Re: NANFA-L-- eels

Dustin Smith (dsmith73-in-hotmail.com)
Wed, 07 Dec 2005 14:12:16 -0500

I have had a very similar experience to that of Moon's. I had a tiny 4
incher that I put into a heated 20 gallon along with some livebearers.
After a week or two of seeing the eel, he/she disappeared for about a year.
The livebearers would breed and I would see fry and then the adults would
disappear one by one over time. By the time the fry got to breeder size,
the cycle would restart itself. I couldn't figure it out until I got up in
the middle of the night one night and thought I would check on the tank.
Much to my surprise, I found a foot long eel swimming around. Apparently,
he had been hiding himself in the sand during the day and coming out during
the night to forage. Strangely enough, the tank was uncovered and he never
jumped out. I have tried to keep others since and they all jumped out
withing a day or so, even if I did my best to cover the tank.

One additional aside about the jumping: We caught a nice 3 foot or so eel
from a brackish water canal once. An employee from the local zoo was with
us and ecided to take it back to display-in-the zoo. He took it to his
house for the night with plans to take it into the aquarium in the morning.
During the night, the eels forced its way out of the container, even though
it was covered with a piece of plywood held down by a cinder block. These
guys are strong and determined.

Dustin Smith
Lexington, SC
At the convergence of the Broad, Saluda and Congaree

----Original Message Follows----
From: Moontanman-in-aol.com
Reply-To: nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org
To: nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org
Subject: Re: NANFA-L-- eels
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2005 13:38:35 EST

In a message dated 12/6/2005 10:58:25 PM Eastern Standard Time,
mh4mac-in-comcast.net writes:

I have been keeping two eels that were collected in my 40 now 90 gal
tank. Both are young and one is much smaller than the other but they
work great as tank cleaners and tend to actually live in the gravel and
come out when the light dims.
They are extremely healthy and do well with the darters, mudminnows and
pirate perch as well as the two crayfish who have made claim to
driftwood in my tank .

I have extensive experience with eels, they are cute when small but will
either jump out and be found days or weeks later as little dried corpses
(best
thing that could happen) or they will grow and eat every fish you have. I
put
one in a fifteen gallon aquarium, very tiny, less than 3" long. It
disappeared
and I figured it had crawled out and dried up. about 18 months later I
tore
down the aquarium because I couldn't keep any fish other than plecstomus
catfish in the tank. Everything else disappeared with in days of being put
in the
tank. Imagine my surprise when a two foot eel was found under the UG filter
plate. A fat and very predatory eel. They will eat all your fish and they
are
not tank cleaners by any means. I am sorry to be so blunt but eels are eels
and expecting them to live with together fish is like expecting redfin
pickerels to live with gambusia

Michael Hissom (AKA Moon)
Lower Cape Fear River, Waccamaw Lake and river system, and coastal salt
water and brackish water estuaries in the same location. (South Eastern
North
Carolina)
I have access to the only natural Ocean Shore Rock out cropping in Coastal
NC
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/ visit http://www.nanfa.org Please make sure all posts to nanfa-l are
/ consistent with the guidelines as per
/ http://www.nanfa.org/guidelines.shtml To subscribe, unsubscribe, or get
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