Synbranchus marmoratus?

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R

rumblesushi

Feeder Fish
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Jul 18, 2005
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Can anyone tell me about this fish? Behaviour, aggression, growth rate etc.

I can't seem to find out much about it. It's known as a south american swamp eel, it's not really an eel, grows to 3 foot. That's it.

Cheers.
 
Central and South American and they can reach 60" long, they are escape artists, very carnivorous and not to be trusted with fish less than 1/4 thier length (longer if slender) and very adaptable. They like to burrow, can live in water that is very turbid, temp. from 70-95 F, a wide range of pH, and from soft water to brackish. They can also live in O2 poor water to well oxygenated waters and from flooded fields to rapid mountain stream.
 
Thanks guppy, so they can get 5 foot? That's bigger than I thought.

Their face looks liike a lungfish. I thought it looked just like an eel but upon seeing their faces, they look like lungfish.

How predatory are they compared to lungfish?
 
Predatory is a fuzzy term, bothare completely predatory in that they are carnivores feeding on living creatures. The marmoratus is much more active (especially at night) even though (like true eels) it is long lived, I haven't seen anything about growth rates, but like the asian swamp eel (Monopterus albus) they do seem to be always ready to eat, I had a 2' albus that would eat a dozen night crawlers or a half dozen 6" yellow suckers at a sitting and beg for more.
I found an odd fact about the marmoratus, it sometimes changes sexes for no apparent reason.
 
I define predatory in how far they are willing to go to eat something. AN oscar is a predator right? But fish big enough to swallow are safe with them, aside from a bit of bullying. Yet a snakehead tears a fish it's own size in half and eats some of it.

Therefore I consider a snakehead to be more predatory.

The way I see it is the less safe other fish are with the fish, the more predatory it is. And also their capacity to eat other fish.

Bichirs and clarias cats are both predators, but IMO they are not very godo predators compared to a channa or wolf or even an acestro. Channas especially can eat huge fish. Where as my 10 inch clarias is living happily with a 2.5 inch red terror. If I put that red terror in with my 10 inch snakehead it would be gone in a couple of seconds.

It changes sex? hahaha. How the hell is that possible? It can develop other reproductive organs?

The reason I asked that question is lungfish have been known to bite the heads off fish and kill fish even if they are too big to eat. To me that is very predatory. I was wondering if the eel would leave fish alone that were obviously too big to be a meal?
 
I heard they are killers of the night, and don't play well with even the largest of tankmates.. Only after they surpass the 3' mark or so, though..

I plan on Importing a few big boys soon, apparantly there is a morph out of Peru that has a wild orange spotted pattern, and they call it 'Atinga Otorongo' which translates to 'Jaguire Swamp Eel'..
 
I've got a 4' Marmoratus and a 3' Otorongo I recently imported. Very cool. The otorongo is apparently a different species, S. madridae i believe. Mine live with my community of big, prehistoric monsters.
 
I would not trust them with anything less than 1/2 thier size minimum, even the albus I had beat the hell out of a 10" oscar by grabbing it and slamming it around and they are reportedly less aggressive then synbranchus, the oscar was picking at it though. Waldo has a nice S. marmoratus for sale right now. 3' 4".
 
I currently have five.

Yesterday I had six...

Today one was floating on the surface dead and decomposing. I picked it up and was stuffing it into a plastic bag when it fell out and back in the tank. The tank is on the floor. They are so slippery and it almost felt like it was moving. I picked it back up but it slipped out again and fell back in. This time it felt even more like it moved. Grooos!

Then I realized it was really moving and still alive. I didn't think it would make it and didn't want to take any chances with the 3' SAL in the same tank. So I caught the eel. Now it was already very much alive and moving and fell on the floor. I caught it in the bag.

But now I had to somehow finish it off before throwing it away. I figured death by suffocation can take a long time for an eel. So I made the bag as small as possible so it couldn't move, found its head and hit it with a rock. It became even more alive...
Well, I managed to murder the poor thing but it was another traumatic experience.
 
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