Spotted Garden Eel help !

[kelmart]

hi all ,

new to forum , hoping to pick some brains :hmm5:

i have 3 spotted garden eels , they have all been doing well , 2 gaining in size and settled , however the 3rd cant settle , it has been making burrows in the shallow side of the tank , not eating properly and now today it cant seem to burrow back under and has now taken up home inside my filter !!
any ideas ?? :headwally:

 

[eatbreakfast]

How big is the tank? And how much open sand space? I have found, that even though social, they do pike a specific amount of space between them and their nearest neighbor. If there is not enough open sand space, the least dominant will keep getting "pushed" away by the more dominant ones.

 

[kelmart]

hi thanks for the reply ,

the tank is a 45 gallon , and they have approx 20" square of open space although they do tend to use all of the tank even if its under rocks ! they arent usually within distance of each other just enough that they can see each other every now and again ! honestly they are such a worry !!:facepalm: