Garden Eel in a refugium?

Eb0la11 · #1 12-31-2009, 08:29 AM

Anyone see any problems with housing a garden eel in a 13G refugium with a 6" deep sand bed for it to burrow in?

Would it disturb the refugium too much? The refugium would have a lid on it and a good portion would be growing chaeto.

Anything I should know about these animals before I commit?

Eb0la11 · #2 12-31-2009, 08:37 AM

So I read they need 100 Gallons... Is that true? They seem to just stay in their den... Anyone have experience? I cant put him in my DT cause I dont have the DSB.

Funky_Fish14 · #3 12-31-2009, 08:56 AM

I think the scenario would be perfect (Fuge with a Deep (minimum 6") sand bed), but yes, 13g is way too small. And if I remember correctly they should be kept in groups, they are found this way in the wild and be less stressed if they aren't alone.

Cheers,

Chris

ferret · #4 12-31-2009, 01:36 PM

Not a good idea for housing a garden eel. Actually I've experienced keeping one garden eel in my refugium with 7"dsb with another 8" water on top and tons of macro algae for culturing pods and mysis. The eel was only kept together with 4 nos. of peppermint shrimps for releasing live baby shrimps bi-weeekly and the eel had survived for 7 months only and my refugium is more than 30 gal. HTH

Delphinus · #5 12-31-2009, 05:51 PM

I think garden eels need a pretty specialized setup. They stress pretty easy. Two-way glass for example, so that they can't see people staring at them, a small grouping as opposed to one solitary individual, and a really deep sandbed (like 12" even if you can manage it).

ferret · #6 12-31-2009, 06:05 PM

+1 for garden eels really require one complete set up tank ( at least 50 gal excluding sump ) without other fishes and to be kept in a small group is ideal. If I haven't introduce a pipefish which was carrying somekind of unknown virus, my garden eel may be still alive.