My Blue Ribbon Eel eats! (pics and videos)

[SantaMonica]

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, WHAT DO YOU KNOW!... he started getting ancy with everybody rushing by him... a few fish and guppies even hit him in on head as they swam by... so the BR grabs one of the guppies very lightly, and looks around almost seeming to see if he is doing the right thing, and then drags the guppy slowly into the pipe!

He came out a minute later (guppy gone), seeming a bit more excited. He did not eat any more, but I had at last seen the impossible with my own eyes. The next day, I confined my "frenzy" feeding to just guppies, and again dumped 30 in and used the grabber tool to chase them and guide them to the BR (and pretend the grabber was an eel too). Wow! He grabs another and drags it in. So I sit back now and watch the other 29 guppies swim right by his head. But now he just looks at them. So I stick the grabber tool back in and chase them around some more, and AGAIN he grabs one!

Huge realization: The BR is possibly in a dream state (after being caught by whatever method from the ocean)... and only the instict of "beating others out for the food" wakes him up enough to realize that there is food in front of him. I then also realized that it was not the quantity of guppies I put in that mattered, or even how many swam by his head. It was IF THE GUPPIES WERE BEING CHASED BY ANOTHER EEL (the eel-looking grabber tool). So, I reduced my guppy feeding to just 4 or 5, and just chased them near the eel with the grabber a few times a day. BAM! He would eat one usually once a day, athough a few times he at four or five.

Now the BR was starting to associate the grabber tool with "another eel", and as soon as he saw the grabber coming in, he would start coming out of the pipe to meet it. Then, my tank-maintenance man Bill Purcella (wpurcella@socal.rr.com) at Coral Reef Creations came up with the idea of grabbing a guppy by the tail (using the grabber tool) and feeding it to the eel. Well we tried it, and the eel came up to the grabber like normal and SNAP!... got the guppy and draged him into the pipe. Wow! So now it started to be a routine... feed a guppy with the grabber, and if the guppy gets away, chase him around so he'll swim by the eel's head.

Then I got cocky and would try to feed the eel before feeding anyone else (instead of after, like I had learned to do), and he became non-interested. So I'd remove the guppy from the grabber (so now the grabber arms would be open like the BR's mouth), and play with the eel a bit. This got him excited, and then I'd put the guppy back on, and POP! This started to work every time. The trick really seemed to be to get the BR excited first by using a grabber with open-pinchers so that it looked like another BR eel. Then put the guppy on the grabber and feed him.

Then the first setback occured. He stopped eating, no matter what I did. I played with him, fed everthing, and still nothing. This went on for a WHOLE WEEK. Then, for no reason, he began eating again. Incredible.

Well now the BR was starting to get his bright yellow and blue colors back. He also had gotten a somewhat "dirty" face, which I think might be from rubbing the algea in the pipe. I also by this time had noticed that not once, not ever, did he eat while he was out of the pipe. I have 100 pounds of LR, and three inches of sand, but he never uses them; it's the pipe or nothing. This means that when the pumps (water flow) are off and he comes out and swims around, he never eats. He ONLY would eat when in the pipe (with his head sticking out maybe three inches.) Matter of fact, when he swims around he has that same dream-state appearance that he had in the sump. He notices NO FOOD when swiming around. This might explain why LFS's, as well as everybody online, could not get their BR to eat... they keep/kept them in clear, open tanks with bright light. My BR would never eat in one of those tanks, even if it had a few rocks or a small pipe in it for hiding. My BR only eats when his whole 3-foot body is covered by the pipe. And when he grabs the food outside the pipe, he STILL drags it inside the pipe to eat it.

I began to notice that he had less interest in tiny guppies (half inch), and more interest in big ones. So I tried some live goldfish... 3/4, 1, and even 1 1/2 inch. BAM!... he really went for these. This seemed to increase his whole desire for food. He came at the grabber faster now, and when it had a goldfish, he would go right at it. So I switched from guppies to goldfish. He's eaten as many as two a day, but I try to limit him to one. The fish are so big that he's got a lump in his body for quite a few hours... like a snake. But the bigger the goldfish are, the more he likes them. He once also swallowed a ghost shrimp, but never tried one again.

Then another non-eating week actually happend two more times, a few months later, but each time he'd just start back on his own again. I now realize what caused it... he ate one of my regular fish (a 4-inch long blue gudgeon goby). I'd seen the BR try to grab them before, but they always got away. I guess he got one. It filled him up for a week. Then he did it again. I have one of those gobies left, and he stays very far away.

Next minor setback... I watched as the snowflake eel grabbed the BR on the head, and tried to pull him out of the pipe. So the snowflake got donated to the nearest LFS right away.

Six months later, the BR has great energy, actively chasing and poking at everything in the tank that moves and doesn't move. He coils up like a python more, as he sticks out of the pipe. He's even done a few 360's, where he rotates himself upside down and back upright. He's fascinated with the lookdown fish (shiny-ness?), and the one remaining blue gudgeon (dinner?). He now goes absolutely crazy when the pumps are off... he shoots around every part of the tank, weaves in and out of the coral, twists around things, and all the time racing through the water with his mouth wide open (NEVER eating while doing this, however). He now even comes out of the pipes for short periods when the pumps are on, or the lights are off.

Update: A few months later, I'm almost through converting the BR from live to frozen. I started by realizing how he would only eat the live goldfish if I wiggled it a bit (or if it was wiggling itself, of course). So I tried a dead one, and wiggled it a bit, and it worked. Then I tried some frozen silversides (with the big ones cut in half), and he would sometimes take one, but sometimes not. Seems he likes bright red fish much better. The silversides, when they are eaten, seem to fill up the BR for a few days, whereas a goldfish only fills him up for a day or less. Nevertheless, I want to convert him to all frozen, so what I'm doing is getting live goldfish and freezing them, and then feeding him one of those one day, and a silversides the next.

Update: He is now totally converted to frozen silversides. The silversides are sometimes too big (2 inches), so I'll cut those in half and just feed one per day. He still has days that he does not eat, but he's back on track the next day. I've noticed that he's always more hungry in the evening, instead of the morning when the lights first come on. And he finally caught the last blue gudgeon and dragged him into the pipe, but the fish got away and hid again in the rocks. The eel's nose is now totally dark... it completely lost the yellow it came with. It can't be because of the algae in the tube, because the rest of his yellow stripe is bright as can be, and it rubs the tube too. Lastly, I also have thought a bit about the sump; it may be possible that the constant vibrations from the pump helped to "wake up" the eel into the real world.


So in closing, here are my recommendations:

1. Have a 2-inch thick pipe, at least three feet long. Curved ok.
2. Have lots of other fish
3. Wait until the eel is IN the pipe.
4. Play with the eel with an eel-looking grabber tool (pinchers are open).
4. Feed the other fish first, then try feeding the eel a goldfish from the grabber.
5. Put some goldfish in the water and chase them with the grabber (pinchers open).

I hope this help some of you. I would like to see other successes.

Bryan

[SantaMonica]

My Blue Ribbon Eel eats! (non-linked pics)

This is the pics-only follow up; the original post has the story and hi-res video links. This post has the tank pics, and the following post will have the eel pics.



The "eel tubes" that were placed into the bottom of the tank.




Completed tank:

[SantaMonica]

My Blue Ribbon Eel eats! (non-linked pics 2)

This is the pics-only follow up; the original post has the story and hi-res video links. This post is of the eel; the previous post had the tank and eel-tubes.

[Domboski]

Great post! Do you supplement his diet by adding vitamins to the frozen fish?

[SantaMonica]

My Blue Ribbon Eel eats! (non-linked pics 3)

This is the pics-only follow up; the original post has the story and hi-res video links. This post has the eel pics, and the preceding post had the tank and eel-tube pics.

[sean48183]

Thanks for sharing. Just saw one at the lfs the other day in a tank like your talking about-brightly lit with no hiding spaces. Real shame. It's cool that you worked so hard to get him eating. I hope he's around a long time to make it seem worthwhile.

[SantaMonica]

Maybe if the LFS's had some type of compact coiled pipe that was three feet long (but only six inches or so across, kinda like an intestine) they would put them in their BR holding tanks. This would seem to be a requirement to get them to eat in the store. But I can see that unless the LFS's can buy such pre-made and pre-coiled pipes ready to place in the tanks, that they won't take the time to make them. Would be a real pain to make out of PVC (ours was). Maybe three feet of coiled copper tubing?

[willtel76]

Awesome, awesome eel. It is so good the hear solid news about someone keeping one of these. When I first got into the hobby the store I went to had a huge octagon tank with a blue and white ribbon eel in it. Those are the only ones I have seen and have always wanted one.

Did you do anything special to the tank to keep him from crawling out?

[Gundo5000]

Love the tank, and eel!

[RichConley]

seahorses? With eels? Man, thats ballsy.

The seahorse people would have an aneurism. I love it.

[SantaMonica]

willtel76: What we did was put mesh over the overflow (you can see it in the center top of the tank in some pic and vids.) But the eel no longer tries to get out like he did at first. A while back, he managed to find a loose end of the mesh and go through it, partially into the overflow. I was sitting right there so I reached in and just grabbed him and pulled him back in. But now he doesn't even put his head out of the water anymore.

Gundo5000: Thanks much.

RichConley: Well when I was researching the BR, everything said they were relatively good reef mates with small mouths. And the seahorse is six inches long. So they never really interacted, except for one time I caught the eel checking out the snout on the seahorse... but could not get to the camera fast enough.

[Jow13]

More than likely it would be the snowflake who takes out the seahorse. Anyways awesome eel. A friend of mine had a black ribbon eel that he got feeding on strips of squid and since has been a little piggy. It then changed from Black to Blue as Blue is the adult form. I think it may change green as well but that isn't until the end of the eels life. He feeds often as because the eel is so slender it need smaller more frequent feedings. Anyways he's had his for 3 years and its a show stopper. best of luck.

[SantaMonica]

Well I donated the snowflake to the LFS when he tried to pull the BR out of the pipe. So the seahorse should be safe, so long as I don't let the lookdown get too big. The lookdown will eat anything in it's path, so when it gets bigger, I'll donate him too. As for BR color changes, I'm wondering if the snout changing from yellow to black means anything. It happened over a three month period.

[Red Sea Purple Tang]

Wow Bryan. Nice ribbon eel. That PVC cave system was very creative. Your initial post has to win the "Longest Post of the Month" award! Great colors in your tank also!

[snorvich]

If you are still experimenting with food, try squid. All eels hunt by movement and smell and the squid is nice and smelly.

[weaver5]

That is a very nice looking eel.Thanks for sharing scott

[Ooulophilia]

Cool idea with the pipes, I may have to steal that . Sorry to burst your bubble, but have you seen the terminal phase of the eel when it turns female? That is probably the color change you are seeing - they go from a brightly colored male to a drab brownish female.

[SantaMonica]

Red Sea Purple Tang: Well I started writing a few months ago, as things developed. It kept getting better, and I forgot to stop. The pipes I had read about online somewhere, and when I asked my tank maintenance guy Bill Purcella (wpurcella@socal.rr.com) to build it, he checked with his wholesaler and came up with the gray color idea (keeps algae from being overly noticeable.)

snorvich: Good idea... will try some.

weaver5: Glad you like it.

Ooulophilia: Feel free to try pipes yourself. Hopefully the LFS's and wholesalers will start using them too so the BR's will start eating earlier. As for color changes, it was weird that only the snout changed dark, and not the stripe on the body. Plus the change occured in about six weeks. But I believe that when it does change, it is to more of a yellowish color than a brown one.

[kirdes]

Great looking eel....I too will be stealing your piping idea!!

[SantaMonica]

Feel free. Just post the pics

[sedesh]

blue ribbon eel, seahorse, and dendronephthid all in the same tank... time to get a couple moorish idols in there too, haha.

great post and congratulations on getting this cool fish to eat. nice videos!

[SantaMonica]

Yes the idols, seadragons, and a lion are on order

[ReefJunkieOK]

Very impressive tank!

[Kolognekoral]

Bryan,

great fotos! and Nice approach to making the eel comfy.

I have one since over a year, now, we call Elvira. Started out black and is now in the blue phase. I can concur with your results, as a frenzy does seem to stimulate the capture/drag-away/swallow instinct. I have quite a few voracious fish in my aquarium and Elvira had to learn to compete, which is not really in the character of these fish. They are really quite gentle and, I get the impression...blind! Like you said, they stare off into the wild blue and ignore their surroundings until...

Mine was pretty easy to get eating. The first week was a no goer, but suddenly, as all the fish were chasing after food, Elvira snatched a small Anthias (which had been ailing from cyanide(?) poisoning) and dragged it into its den! I was speachless . After that, I tried strips of frozen red snapper and we were off! You mentioned that your fish showed a preference for goldfish, which are similarly coloured as Anthias. Perhaps this is a natural food for them?

Interesting how your eel also reacts to a long stick-type object. I was sticking the frozen fish onto a bamboo stick and waggling it in the front of the den. Elvira seemed to accept the stick as a competetor and would always aim for the point where the fish and stick met. It would have been much easier to grab the loose end of the fish and play tug-o-war, but instinct seems to dictate a head to head approach, although, if the other fish start playing with her food, she tends to let it go for a moment and then reapproach to snap it and drag it away. For an eel, she is pretty polite and shy!

I am toying with the idea of getting another eel, as company may be closer to their natural lifestyle. I have heard that this can stimulate a colour change in one of the eels, apparently a classic protandic-hemaphrodite developement. If I get that far, I'll report back.

[peteralexander]

santamonica how is the eel doing today. Has it gone after anything in the tank? That is amazing how you got it to eat. I guess some times you get good ones and bad ones. My friend tried and his starved to death.