No effing way. Dude, that is perhaps the coolest hitchhiker ever, it ranks up there with that dude in Toronto a couple years back who found a wee little octopus in his tank.
If it has remained that small over that long, then I would agree it is probably a golden dwarf moray, Gymnothorax meletremus. They don't get much bigger than 8".
Are the eyes blue or is there any blue in the eyes? It's hard to tell by the pictures but the clincher with golden dwarf moray is that there is blue in the eyes.
Other possibilities, if the eyes have no blue:
- white ribbon eel (not to be confused with blue ribbon eels, different species, and blue ribbons don't live long in captivity), I think they can have yellow/gold colour variations.
http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/p...37&pcatid=1737
- golden moray. I forget the species name but there is another golden moray but they get much larger than 6" to 8".
My vote is the golden dawrf moray. To be honest he looks a little young to me, are you sure there's no possibility he could have been introduced sooner than a few years ago? The colour of yours is identical to those that I've had myself but when they were young. As they get older the gold fades into yellow and eventually a sort of vanilla cream kind of colour. Although maybe that's just been my experience and it could be different for others.
Buy a lottery ticket. This fish would cost you no less than $150 at the stores if you wanted to buy one. I predict the price of them going up actually as it's getting harder and harder to collect out of Hawaii (where they usually are collected from).
My advice is keep him. They are the coolest eels and the most reef safe out of any of the morays (on account of their small size). They're no threat to anything but the smallest shrimp and fish. I have mine in with wrasses and and other smallish fish. I feed him krill every 2-3 days, I use tongs I just keep offering a shrimp at a time until he stops taking them. That can be anywhere from 1 to 6 individual pieces of krill, depending on how hungry he is.
They are escape artists though so make sure you have a good cover.
I'd totally offer to take him off your hands if you wanted to get rid of him but I don't see myself getting to Bowen Island too terribly soon. Bummer.