EELS : Protogynous Hermaphrodites ??

[The Gnome]

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:rolleye1: Hello everyone ! :rolleye1:

I was wondering if anyone out there has experience in breeding Moray Eels, particularly Snowflakes. I have adopted two specimens that are 20" + each and I was thinking of isolating them if they could be a breeding pair.

Everywhere I have read has said that no one knows how to sex these animals, even that they are suspected of being ' protogynous hermaphrodites '. If that is the case, then one or the other should change to adapt to the situation.

If anyone knows about this, please let me know !

 

[FMarini]

Not sure about protogynous, but they appear as hermaphrodites. At least on 2 occasions w/ 4 different animals, my zebra morays are

 

[FMarini]

Okay--- sorry about that last post. It reads like I was quoting Yoda.
What I meant to say is...
I'm not sure if they are protgynous hermaphrodites, but some morays are definately hermaphrodites. I 've had on 2 occasionsn 2 pairs of zebra morays, where i had an established larger animal and purchased a smaller eel. W/in 6 months they were paired up and I saw breeding activity.

Now i'm not sure if this holds true for all morays, considering "moray" covers alot of species,

 

[billsreef]

Frank,

Were you starting the New Years celebration early?

 

[The Gnome]

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Thanks for the response !

The new eel has been in the aquarium for less than 24 hours, and there has already been wrestling at the very least. I woke up today to find the aquascaping completely destroyed, and the two eels stay on opposite sides of the enclosure.

I read that Snowflake Eels can be sexed very loosely by the positioning of the teeth. If they appear to be longer on the top, then it's a specimen on the male end. If they are longer on the bottom, then it's more female. I don't know if this theory holds water, but I'm hoping that they don't dismember each other before I get the chance to find out ! :mad2:

 

[billsreef]

Snowflakes are usually pretty tolerant of having other eels in the tank, so they should settle down once the pecking order is established

 

[The Gnome]

I woke up yesterday to find that the New Eel that I introduced into the situation had bitten the older one really bad. Serrations along the whole midsection, but no blood.

At any rate, I'm not taking any chances so I corralled the older one to one side and put in a makeshift divider made out of egg crate. It's working so far ... I plan to let them talk through the bars for a month or so, and then I will remove the divider. If the fighting starts up again, then I'll have no choice but to take one of them out and adopt it out.

The bigger eel seems like the female though, because she is so violent and has to be in control at all times. No insult intended ladies...

 

[billsreef]

Get that eel some zoloft

Luckily eels are pretty resilient and usually heal well.

 

[The Gnome]

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I thought that I owed it to this thread to update the status of the situation.

The intensity has steadily increased, with lots of strange behavior between the fighting. I walked into the fish tank room when the actinic light was on sometime in the beginning of April, and the eels were standing up like cobras dancing to a tune, writhing bodies together. When they saw me, each swam to their respective caves on opposite sides of the aquarium.
There have been other times, however, when the larger (female) eel has got it in her brain that it's time to hunt the other eel. She'll storm his live rock fortress and just bite the hell out of him, destroying the aquascaping and putting all of the other fishes at risk when it crumbles down upon them.

Yesterday, I had enough.

I removed half of the rock on the left side of the display, and corralled the injured eel into that side and he proved easy to net. I put him up in his own isolation tank, pretty small but he's at least free of that torment. I'm not a moray eel, and I know that, so I guess I don't really know if that was mating behavior or what. Each of these eels are 2 1/2 - 3 feet long - which makes them more destructive.

I have begun asking the nearby zoo curators if they are willing to accept 'live donations' & maybe they will have better luck pairing these two up. If they did, these monsters would make great babies! I have not recieved any return messages yet, but there's always more zoos to explore, in a wider band of geographic space. I don't plan to give up.

 

[Luis A M]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11498533#post11498533 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by billsreef
Frank,

Were you starting the New Years celebration early?

Guess he was trying your beer...
The "blue ribbon"is certainly protandrous hermaphrodite