AvidReefer
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Is the snowflake eel the best eel or would you recommend a different one?
The snowflake seems to be the most popular eel around, but that doesn't mean it's the best.
Predator Tank Stocking List Questions
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The snowflake seems to be the most popular eel around, but that doesn't mean it's the best.
There are a few eels you could look at keeping with lions, they would have to be a pebbletooth. For your size tank you could consider the snowflake, skeletor, or banded. They would have the same care and any of them would fit into your scheme.
sawrip
Active Member
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sawrip
Active Member
Yes I agree with you on this. I have viewed a number of posts and many reference internal parasites and general poor health which seems at odds with what we tend to experience here in the UK.@sawrip while we both agree the antennata would be the hardiest on the op list, they are not a easy lion, and the radiata is one of the most difficult. Eels are the easiest choice before any lion. What I was going to mention to you, you being in the UK, your experiences with Scorpaenidae is much different than ours in the US. I would say Europe as a whole, we here in the US are very drug addicted and the handling is very much in question. It seems in Europe most aren't treating their tanks with copper and using drug cocktails like here in the US, scorps are very sensitive and this ends in a very high mortality. Our suppliers here also keep their sg low to suppress disease and parasites, and there is no constant, changing from supplier to supplier and the end with a hobbyist keeping a much higher sg. Of the hobbyist I have conferred in Europe, you seems to get scorps in much better condition than we do it the states. I've lost about 7 of 10 radiata's within a week or 2, and the ones I had for a length of time had to babied at 1st. The one I have now I've had for over 3 years.
My Fumanchu for example had been kept at a supplier for 6 months and had a established live and dead feeding regime which he demonstrated, the tanks were copper free and all the fish looked in the peak of health.
It was the same for my Radiata, who had been kept on its own / no copper with an established feeding regime, again I've had no issues.
I suspect this difference is due to two key factors:
- Antibiotic and certain medications are hard to get over here, I've had to import most of my ones if ever I need them. LFS cannot simply start using them due to lack of availability - I believe this then focuses them to use good suppliers and focus on water quality and other methods.
- A centralised main importer network. Almost every Lfs I use seem to use Tmc for ordering stock from, there is others but Tmc is king over here. Now Tmc have an incredible track record of good healthy stock and holding facilities and I've never had any issues with Scorps obtained from them. I now have a contact from Tmc who sends my fish to the Lfs and then I pick it up from there still in the bag to avoid any possible issues with the Lfs water.
Salt in Lfs is always 1.020 to 1.022, I've never seen it lower and I do test the bag water.
Please correct me if I'm wrong but the size of the US means lots of importers with differing standards and with easy access to all sorts of medications it all ends up a bit messy - especially in you're a scorp in poor health sadly.
That's my take on it anyway.
Yep, its ashamed because their only goal is to keep the fish alive long enough to get to it's end goal, in a hobbyist tank. As you have conferred with me you know my stance on meds, as you can see I am at odds with the so called experts. This is in American culture, the overuse of pharmaceutical chemicals, 70% of Americans are on pharmaceutical chemicals and a country that is only 4,2% of the world's population consume more than 80% of the pharmaceutical chemicals manufactured. This translates right to their pets; fish, dogs, cats, and it takes it toll on all of them.
Scorps are very high risk here and it really is just luck if you get a healthy one. Most people get discouraged and give up if they don't luck out and find a good source. I've tested sg as low as 1.017, at the end user if they are not aware of how to handle it, they cause osmotic shock and death if they raise the sg too rapidly. This "trick" that the suppliers use is to suppress disease and when the sg is risen, the diseases explode, many times faster than you can handle, even if you know what you are doing.
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sawrip
Active Member
Yes it seems like they are just mere objects and as long as they make that sale it doesn't matter if it dies a few weeks later. My experience of using hyposalinity is how critical the increase of salt should be. I imagine purchasing a Scorp at 1.017 then popping it into a full blown reef at 1.026 is just a painful death sentence as it tries to breath.
Quite a few Lfs now have a whiteboard with all the daily parameters written on daily eg: temp, sg, nh3, alk which you can view when you make your purchase.
A fairly new trend I am observing over here is that Eels, Frogs, Scorps, Rhinos are kept in the same section as inverts and then ich magnets like tangs are kept in low level copper. There seems to be an awareness that it's game over if you keep a Rhino in copper for example which I see as a postive.
It's a shame by the sounds of it that the default over there is that "there's a pill for the that" it often doesn't fix the underlying issue in my experience and acts as a band aid.
Their methods are even more absurd, if you missed my edit. The real "trick" to the lower sf is too "suppress" not cure any diseases. Then as the sg rises the disease explodes, and even if you know what you are doing, it's usually a futile battle. The drug cocktails which can contain copper, antibiotics, formalin by products, and just a mix of chemicals with likely no curable efficy. These levels are at sub thearaputic levels and do not follow the full course. Which makes the diseases more virilant and even likely producing antibiotic resistance. Believe me I've tried and you can't talk sense into any of them, because it's vums and they don't want to be holding the bag.
Back in the day we kept all systems separated; fish, corals, macro, inverts, rocks. Today in the States the lfs plumbs all their systems together, which means fish disease can hitchhike in on inverts, macro, corals, and rock. It's really a mess over here.
It sounds good where you are, I don't know what needs to happens here to change course.
sawrip
Active Member
Pretty awful really, it leaves novices with a ticking time bomb which then infects their whole tank. Having dealt with just ich I do wonder how many just pack the hobby in due to them unknowingly continually buying poor stock.
Most good places here seem to run separate systems as they can then isolate the tanks for treatment if required rather than treating everything at probably sub therapeutic levels, resulting in more resistant strains forming.
That being said it's far from perfect and I've been caught out. I found out my Snowflake Eel was kept in Copper due to the shop live streaming about how they treat all their tanks with it on Facebook , I hope he lives a long life but will understand why if he doesn't.
AvidReefer
Community Member
Thanks for the advice! So there's no fangtooths you can keep with lions in a 75? I like the look of fangtooths much more than pebbletooths but am willing to sacrifice that to get lions and scorps and stuff.
I am not interested in spending many hundreds of dollars on a golden dwarf for my first fish.
Also: I saw you didn't mention the chain link moray. Is that one not lionfish safe? To my understanding it's a pebbletooth as well.
I wouldn't do a fang tooth in a 75g with any fish, in a 75 your choices of fish would be on the order of small angels, small tangs, small wrasses, or other choices in even smaller reef fish. In less than 2 years, most all of the fang tooths would be as thick as a man's forearm with rows of jagged sharp teeth. Any fish that would fit in a 75g could be easy prey for a fang tooth. Fang tooth eels are also dynamic swimmers needing at least a 6' tank. The problem is most never keep their eels alive long enough into full maturity and see them in all their glory. If they stay alive long enough a fang tooth can be a reckoning. The chainlink is a fine pebbletooth eel, they tend to grow a little larger and become a bit more dynamic than the other small pebbletooths, and will do better in at least a 6' tank. While pebbetooths are safer with fish, they do have crushing jaws that can do deadly damage, and a smaller tank can be more risky, the 75g is right at that cusp.
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