleaner shrimp, mollies, and small CUC members, the eel will be the only fish in the tank.

I got a standard 40B during Petco's dollar per gallon sale(the only thing Petco is good for) and went ahead and painted it black.

I then grabbed some 2in PVC pipes to create a simple tunnel system for the little guy.

Next I covered it with as much aragonite sand as I could. I managed to find someone close by breaking down thier tank. On the ad it said 30lb of live rock but I feel like it is closer to 40-50lb. None the less because it was coming from an already running tank, my tank didn't have a cycle. I let the tank run for several days just to be sure while feeding small bits of food. The ammonia remained 0 and nitrite remained 0.

I did get some hitchhikers. I got 2 red leg hermit crabs a large nassarius? snail and... wait for it... a cleaner wrasse! It must have ducked in the rock when we were moving it. The guy said it was the african variety but I am not sure I should keep it. What are you guys thoughts? It's active and looks to be eating the mysis fine. It also came with a rock COVERED in polyps. Al for just 60 bucks! My light seems to be supporting it ok but it is a cheap LED fixture meant to just show off the fish. I added a skunk cleaner to the system and 9 baby sailfin mollies as well as 4 lava snails. Everyone seems to be doing good. I still have a couple of things I want to add before I get the eel but I am just about ready!

Anyway stats!

Tank
40 Gallon Breeder(36inx18in)

Equipment
Aquaclear 50( with filter floss, chemi-pure Elite and Two Little Fishies Phosban GFO Phosphate Removal Media)
100w neo-therm heater
Hydor powerhead 425gph
30-40lb Live rock
selcon
200lb IO sea salt
Spectapure Ro/DI System 90gpd

Stock
2 scarlet hermit crabs
4 lava snails
1 Nassarius snail?
9 sailfin molly fry
1 cleaner wrasse
1 skunk cleaner shrimp

Future equipment:
aquamaxx or reefoctopus protein skimmer
algae scrubber

Any advice you guys have I would appreciate! Also Should I keep the cleaner wrasse? What are you guys opinion on that.

 

[Taahirs]

Some of your current livestock will become eel dinner. Also I'm not sure if just the hob filter will keep up with the messy eel.

 

[toruk]

Long term im ditching the HOB and replacing it with the skimmer. But I am getting the eel very small to buy me some time. Also doing regular weekly water changes. Most likely getting a zebra eel which does not harm fish. I may get a goldentail which may eat the shrimp and fish but it does not bother me too much the tank is for the eel so if it does not work out its fine. Thank you for your comment.

 

[cougareyes]

I'm doing the same with my 40b I had as a qt, I plan to move the eel to my 210 or 125g of it's own in few months. What you are going to find is the eels you are looking at usually come in at around 18" at the smallest, maybe the goldentail at 12" if you are really lucky. Alot of even the most aggressive eels live with cleaner shrimp, everything else is devoured.

 

[toruk]

What kind of eel do you have? Yea I am struggling to find a small eel to get. I have a source for a 7in roughly Zebra and I requested from another site to get a <12in goldentail but we will see. If I get the goldentail this will end up being a permanent home since they do not get big. If I get the zebra however I will probably upgrade to a 4x18in or a 4x2 footprint tank down the line. But I will have some time if I get it small. From what I have read the zebra will not go after the mollies. But they are just mollies so IDC. DO you really think the eels will go after the cleaner wrasse?

 

[cougareyes]

I am putting water in the tank today, I'm looking at getting a Hawaiian dragon eel, they are hard to come by but I have a line on one. I'll give it a month or two and my second choice is the goldentail. If I saw a 12" goldentail I'd probably snatch it up. A zebra that small is kind of rare. I've seen cleaner shrimp living with the fang tooth morays, you can find vids on youtube with them crawling in and out of their mouths; I guess they clean their teeth. The zebra is a pebble tooth their main diet is crustaceans, he on the other hand might make a snack out of it.

 

[toruk]

Wow a Hawaiian Dragon eel one day I would love to get one. I've done a fair amount of research on zebras and despite them being crustaceans eaters, they seem to leave shrimp alone. I am going to wait 1-2months max. Then ill move on.

 

[toruk]

Tank re-scape

 

[cougareyes]

That looks good, I decided not to do the pvc. I'll take some pics when the water clears. How did you do the top. My house gets warm during the day so I built an eggcrate top wrapped in 1/4" netting so I could run fans.

 

[toruk]

Why ditching the PVC? Please post pics when the water clears. I have eggcrate and im going to wrap it in a screen.

 

[cougareyes]

Nix the pvc because through all my research it seemed like more than 1/2 the time the eels never used them or out grew them. With the eels I was interested in I would have to use 3-4" diameter pipe. I didn't want to have to build my substrate up that high with a tank only 16" high. I was also concerned of it being a no flow area, that rotting food and other dietris may find it's way inside.

I have a crappy camera but here are some shots, 50 lbs of rock with a cave entrance on the left that has tunnel that goes out to the back, a larger tunnel entrance on the right that dumps out to the entrance of the left tunnel, catacomb type rocks along the right tunnel with a few openings for perching and slithering through. The water is still a little cloudy.

Equipment list:
AC70 hob
Eshopps psk-75 hob skimmer
current orbit marine leds
2 x sicce voyager 2 powerheads(800gph each)
aqueon pro heaters 100w and 200w(my house gets very cold)
clip on fan from wal-mart
stc-1000 temp controller to from heater and fan
ato from autotopoff.com

I'm probably overdoing on the top but 20 years ago I had a snowflake for probably 2 days, I think he escaped through the hob filter overflow.

 

[toruk]

Wow the tank looks great! I hear what your saying about the PVS. I actually wanted my tank to be as open as possible with as minimal liverock as I could get without compromising filtration. Hence the PVC. But I hear ya, 3-4" PVS would be pretty thick. Have you tracked down a Dragon Eee yet?

I think I may retrofit my top again. I want to make it more secure than it is. How do you modify it so you can easily open the lid and what not without taking the whole top off?

 

[toruk]

SO small update tank is doing well. Everyone seems to be eating and doing fine. I am considering passing on the cleaner wrasse tho. Since I plan on only having the eel IDK how happy he will be in this setup. He is just barely eating mysis shrimp so thats good. The selcon defiantly helped.

I have notices quite a few tiny bristle worms in my sandbed. When I first started keeping SW fish when I was young I was told bristle worms were evil and should be burned. But doing research on here it seems they can be helpful. I only see them at night or when I drop a wafer in for my little hermits.

Tracking down a small eel for this tank is proving to be a daunting task. Availability is so sporadic its impossible to find what im looking for. I may get a skeletor I have found one available and that way if I get the goldentail later on I can keep both or just sell one. Still not sure its just really hard looking at an empty tank. I have thought about getting like a dwarf angelfish at least temporarily.

 

[cougareyes]

Bristle worms are fine unless you are going to keep clams.

Tank just started to cycle, so I'm not that worried yet about the eel. Still contemplating if I should go for the dragon eel right out the gate, really as my 1st eel, $700-800. Thinking about the jeweled or fimbriated, I could keep one of these alone in there with no problems or pressure to get them to a bigger tank.

The top I cut a door opening and used a piece of wood weighed with a 5 lb dumbell. I was going to use glass but figured I'd probably drop the weight on it:lmao:

 

[toruk]

5lb's huh? lol Whatever to keep them from carpet surfing I guess. Yea Im not sure I want to drop a lot on my first eel either. Although 200 is not the same as 7-800. I have been looking at fimbriated as well. Of course I would have to upgrade to a 75 gallon footprint but thats not too bad and I can find them fairly easily. They are not expensive and I can buy them really small. It would also keep me from wanting to put a bunch of fish in my tank. I am afraid that after I keep the zebra or whatever a while I may be tempted to add more fish.

I would like to in the future setup a tank with a dragon moray eel and maybe a few cleaner shrimp. That would be super awesome.

 

[cougareyes]

You would be surprised how strong they are, I've met a few people through the years that lost eels when they pushed right through the top. If you thinking just covering the tank is enough, it's not.

You could always do a golden dwarf, there's a few online vendors that have them now, they stay small and are easily kept with fish. It's a pebble tooth and I really want a fang tooth

I was offered a golden moray(not dwarf), some call it a banana eel 18" for $600. I like those but if I was going to go that big I'd just wait for a dragon and pay 200 more.

Eventually the eel is going in a 125 with my 2 baby triggers when they big enough. The triggers will probably stay in the 125 for 3 years or so before they grow out of it.

 

[toruk]

I don't think golden dwarfs are pebble tooth but I have to double check. The banana eel is the goldentail moray, Gymnothorax miliaris. Goldentail come in three colors a normal brown, a golden brown, and the rare "banana" coloration. I think I am going to wait for a goldentail(golden coloration). I like them the most and I would be upset if I got something I didn't like as much. Plus thier small size means I can keep them in here long term. If I upgrade to a larger setup I may even get a pair.

Brown color

Golden Color

banana color

In the meantime I am enjoying my wrasse, shrimp, and mollies. I think I am going to look into getting a protien skimmer next. And I really need to figure out a better way to secure my top.

 

[cougareyes]

Thanks for the info, I didn't know they were all the same. I have a lfs that I do business with that goes to the distributors in socal, he text me a pic of the banana eel last week and ask me if I was interested. I like the golden color too, but would not be interested in the brown. It's always best to wait for what you want.

 

[toruk]

Agreed. It is very hard to look at an empty tank though. SOmeone is currently selling a skeletor eel which would be pretty cool But I really like the color of the golden tail. I may get both for now though I am just twiddling my thumbs waiting for a goldentail to become available. I think In the meantime I am going to invest in a good skimmer. Look at either reef octopus or aquamaxx.

 

[toruk]

Update!

Super excited! I ordered an Aquamaxx HOB skimmer today! FOund one on sale for under $200 and im super excited to get it! In my time of keeping SW fish ive never used a skimmer so I psyched to see how much good it will do. I have seen nothing but raving reviews about the skimmer so I am sure it will do a great job. :dance::dance::dance:

SOme bad news... my cleaner wrasse has disappeared? . I don't know where he is and its been a day. I am a little worried. I may have to strip the tank hopefully he didn't jump or die? He was doing fine some days ago. I may have to do another test of my water.

I am looking into getting something more reliable to cover my tank. Was looking at the BRS screen fitting kits. Still not sure yet.