My Blue Ribbon Eel eats! (pics and video)
Well I wanted to wait to write this until I was sure that my blue ribbon would live. It's been about eight months now, so I think it's time to tell my experiences so other will have the best chance with their blue ribbons. First the pics and videos, and then the story. The links below are to the hi-res pics and videos that are stored on my site; in another post I'll put the same pics that you do not have to link to, and I'll also put the videos on Google Video, YouTube, and Putfile (just search for "blue ribbon eel"). All pics and video were taken after six months in the tank...
PICS:
The "eel tubes" that were placed into the bottom of the tank:
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelTubes.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelTubesTank.jpg
Completed tank:
http://radio-media.com/fish/TankStand.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/TankNight.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/TankFlash.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/TankFlashBig.jpg
Eel:
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelCloseup.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelBothStars.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelFeed1.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelFeed2.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelFront1.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelFront2.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelFront3.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelSwimHigh.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelHang.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelSnowflake.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelSnowflake2.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelTangRedStar.jpg
VIDEO (some are .mpg's, and some are .avi's)
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelOut.mpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelOut2.avi
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelOut3.avi
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelOut4.avi
Preparing eel to eat:
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelPlay.mpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelPlay2.avi
Feeding eel:
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelFeed1.mpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelFeed2.mpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelFeed3.mpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelFeed3.avi
The one and only video ever taken of the eel swallowing:
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelSwallow.avi
Misc eel:
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelAndBag.mpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelAndCoralCats.mpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelAndLookdown.mpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelAndOrangePlate.mpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelAndStar.mpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelCloseup.mpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelFarBack.mpg
In January 2006, long before I got him, I started reading all the forums (for about six months) about how impossible they are to keep. Every story was about having tried one, but then it died. Or about a friend's friend who maybe had one. There were almost no cases of a currently-living one, much less any pics, and absolutely zero videos. So I held off on getting one, and got a snowflake eel instead.
Well at the end of particularly long Friday, I decided to go to the LFS. This particular store carries mostly staple items... nothing too exciting. I wandered the four isles and found nothing worth getting, so I figured I'd leave. That's when I saw two BR eels (!) on the way out the door. First time seeing them in real life.
So I asked the guy the question that I already knew the answer to: "Were they eating?". The answer was not just no, but nothing at all in the whole week that they've had them. Well I realized it was now or never, so I got one.
Now, my tank is a 90 bow front (30 inches high) reef located in our office. We do not have a (gasp!) quarantine, hospital, refugium, or any other kind of separate tank for me to put the eel in. I say this because in most forum posts I read, they say to try to get the BR eating by putting him in a tank by himself first. Well, the only thing I had to put him in was the... sump! So I covered all the escape holes (effectively making it an isolation tank), and put him in.
I learned a few things from this. First, the BR will INDEED find every nook and cranny and hole, and try to go through it. Intake pipes, pump inlets, skimmer tubes, and my favorite... a crack between the filter frame and the sump case (the only dark place, about 1/2 inch wide.) He managed to get himself into this dark spot several times and stay there. This told me he felt safer there, and this was the first contradiction to what I had read in the forums ("put him in a small tank by himself", etc.)
Another thing he would do is keep his head in water streams, such as the ultraviolet or chiller return pipe. Of all the relatively calm places in the sump where he could go, he goes and sticks his head in front of a water outlet and gets blown around. This told me he reacted to water currents, but I was not quite sure how/why. I don't recall of reading anything about this.
Last of the sump lessons was the BR's wall climbing ability. This is a mature 3 foot long eel, and I found out three times that he will only climb out if the water is four inches or less from the top. This is because he will only stick his head above water for an inch or two; if he can't see over the top, he does not try further. Interesting, considering if he wanted to he could stretch out twelve inches out of the water.
Now as for eating: In the week that I had him in the sump, I fed everything to him at one time or another: Guppies, live ghost shrimp, flakes, live damsels, frozen mysis, etc. Never, not even once, did he pay any attention to anything moving about him; he just stayed transfixed on the water flow, and getting to the dark place.
Then I remembered the one thing that probably saved the BR's life: A few days earlier I had been talking with Jeff at ExoticFish.com, telling him I just got the BR, and he said something totally contradicting the forums. He said that the eel should not be by himself... he should instead be with other fish so that a "feeding frenzy" would develop, and the eel would get excited and eat. At the time, his advice just seemed like another opinion that probably would not work, but after observing the BR in the sump for a week, it did indeed seem like the eel was in some sort of trance or dream state; he was not aware that food was floating all around him. Thus he did not eat, and maybe he really did need to see others eating around him.
So I combined Jeff's "frenzy" advice with the eel's desire-for-darkness that I observed, and concluded that I should put the BR in the main tank even though he is not eating yet. The main tank has other fish already eating, and, has a 2 inch pipe (see the pics) that we already put in the sand for him to hide in (I knew I'd be getting some kind of eel, and for now the snowflake had been using it.) As for the eel's affinity for water flow across his head, I was not sure what to do about it, so I did nothing. The underground pipes were already positioned, and the fish were already in the tank and eating, so... in went the BR.
Within five minutes he found the pipe and went inside. The pipe comes up through the sand in four different places in the tank, and he would check each one out... sticking his head out of it a few inches. Then at night he would go completely inside and hide. He is REALLY scared of having his body seen. And although I never figured out how water flow affected him, I will say that the only time he came out of the pipe is when the pumps were all turned off (lights still on, however). Only then would he come completely out and swim around, and stick his head out of the water a tiny bit.
Well, the feeding attempts continued for TWO MORE WEEKS, with no luck. As far as I could tell, it had been at least a month since he's eaten (one week at LFS, one week in sump, two weeks in tank.) His bright blue and yellow colors were starting to fade, and he was losing energy too. But when I fed the tank any kind of live or frozen food, he would just watch it drift by. Many times I would turn the pumps off, thinking he might feel better and eat when he comes out. But nothing.
So I thought, if a frenzy is what he wants, then he'll get it. I held off feeding the whole tank for a day (to make the other fish hungry), and then all at once dumped everything in: flakes, mysis, nori, krill, brine, blood worms, along with THIRTY live guppies and TWENTY live ghost shrimp. And then I stuck a long-armed grabber tool (which when open, kind of looks like a BR with his mouth open), and pretended it was chasing and eating the food too.
Well I wanted to wait to write this until I was sure that my blue ribbon would live. It's been about eight months now, so I think it's time to tell my experiences so other will have the best chance with their blue ribbons. First the pics and videos, and then the story. The links below are to the hi-res pics and videos that are stored on my site; in another post I'll put the same pics that you do not have to link to, and I'll also put the videos on Google Video, YouTube, and Putfile (just search for "blue ribbon eel"). All pics and video were taken after six months in the tank...
PICS:
The "eel tubes" that were placed into the bottom of the tank:
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelTubes.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelTubesTank.jpg
Completed tank:
http://radio-media.com/fish/TankStand.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/TankNight.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/TankFlash.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/TankFlashBig.jpg
Eel:
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelCloseup.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelBothStars.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelFeed1.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelFeed2.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelFront1.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelFront2.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelFront3.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelSwimHigh.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelHang.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelSnowflake.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelSnowflake2.jpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelTangRedStar.jpg
VIDEO (some are .mpg's, and some are .avi's)
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelOut.mpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelOut2.avi
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelOut3.avi
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelOut4.avi
Preparing eel to eat:
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelPlay.mpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelPlay2.avi
Feeding eel:
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelFeed1.mpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelFeed2.mpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelFeed3.mpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelFeed3.avi
The one and only video ever taken of the eel swallowing:
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelSwallow.avi
Misc eel:
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelAndBag.mpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelAndCoralCats.mpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelAndLookdown.mpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelAndOrangePlate.mpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelAndStar.mpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelCloseup.mpg
http://radio-media.com/fish/EelFarBack.mpg
In January 2006, long before I got him, I started reading all the forums (for about six months) about how impossible they are to keep. Every story was about having tried one, but then it died. Or about a friend's friend who maybe had one. There were almost no cases of a currently-living one, much less any pics, and absolutely zero videos. So I held off on getting one, and got a snowflake eel instead.
Well at the end of particularly long Friday, I decided to go to the LFS. This particular store carries mostly staple items... nothing too exciting. I wandered the four isles and found nothing worth getting, so I figured I'd leave. That's when I saw two BR eels (!) on the way out the door. First time seeing them in real life.
So I asked the guy the question that I already knew the answer to: "Were they eating?". The answer was not just no, but nothing at all in the whole week that they've had them. Well I realized it was now or never, so I got one.
Now, my tank is a 90 bow front (30 inches high) reef located in our office. We do not have a (gasp!) quarantine, hospital, refugium, or any other kind of separate tank for me to put the eel in. I say this because in most forum posts I read, they say to try to get the BR eating by putting him in a tank by himself first. Well, the only thing I had to put him in was the... sump! So I covered all the escape holes (effectively making it an isolation tank), and put him in.
I learned a few things from this. First, the BR will INDEED find every nook and cranny and hole, and try to go through it. Intake pipes, pump inlets, skimmer tubes, and my favorite... a crack between the filter frame and the sump case (the only dark place, about 1/2 inch wide.) He managed to get himself into this dark spot several times and stay there. This told me he felt safer there, and this was the first contradiction to what I had read in the forums ("put him in a small tank by himself", etc.)
Another thing he would do is keep his head in water streams, such as the ultraviolet or chiller return pipe. Of all the relatively calm places in the sump where he could go, he goes and sticks his head in front of a water outlet and gets blown around. This told me he reacted to water currents, but I was not quite sure how/why. I don't recall of reading anything about this.
Last of the sump lessons was the BR's wall climbing ability. This is a mature 3 foot long eel, and I found out three times that he will only climb out if the water is four inches or less from the top. This is because he will only stick his head above water for an inch or two; if he can't see over the top, he does not try further. Interesting, considering if he wanted to he could stretch out twelve inches out of the water.
Now as for eating: In the week that I had him in the sump, I fed everything to him at one time or another: Guppies, live ghost shrimp, flakes, live damsels, frozen mysis, etc. Never, not even once, did he pay any attention to anything moving about him; he just stayed transfixed on the water flow, and getting to the dark place.
Then I remembered the one thing that probably saved the BR's life: A few days earlier I had been talking with Jeff at ExoticFish.com, telling him I just got the BR, and he said something totally contradicting the forums. He said that the eel should not be by himself... he should instead be with other fish so that a "feeding frenzy" would develop, and the eel would get excited and eat. At the time, his advice just seemed like another opinion that probably would not work, but after observing the BR in the sump for a week, it did indeed seem like the eel was in some sort of trance or dream state; he was not aware that food was floating all around him. Thus he did not eat, and maybe he really did need to see others eating around him.
So I combined Jeff's "frenzy" advice with the eel's desire-for-darkness that I observed, and concluded that I should put the BR in the main tank even though he is not eating yet. The main tank has other fish already eating, and, has a 2 inch pipe (see the pics) that we already put in the sand for him to hide in (I knew I'd be getting some kind of eel, and for now the snowflake had been using it.) As for the eel's affinity for water flow across his head, I was not sure what to do about it, so I did nothing. The underground pipes were already positioned, and the fish were already in the tank and eating, so... in went the BR.
Within five minutes he found the pipe and went inside. The pipe comes up through the sand in four different places in the tank, and he would check each one out... sticking his head out of it a few inches. Then at night he would go completely inside and hide. He is REALLY scared of having his body seen. And although I never figured out how water flow affected him, I will say that the only time he came out of the pipe is when the pumps were all turned off (lights still on, however). Only then would he come completely out and swim around, and stick his head out of the water a tiny bit.
Well, the feeding attempts continued for TWO MORE WEEKS, with no luck. As far as I could tell, it had been at least a month since he's eaten (one week at LFS, one week in sump, two weeks in tank.) His bright blue and yellow colors were starting to fade, and he was losing energy too. But when I fed the tank any kind of live or frozen food, he would just watch it drift by. Many times I would turn the pumps off, thinking he might feel better and eat when he comes out. But nothing.
So I thought, if a frenzy is what he wants, then he'll get it. I held off feeding the whole tank for a day (to make the other fish hungry), and then all at once dumped everything in: flakes, mysis, nori, krill, brine, blood worms, along with THIRTY live guppies and TWENTY live ghost shrimp. And then I stuck a long-armed grabber tool (which when open, kind of looks like a BR with his mouth open), and pretended it was chasing and eating the food too.