Newbie - Eels

[Alison182]

Hi everyone,

I'm interested in purchasing an eel.

I'm completely new to the care of tropical fish and would like to know the basics.

I want a smallish tank. Small enough to sit on top of a desk.

What size would be recommened for an eel?
Can I keep any other tropical fish with eels?
What is the smallest eel you can keep?

Also, about the heating etc... How would I go about doing all this? The right temp and what I need etc?

 

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

As for heating you can buy a heater which switches off when it reaches the desired temperature and it turns on when it gets too cold.

As for eels I can't help you there but good luck.

Also how small is a smallish tank? Say 12", 18", 24" etc? Just a rough idea?

 

[MoneyMitch]

Hi everyone,

I'm interested in purchasing an eel.

I'm completely new to the care of tropical fish and would like to know the basics.

I want a smallish tank. Small enough to sit on top of a desk.

What size would be recommened for an eel?
Can I keep any other tropical fish with eels?
What is the smallest eel you can keep?

Also, about the heating etc... How would I go about doing all this? The right temp and what I need etc?

im going to stop u right here..... eels are way hard to keep and NEED a ig tank. find a different fish

 

[OohFeeshy]

Generally the smallest tank for eels is 3ft long (for peacock eels, larger species like fire and tyretrack need much larger tanks). However, for a smaller tank, possibly look into kuhli loaches, which are small and eel like. A group of 6 or so in a 10g tank would leave you a bit of room for some small midwater fish.

 

[Mikaila31]

A caecilian would work in a 20L gal., but they are not very common in the trade. You could go with eel-like fish, for example the Khuli Loach would work with a couple in a 20gal.

 

[Jallen]

A caecilian would work in a 20L gal., but they are not very common in the trade. You could go with eel-like fish, for example the Khuli Loach would work with a couple in a 20gal.

More like 5-10 if he's not going to have anything else.

Kuhli loaches only hang around the bottom and although eel-like in shape, they are small and peaceful, not really anything like an eel apart from its vaguely similar appearance.

The problem with many types of eel is that they can escape pretty much anything. I've not seen eels in the trade at all really except for marine which of course need a big tank... It's not really something which is easily do-able. I'm sure an eel from the UK could do fine in a medium sized tank since they can live in both fresh and salt water, but I don't know whether that's legal. Plus there is the fact that it can escape easily.