Pics Of My New Peacock Eels

[cgbender]

I just got my eels Im so excited. So I figured I would share them with ya'll.

The tank

Yes thats a lego plane & castle

So my two eels have different markings and will be easy to identify (sorry for the bad pics)

One of them has 2 spots and the other has 4 and a break in the stripe that runs down its side

Ok thats it for now .... as always I'm more than interested in hearing everyones comments. I just figured that I would share knowing yall like to look at pictures as much as i do.

 

[nmonks]

Quite a funky tank; I like it. Looks like a plane crash in a jungle.

Anyway, these aren't "peacock eels" (Macrognathus siamensis) but Macrognathus aral, a freshwater/brackish water species that gets up to 60 cm in length. Basic care is identical though.

Not completely sure about the substrate. Do remember that spiny eels are exceedingly prone to skin infections, and these are seemingly triggered by coarse substrates. I'd consider soft sand mandatory. Anything sharp or gravelly is very bad.

Cheers, Neale

 

[cgbender]

well peacock or not they match the pictures for "peacock eel" in all the research i have done ... as for the substrate the pics with the rocky side is the gravel thats supost to be at the bottem for the roots that has been dug up .... i took time to dig most of it out from the center of the tank and from under wood where i figured they would be spending most of their time .... come to find out ... in my tank they havent been burowing ... one chills in the plane and the other hangs out around the wood and in the bubbles .... a friend in dallas has a pair of these that have lived over and in the same sand over gravel substrate setup for over a year now and they have been fine ..... Dont get me wrong i really do want to hear anything good or bad any eel owner has to say as these are my first and well the reason i have the tank .... anyone have ideas in feeding ... best way to feed them to make sure they are eating .... pros and con of feeding bloodworms, brine shrimp, and or (feeder fish?) ... and ways to improve their environment to the betterment of their happyness and welfare

 

[nmonks]

Virtually all spiny eels of the genus Macrognathus are misnamed on amateur web sites and for that matter most books and magazines. When writing the chapter about eels for my brackish water book I went into this topic in some depth, and believe me, identifying spiny eels is far from easy. Regardless, I'm pretty sure yours is M. aral, sometimes known as the "one line spiny eel" or variations on that name. It's characteristics include an olive body colour and the mustard yellow band running along each flank and on the dorsal surface.

Repeat after me: Common names are rubbish, common names are rubbish; I will use Latin names from now on, I will use Latin names from now on.

The issue with substrate is critical. Spiny eels are exceedingly prone to skin infections, likely Aeromonas spp infections, perhaps because they have very small (and easily damaged) scales. For some reason, the infection switches from an external infection to an internal infection (i.e., septicaemia) very quickly. Once that happens, you have zero chance of a cure. So, the best advice I can give to any owners of the smaller spiny eels is to keep them in tanks with soft substrates. The bigger species -- Mastacembelus spp. -- tend to be more resistant, but even these do have a reputation for "mystery" deaths against which the addition of salt to the water has been cited (e.g., by Baensch) as a cure. This in turn is probably why so many people think spiny eels are brackish water fish, which most species are not.

While I understand some people have success with spiny eels in tanks with gravel or sharp sand, others have not been so lucky. It's an easy fix, and sand costs next to nothing. For me, it's a no-brainer.

As for diet, worms are the favoured food for all the smaller species. Earthworms are the ideal, and clean tubifex also very good. Bloodworms (live or frozen) are also appreciated. There's no advantage to using feeder fish, and I'd recommend it for the reasons given in my 'Pros & Cons' article elsewhere on this site.

Cheers, Neale

 

[CarbonDreams]

Listen to Neal, he is one of the most knowledgeable members on this site...good luck with the eels, they look great!

 

[cgbender]

I REALY appreciate everything that I learn buy talking to you guys and I looked around for about 4 months for a desk referance or KNOWLEGEABLE indepth artical related to these particular freshwater eels. I still have a ton of questions ..... what sand would you recomend, where do you get it. Next thing I want to know about is feeding things like brine shrimp .... proffs from the wildlife and fisheries science department at Texas A&M told me I might want to look into, building a simple hatcherie and feeding them to the fish in my tank. What are your thoughts on this? I would be interested in your book if you feel that it would be an appropriate refrence or if you could direct me to something that goes in depth or has more than the "basic common knowlege."

Ok something else I was wanting to ask about, the PH and hardness of these wound be best at? The water here is realy soft and about 8.2 (basic) so I waited till i got all the fish from the lfs and then I'm starting small water changes with reverse osmosis water (as I was told that would be the only way to get the PH closer to 7, well in this area anyway)

 

[nmonks]

You might care to peruse my article on spiny eels at Wet Web Media; this is basically the same piece as was in PFK a year or so back. The descriptions on these fishes in the Baensch atlases are very good, and if you happen to be able to look at my brackish book, they're covered in some depth there as well.

As for sand, anything soft and non-calcareous will do. I favour silica sand, which you obtain from any garden centre for very little money. If you want something that is black rather than sand colour though, you will need to use volcanic sand or something. Very fine, smooth gravel would probably be acceptable if all else fails. Tahitian Moon Sand is probably not so good though because it is made from glass (or at least as a by-product of glass production) and seems to be a poor choice for use in catfish tanks, and by extrapolation perhaps not ideal for eels either.

Brine shrimps are an almost useless food. Adult brine shrimps contain very little nutrition. Baby brine shrimp are much better (more "concentrated", I guess!) so work really well for feeding baby fish. But adult brine shrimp are a waste of time except as a source of fibre (great for constipated cichlids and goldfish). In any case, spiny eels eat worms. Any worms.

(As a total aside, the uselessness of the advice from your professors underlines a point I've learned over the years that animal *scientists* are not always animal *experts* when it comes to captive maintenance. Two totally different skill sets. I know lots of people with PhDs who couldn't keep a pet rock in one piece, as well as fantastically good aquarists who didn't do any further education at all and learned everything "as they went along".)

Water chemistry is not critical for spiny eels. Neutral, moderately hard is perhaps the ideal, but anything between pH 6 and 8, 5-20 degrees dH will be fine. Your species happens to live in both fresh and brackish water, so if the water in your tank is really soft, then adding marine salt mix at a dose of about one teaspoon per 1 or 2 gallons should give you an SG around 1.001 to 1.002. This would help with background bacterial and protozoan infections and the hardness in the marine salt mix would buffer against pH changes.

Cheers, Neale

 

[cgbender]

I was thinking about haveing a hatcherie for the brine shrimp to feed the other fish every once in a while, and feeding the eels fdbw, the question is how much how often ... they come in little 3 by 3 cm cubes, that need to be defrosted and drained .... feed the others first then wait a bit then put in the fdbw

 

[groovitudedude]

Virtually all spiny eels of the genus Macrognathus are misnamed on amateur web sites and for that matter most books and magazines. When writing the chapter about eels for my brackish water book I went into this topic in some depth, and believe me, identifying spiny eels is far from easy. Regardless, I'm pretty sure yours is M. aral, sometimes known as the "one line spiny eel" or variations on that name. It's characteristics include an olive body colour and the mustard yellow band running along each flank and on the dorsal surface.

Repeat after me: Common names are rubbish, common names are rubbish; I will use Latin names from now on, I will use Latin names from now on.

The issue with substrate is critical. Spiny eels are exceedingly prone to skin infections, likely Aeromonas spp infections, perhaps because they have very small (and easily damaged) scales. For some reason, the infection switches from an external infection to an internal infection (i.e., septicaemia) very quickly. Once that happens, you have zero chance of a cure. So, the best advice I can give to any owners of the smaller spiny eels is to keep them in tanks with soft substrates. The bigger species -- Mastacembelus spp. -- tend to be more resistant, but even these do have a reputation for "mystery" deaths against which the addition of salt to the water has been cited (e.g., by Baensch) as a cure. This in turn is probably why so many people think spiny eels are brackish water fish, which most species are not.

While I understand some people have success with spiny eels in tanks with gravel or sharp sand, others have not been so lucky. It's an easy fix, and sand costs next to nothing. For me, it's a no-brainer.

As for diet, worms are the favoured food for all the smaller species. Earthworms are the ideal, and clean tubifex also very good. Bloodworms (live or frozen) are also appreciated. There's no advantage to using feeder fish, and I'd recommend it for the reasons given in my 'Pros & Cons' article elsewhere on this site.

Cheers, Neale

For Fire Eels:

Very territorial and cannot be kept with other spiny eels; works well with large but peaceful fish such as clown loaches, tinfoil barbs, and plecs

(credit goes to whoever wrote this article)

I have all three of those. I need a bigger tank eventually, as mine is about 9 1/4 inches. My Fire Eel is in a 100G with purple and black gravel for sub. He had a bunch of white spots on his body when I got him (not ich), but now he's better. That's right, he got better in a tank WITHOUT sand in it.

 

[Mr._Fishy]

The larger spiny eels (M. Erythrotaenia and M. Armatus) tend to burrow in the substrate a lot less than the others. This is likely why it did fine in a tank with gravel. The smaller species tend to burrow much more, so sand is a necessity.

Ryan

 

[GobyMaster]

That is a very interesting tank!
Are all of those decorations made out of Legos?
I really like it.
Cheers,
GobyMaster

 

[nmonks]

Ryan gets it. As I said earlier on, there are differences between Mastacembelus species (e.g., Fire eels, tyre-track eels, Lake Tanganyika eels) and Macrognathus eels (e.g., peacock eels, one-line eels). The Lake Tanganyika species for example live among the rocks, and simply don't care about sand. What they want is is caves (and lots of baby cichlids they can eat!).

This is one of those times where knowing the Latin name of your fish makes a difference. If Macrognathus, then your eel will likely benefit from sand instead of gravel.

Cheers, Neale

The larger spiny eels (M. Erythrotaenia and M. Armatus) tend to burrow in the substrate a lot less than the others. This is likely why it did fine in a tank with gravel. The smaller species tend to burrow much more, so sand is a necessity.

Ryan

 

[cgbender]

yeah the plane and castle are legos ... they spend there time in the plane, bubbles, plants or swimming around. when they rest they rest in the plane and under the wood and not in the substrate (not trying to cause a fight just saying) anyway

 

[groovitudedude]

I say that they look nice.