Green Wolf Eels

[Nagel]

I recently had the opportunity to pick up 18-20 x one day old wolf eels, and their egg mass (which mostly disintegrated last night in a home-made kreisel)..

Anyway, a few thoughts on these guys. The "pair" were kept in a corporate tank, in an office building. They have obviously been spawning because they took the tank down Monday, and low and behold, Mom, Dad, egg mass, and a few juveniles that were 3-4" long! No hobbyist care at all, these juveniles managed to make it in a reef tank with no other action..

I may be getting the parents soon, but for now I have the juveniles. I read Frank's and Alan's column in April of '05 Reefkeeping.com on these guys, and at that time, the author knew of nobody else able to raise them. Well, I know now that they were indeed raised, accidentally much less! I was amazed, but I did see the proof!

So, I got the call from the LFS that had them (I used to work there), and my buddy thought to call me because he knows I'm breeding clowns now.. Well, ok, I have rotifers, BBS, what the heck, lets give it a try. I split them into 2 x 5.5g tanks, and fed one tank BBS, the other rotifers. Well, they can eat BBS right away, that was evident today by the pink bellies.

So now the quest continues.. I have the foods, the tanks and the water change regimen down, lets see if I can raise me some green wolf eels!

 

[Nagel]

Interesting observation tonight..

One of the 5.5g tanks (#1) had no heater, was 75F and all 8 or 9 fry in there are still very active and moving / eating (I see pink bellies from the BBS)

The other 5.5g tank (#2) had a heater, was 80F and all the fry in that tank were dead tonight.

Both tanks were otherwise identical with the exception of some rotifers in tank 2. Same water for the makeup water / new water, same light, same density of BBS. (I added BBS to the second tank last night when I noticed the first tank was eating them).

Do you think the temp killed the batch in tank 2? I checked the params, and although the fry looked "dead for hours" (all white, and they probably went this afternoon / morning some time), there was no nitrate, nitrite or ammonia.. Hmmmmm

 

[NicoleC]

Huh! I guess those wolf eels didn't know they weren't supposed to get along, and were supposed to eat their fry... well, it goes to show what a variety of plankton healthy live rock can produce. I suspect they were eating copepods?

Good luck!

 

[Nagel]

What amazed me is the corporate tank they were in belongs to NYC Mayor Bloomberg. At the shop we used to call them the "Doomberg" tanks. Never swapping lights, complaints about feeding, water changes, etc... To say that the conditions were nowhere near the level of most hobbyists tanks is on the money. Not exactly algea farms, but not the pristine shape we keep our tanks at home in.

The parents tank was a 200 or so (shared with a large number of other showy "corporate place" fish), so there were other predators as well. I would figure on about 300 lbs of rock, as well, so plenty of places to hide, and plenty of places for food to multiply.

When the LFS got them in, both parents went into the 75g SPS tank, and seem to be doing ok. When they fish them out, I've got dibs They ARE big fish too! Probably a good 1 1/2" diameter and 14" - 15" long. Both are getting along well in the stores tank, though they seem to prefer opposite ends of the tank..