If you want a cave setting, keep cave dwelling species like blind cave tetras. This is no habitat for eels or other fishes that aren't adapted to complete darkness. Plus, really consider your own safety. Cisterns were made for one thing-water storage.
Converting a 20ft cistern into an underground eel pond.
- Thread starter Cowturtle
- Start date
I will mount a powerful bay light on one side. I’ll be mounting my aluminum ladder and building a waterfall this week. There’s no reason this shouldn’t be a better environment than any aquarium. If there ever is a reason I couldn’t get in I’ll be able to feed and do water changes from the surface.
Okay, how about some clarification here? At first, it sounded like it would be in total darkness except for when you went down in there...but then you were talking about koi, goldfish, catfish, etc...and then it sounded as though it would be illuminated, which I took to mean you would simulate a normal day/night cycle...but now this comment above makes me wonder if I am misinterpreting your ideas about lighting. There is a big difference between dim lighting and total darkness. Plenty of species prefer the former...but forcing surface-dwelling animals to suddenly live in completely black subterranean conditions just sounds like abuse, plain and simple.
I completely agree with
spotfin
that this is really suitable only for actual cave fish, adapted and accustomed to living in complete darkness. Eels in a well, living for a century or more...any documentation for this, or is it just I-heard-somewhere? After all, toads "have been known" to survive for decades sealed up in a stone, only to emerge completely unharmed once broken free. I wonder if I can keep them that way at home?
I’ve been convinced. I’ll be putting lights in. Here’s the story in the eel living 155 years. There’s similar stories of American eels living 80+.
www.smithsonianmag.com
RIP, World’s Oldest Eel
The eel, 155, passed away in a Swedish well late last week
Thank goodness! Just think of it as a grotto rather than a cave.I’ve been convinced. I’ll be putting lights in. Here’s the story in the eel living 155 years. There’s similar stories of American eels living 80+.
RIP, World’s Oldest Eel
The eel, 155, passed away in a Swedish well late last week
Cool story about the eel. The cynic in me, never far from the surface, couldn't help but notice that the documentation for this oddity seems to mainly consist of the testimony of a real estate agent selling the property. Did he/she suss out the potential buyers, and upon learning that they would consider an eel in the well a quaint positive rather than a repulsive negative, perhaps put a few embellishments on the tale? I wonder how many different eels have lived their lives out in that well, to be quietly replaced when they stopped appearing when visited.
Sort of a modern version of the weather-forecasting groundhogs, but with the details of new recruits replacing the old quietly ignored. Hmmm?I really hope that well wasn't used for drinking water...
Edited to add: the sound of the waterfall when you install it in that echoing enclosed space will be magical.
Here’s a more skeptical article no real way to prove it either way. But some Anguilla have been confirmed to live 80-100.Thank goodness! Just think of it as a grotto rather than a cave.
Cool story about the eel. The cynic in me, never far from the surface, couldn't help but notice that the documentation for this oddity seems to mainly consist of the testimony of a real estate agent selling the property. Did he/she suss out the potential buyers, and upon learning that they would consider an eel in the well a quaint positive rather than a repulsive negative, perhaps put a few embellishments on the tale? I wonder how many different eels have lived their lives out in that well, to be quietly replaced when they stopped appearing when visited.
I really hope that well wasn't used for drinking water...
Something's Fishy: Did 'Oldest Eel' Really Live 155 Years?
A man in Sweden claimed that his pet eel died last week at the age of 155, but one eel expert isn't sure if this tale is fact or fiction.
www.livescience.com
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA same
I didn’t know it was cowturtles tiktok. Time to follow him
Eels aren't an uncommon site for spelunkers/cavers around here, right in & amongst (& likely eating) the proper cave-dwelling endemic crabs etc., and (unfortunately) the Auzzie red-claw invasive. Your eels should have little need for light per se, but a little LED strip on a 12hr timer may be appreciated.
... as may the mud-puppies
I reckon the well itself is the question here, as European & American eels live for a few decades (only?). Constantly very-low water temperature, low food & inability to migrate to sea as end-of-life might be part of it, but a well is a tap into an existing aquifer. If that includes a spring, then eels would come & go; I reckon there's been a few dozen eels making their way into & out of that well over that time
Your space is likely to be too cool for cave tetras, but might be interesting to research and/or try.
Q: What other cave sp. are in the shops these days? The pink SA knife is the only other relatively regular I can think of, albeit from super-deep & turbid Amazon.
... as may the mud-puppies
I reckon the well itself is the question here, as European & American eels live for a few decades (only?). Constantly very-low water temperature, low food & inability to migrate to sea as end-of-life might be part of it, but a well is a tap into an existing aquifer. If that includes a spring, then eels would come & go; I reckon there's been a few dozen eels making their way into & out of that well over that time
Your space is likely to be too cool for cave tetras, but might be interesting to research and/or try.
Q: What other cave sp. are in the shops these days? The pink SA knife is the only other relatively regular I can think of, albeit from super-deep & turbid Amazon.
You should get some of those new cave snake heads lol channa Gollum I think they are called? (Joking of course)
