Indonesian Rescue - Let's Talk Ribbon Eels

[De'sir The Bat]

Not the first eel I've rescued, but the only eel I've kept for myself.

Who else keeps Ribbon Eels or Morays in general? I'd love to hear your stories and what worked / didn't work for you.

Featured is my Indonesian White Ribbon Eel (Ghost Ribbon Eel) - looking particularly happy after a meal.

 

[john_lord_b3]

I'm from Indonesia, and those ribbon eels turn up in our local ornamental fish shops every now and then. A bit more fragile than most morays. Better be kept in a mature reef tank.

As for morays, I keep several species in my brackish aquarium (now raised to 1.009 sg). Uropterygius Micropterus, Echidna Rhodochilus and Gymnothorax Polyuranodon. I also keep an Echidna Nebulosa that has been caught in a brackish river, and thus we keep it in my brackish tank. So far it's doing great. I will rehouse it in a marine tank if it shows any sign of distress.

 

[Deadliestviper7]

Haven't kept an eel in a long time, but I think a banana or viper eel would make an interesting inhabitant, I know Yuki Rihwa
Has a dragon eel, and I believe @RD has a green moray

 

[Deadliestviper7]

Care of true ribbon eels, true ribbon eels only eat fish, and can be trained onto dead fish sometimes.

True ribbon eels need large (over 2 x body length) tanks with abundant places to fully hide, az with many eels they can live over 40 years.
They are rather intolerant of poor water quality and I don't recommend them to most aquarist

 

[john_lord_b3]

Meet Eyal the Eel and his other friends in my aquarium! All of them are morays... the only non-morays in my aquarium are a handful of macrobrachium shrimps (cleaning team, but soon will be lunch if the morays feels like having snacks) and some poecillia mollies. The bravest of all mollies

 

[De'sir The Bat]

Meet Eyal the Eel and his other friends in my aquarium! All of them are morays... the only non-morays in my aquarium are a handful of macrobrachium shrimps (cleaning team, but soon will be lunch if the morays feels like having snacks) and some poecillia mollies. The bravest of all mollies

That is a truly beautiful setup! - Careen has some pretty fantastic behaviors that came out when I introduced different foods to it and I'm still finding out ways to introduce more variety into their diet. When given a preferred food - this eel will tie itself into knots and pull their meal through the knot to tear the food into smaller bits to consume. A really neat behavior.

I'll have to see if I can find a video of this behavior to add later to this thread.

Prior to the rescue that led to me having Careen - I had been preparing to house pipefish or dragonets. They've put on quite a bit of weight since then and are starting to gain some length. They also have not shown interest in bothering their tank mates which include some common green star polyps (they assist in nitrate removal) and a hermit crab.

 

[john_lord_b3]

That is a truly beautiful setup! - Careen has some pretty fantastic behaviors that came out when I introduced different foods to it and I'm still finding out ways to introduce more variety into their diet. When given a preferred food - this eel will tie itself into knots and pull their meal through the knot to tear the food into smaller bits to consume. A really neat behavior.

I'll have to see if I can find a video of this behavior to add later to this thread.

Prior to the rescue that led to me having Careen - I had been preparing to house pipefish or dragonets. They've put on quite a bit of weight since then and are starting to gain some length. They also have not shown interest in bothering their tank mates which include some common green star polyps (they assist in nitrate removal) and a hermit crab.

View attachment 1318299

Thank you for your kind words. I hope your Careen will have a long and prosperous life. It is very beautiful!

It is fascinating to watch their behavior. At times I swear my Eyal the Eel has more personality than what we usually expect out of eels. In this video, you can see Eyal carefully 'counted' the number of pieces of shrimps I gave it, before it began eating, and it seems to be upset when the Uropterygius (snake moray) stole the biggest piece

 

[Deadliestviper7]

Back when I owned my true snowflake we had hermit crabs, the eel and the smaller blue hermits got along fine, but the big red hermit and the eel hated each other, we even had to stop a fight and make the rockpile into two separate rockpiles, otherwise they would fight each other.

Really enjoy marine snowflake eels, they get along with many tankmates, are hardy, and easy to handfeed (I like to handfeed fish, it makes them associate you with food and allows you to monitor who eats what).

 

[john_lord_b3]

Back when I owned my true snowflake we had hermit crabs, the eel and the smaller blue hermits got along fine, but the big red hermit and the eel hated each other, we even had to stop a fight and make the rockpile into two separate rockpiles, otherwise they would fight each other.

Really enjoy marine snowflake eels, they get along with many tankmates, are hardy, and easy to handfeed (I like to handfeed fish, it makes them associate you with food and allows you to monitor who eats what).

Yes, they're ideal as pets, at the same leagues with the white-cheeked eel and the snake eel.

I handfeed my eels in the past, still do at times, but these days I find great pleasure on watching them hunting pieces of shrimps all across the aquarium. Sometimes I deliberately put pieces of shrimps away from the E. Nebulosa, to alow the smaller eels to get first bite (otherwise the Nebulosa will gobbled it up).

By the way, my E. Polyzona (Barry the barred eel) is very tiny, but he has an unique way of eating pieces of shrimp larger than his head. Apparently he made a knot out of himself to assist in swallowing the food. Maybe the same thing done by the ghost eel in the OP.

 

[De'sir The Bat]

Yes, they're ideal as pets, at the same leagues with the white-cheeked eel and the snake eel.

I handfeed my eels in the past, still do at times, but these days I find great pleasure on watching them hunting pieces of shrimps all across the aquarium. Sometimes I deliberately put pieces of shrimps away from the E. Nebulosa, to alow the smaller eels to get first bite (otherwise the Nebulosa will gobbled it up).

By the way, my E. Polyzona (Barry the barred eel) is very tiny, but he has an unique way of eating pieces of shrimp larger than his head. Apparently he made a knot out of himself to assist in swallowing the food. Maybe the same thing done by the ghost eel in the OP.

Yes! These behaviors are very similar! - I'm wondering if over time I should seek out other videos of eels doing this to compare across species.

My ghost ribbon eel has put on even more weight and length now - so they are getting larger shrimps at slightly longer intervals apart. The addition of the green star polyps has really bumped my water quality as well, and the eel seems thankful for the addition.

I recently found out I will be moving to NY in the next few months so I'm agonizing over how to move Careen. I'm thinking of bribing someone or a store to hold him during the move so his travel time is a lot less.