Will a snowflake eel hunt down inverts no matter what?

[Fishels]

My dream tank is to have like a 125 gallon reef that is based around a snowflake eel. But at the same time I’m really wanting a Goby pistol pair. If the eel is well fed and the shrimp hides when the snowflake is out and about is it relatively safe?

I understand completely that any shrimp or crabs can be fair game no matter what. But I’ve seen tons of snowflakes on YouTube along with cleaner shrimp and the like. What say you more experienced peoples?

 

[JC1977]

I kept a snowflake with a cleaner shrimp and multiple hermit crabs and never saw him go after them. Having said that crustaceans are their primary food so it’s always going to be a gamble even if well fed.

 

[littlefoxx]

My dream tank is to have like a 125 gallon reef that is based around a snowflake eel. But at the same time I’m really wanting a Goby pistol pair. If the eel is well fed and the shrimp hides when the snowflake is out and about is it relatively safe?

I understand completely that any shrimp or crabs can be fair game no matter what. But I’ve seen tons of snowflakes on YouTube along with cleaner shrimp and the like. What say you more experienced peoples?

I have a 125 gallon predator/aggressive set up. My snowflake would eat a shrimp in a heartbeat

 

[cdnco2004]

I have a 75g with a 1.5' snowflake and lots of inverts. Snails, hermits, cleaner shrimp, peppermint shrimp even 8 glass feeder shrimp. Ignores them all. I feed him when he asks for food. About 4-5 days a week or so.

 

[Fishels]

I have a 125 gallon predator/aggressive set up. My snowflake would eat a shrimp in a heartbeat

So you think even if shrimp was in hole he’d dig and eat him? I guess there’s just a wide variety of personalities because I’ve seen some with cleaner shrimps


Do you have a fuzzy dwarf lion with it?

 

[AquaLogic]

You're not going to know until you know. Every eel is going to have a different personality.

 

[Fishels]

You're not going to know until you know. Every eel is going to have a different personality.

Guess I’ll have to quiz him b4 I buy lol

My apartment won’t allow tanks but I really wanna keep one of these guys one day. Wanted one since I was 10 yo

 

[cdnco2004]

So you think even if shrimp was in hole he’d dig and eat him? I guess there’s just a wide variety of personalities because I’ve seen some with cleaner shrimps


Do you have a fuzzy dwarf lion with it?

Absolute possibility. These eels burrow themselves. So no, a shrimp in its burrow is not safe from the eel if the eel decides its dinner.

 

[rhitee93]

My snowflake found and ate my pistol shrimp in its burrow within 60 seconds of being moved from observational quarantine to the DT. It also ate the tiny goby that was with the shrimp. I'm not exaggerating. It slithered around the bottom of the tank poking its head in every crevice. Within seconds it found the burrow the shrimp had dug. The next thing I saw was the back half of the eel writhing around. Haven't seen the shrimp or goby since then...

After having the eel for a few months now, I think it was starving when I got it. It was almost 13" long, but very thin. Probably less than 5/8" at the widest part. It ate like crazy for about 2 months. It seemed to be out hunting every other day, so I would feed it. After a while it slowed down to where it only seems hungry every 4 days or so.

Now it has gotten much larger in diameter, probably over an inch at the widest part, but hasn't grown much in length. I wonder if I had fattened it up a bit longer in isolation if it wouldn't have eaten the pistol shrimp.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Guess I’ll have to quiz him b4 I buy lol

My apartment won’t allow tanks but I really wanna keep one of these guys one day. Wanted one since I was 10 yo

You would be taking a huge risk if you do decide to ignore that lease provision. If you did have an accident (or worse, burn the building down or something crazy) it could end up costing you dearly.

As for the eel - all bets are off until you put it in your tank and even then it could be a model citizen for days, weeks or years and then decide one day to do what eels do.

 

[ajremington68]

I have a 75g with a 1.5' snowflake and lots of inverts. Snails, hermits, cleaner shrimp, peppermint shrimp even 8 glass feeder shrimp. Ignores them all. I feed him when he asks for food. About 4-5 days a week or so.

Hey hey hey, I just got a snow flake eel with a tank I bought. And I don’t know much about them, so slowly trying to learn but also fastly trying to learn cuz it’s already in my care. What does yours eat, if shrimp what kind? Where do you get it? Fresh frozen? Also what does a snowflake eel that is hungry look like?

 

[ajremington68]

Guess I’ll have to quiz him b4 I buy lol

My apartment won’t allow tanks but I really wanna keep one of these guys one day. Wanted one since I was 10 yo

Just got this guy as a “gift” or “rescue” once I bought a 180gal off a guy…

 

[ajremington68]

@Fishels I got the eel for free ma man for you. Thing escaped my tank in one night. NOT WORTH IT

 

[cdnco2004]

Hey hey hey, I just got a snow flake eel with a tank I bought. And I don’t know much about them, so slowly trying to learn but also fastly trying to learn cuz it’s already in my care. What does yours eat, if shrimp what kind? Where do you get it? Fresh frozen? Also what does a snowflake eel that is hungry look like?

He prefers jumbo krill. I take out a few of the krill at a time. Pull out 5 or 6 krill put in a small dish and I add a few drops of garlic oil because he likes it for some reason and when I don't he will smell the krill on my tongs but not take them.

You guy looks about the same size as mine is currently. I have tried many other food types for him and he just ignores them. I have been thinking about moving him to my 220 fowlr which does not have all the ornamental and CUC inverts. The wrasse in that tank wont let any hermits or shrimp live more than a day. I am just a bit apprehensive since I have a full grown engineer goby in that tank as well and don't want a conflict but I feel like its only a matter of time before he decides to eat the shrimp in my 75.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Just a note to be cautious with the krill for your eels - live shrimp and fiddler crabs are recommended; dead/prepared foods can be used, but should be carefully chosen:

Krill is not good, and extremely bad as the only food. Krill is high in thiaminese and low in fat. Thiaminese binds vitamin B1 and can prove deadly within several months. Eels need a good amount of fat, and fats high in omega 3. If you do not include more beneficial additions to their diet, it will prove deadly. A lacking diet could also force the eel to eat something that they would not have otherwise eaten. Here's a thread I wrote about good foods to include a diet for predatory fish, I've also written threads specifically about eels and one that talks about the importance of fats. You can click my name and "find all threads",

If it were me; I would boost mg to 1600ppm, offer live gut loaded ghost shrimp, slivers of wild skin on salmon, and mussels. The live food will be complete nutrition, salmon contains the best fats, and mussels contain a good amount of B1. The mg will help with digestion and help pass any potential blockage.

Lion King's dead food recommendations

I'm a health nut if you haven't noticed, this also translates to my pets. Today I will cover some of the dead foods I feed and why, with some nutritional info that I recall off the top of my head. This is by no means all the foods you can feed, these are just the ones I include in my feedings...

www.reef2reef.com

If you can find small live fiddler crabs, you could try and offer those as well.

You want to be careful feeding krill, silversides, and even shrimp - the reason is the Thiaminase, which breaks down Vitamin B1; by all accounts that I've heard, if predators develop a vitamin B1 deficiency, they will die from it.

Fresh/live shrimp is fine, but shrimp that has been frozen/stored for a long time will have some of the vitamin B1 it contains breakdown while the thiaminase stays in tact - this can lead to it adding to the thiaminase in a predator's diet with little vitamin B1 to counteract it.

Some kinds of silversides are fine, but a lot of silversides are high in thiaminase (there are a ton of different species known as silversides) - the last I've heard, San Francisco Bay Brand (January of this year) was the one with good silversides to use.

Krill is high in thiaminase, and should largely be avoided with predators.

 

[cdnco2004]

I have tried many other types of food, and he wont take them. There are live feeder shrimp in the tank lots of other inverts. He wont eat them. I do add selcon and Vita-Chem vitamin mix a few days a week. I have tried many many types of food and this is all he will take from me.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

I have tried many other types of food, and he wont take them. There are live feeder shrimp in the tank lots of other inverts. He wont eat them. I do add selcon and crap can't recall the name of the vitamin mix a few days a week. I have tried many many types of food and this is all he will take from me.

Have you tried mixing small amounts (that get increasingly larger over time) of the other foods in with the krill when you offer the krill to see if it will start recognizing the other things as food?

 

[cdnco2004]

Have you tried mixing small amounts (that get increasingly larger over time) of the other foods in with the krill when you offer the krill to see if it will start recognizing the other things as food?

ITs hard to make a mix when he will only take single items at a time and I have tried many different types of foods. But as I said he also gets selcom and vita-chem a few days each week.

 

[cdnco2004]

He has also more than doubled in size since I got him Body is very healthy looking and has good weight on him.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

ITs hard to make a mix when he will only take single items at a time and I have tried many different types of foods. But as I said he also gets selcom and vita-chem a few days each week.

I guess I'm thinking get the krill out, set a piece of shrimp or mussel meat or something so that it's literally touching the krill, add the garlic, then offer the first piece of krill.

After offering it a piece of krill, try offering it the other meat; if it takes it, great, if not, then put the meat back and offer the next piece of krill, trying again with the other meat after - I wouldn't expect it to take the other meat on the first go, but by offering it with the krill, you should be able to train the eel to view it as food, so it may eventually take it in the future.