# Spotted garden eel



## canadianeh (Dec 26, 2016)

Any love for this creature? Anyone has experience keeping them? I have 40 gallons reef tank with 3" sandbed.


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## Crayon (Apr 13, 2014)

Have seen them, intend to get some once I move and settle in with new tank. They need more than 3" sand bed from what I know and are not easy to keep, unless specific tank mates. However are very cool and interesting fish.
Big Show in Hamilton had some in their display last year.
These are something you will have to work with a retailer to bring in specifically for you.


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## corpusse (Jan 3, 2011)

I kept them for several years before giving them away only because they are some of the hardest creatures to move.

6" is probably the min you want to go as far as sand bed depth. Originally the deepest parts of my sand bed were more like 9-12 but it was sloping so it leveled out a bit more than 6"

While they are "Reef safe" in the sense they won't harm corals a couple of things you will have to keep in mind. They require moderate to heavy feeding, especially initially. This is mostly due to their skittish behavior. They will only eat food that passes them by and will not leave their borrow for food. While they do occasionally switch spots they are mainly stationary. The heavy feeding combined with the deep sand bed potentially being a ticking time bomb makes me think they are best in their own tank, that being said you certainly could build a reef around them however I would probably wait 6 months to a year before turning the garden eel tank into a reef vs adding them to an existing reef. Initially I fed them with live brine shirmp (adult). It didn't take too long to get them eating frozen. Initially they were very afraid of PE mysis but over time they will basically eat any frozen food. I never tried anything dry since at the time I was not feeding dry foods to any of my fish.

They are fine with various fish, I had chormis, firefish, copperband butterfly with them ect. The spotted garden eels are available several times a year at various locations so you may or may not need to special order them. I recommend them over the splendid garden eels which are also commercially available (the orange ones). While you can mix them in my experience the splendid did not do as well.

If they don't escape in the first hour it's unlikely they ever will but I did have one jump once but the odds of this happening are comparable to a fish not considered a jumper.


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