How big of a cave?

[Yoimbrian]

Hey all!

So I'm looking to upgrade the cave for my tire track eel (90 gallon tank, few goldfish, few plecos, been established and running and happy for about 2 months). Right now he has a piece of PVC tied to a rock, its a 1" pvc tube, about 10" long. The string keeps decaying and breaking, and it looks lame. So there are lots of threads out there about how to build a cave, my question is how big do you go? He is about 8" right now, eats a ton and appears to have grown an inch or so since I got him, though it's hard to tell.

I am hoping to go big enough to last 18 months to 2 years, since I'm not a huge arts and crafts kind of guy, and then at that point build a bigger one that will last the remainder of his life. So was going to go 2" PVC elbow, 18" of 2" straight pipe, then 2" elbow on the other side. Then rocks and stuff siliconed to it to cover it. What do you think about the size? Would you go bigger or smaller? Thicker / thinner pipe, or longer / shorter middle straight section??

 

[MonsterMinis]

I used a 18" or 24" ? 4"diam pvc w/ elbows on each end bigger is better.. not only will it accomidate a larger fish but you get better water flow threw it. and I found just regular monofilament fishing line the best thing to tie things down in a tank =)

 

[Yoimbrian]

is "bigger is better" true though?

If a cave is TOOOOOOO big the eel won't feel tight and secure in there, the question is what is too big? Does he care about the different between a 1" pipe and a 4" pipe, or is it just too big if it's a 50" diameter pipe?

In his current home he never comes out, even when I check in the middle of the night he is in there. I feed him live mealworms or frozen bloodworms, and if I don't put them inside the tube he won't eat them (if I put them outside the tube and wait the plecos / goldfish will eat them first). So I'm hoping he doesn't like it for whatever reason, and a better home will make him happier on the whole so maybe he comes out? Idk, maybe that is backwards logic.