#SNOWFLAKE EELS ARE SO NICE TOO.... they are so cute

[spearxwind]

Ok tumblr keeps crashing on me every time i try to submit these (4x now) hopefully this time works shdhdb. Some cool feeshes from an aquarium in florida i saw many years back :3

SDFKLFSD I GOT LIKE 3 ASKS LIKE THIS IT WAS RLY FUNNY

Thank you so much for showing though!!! THese are such swag creatures.... I am obsessed with the toadfish looking EXACTLY like the lil infographic. That creature can creach

[snowflakeeel]

I really want a snowflake eel now. Your blog has inspired me. Do you have advice?

Eels are great! I’m glad you’re interested! I’m gonna ramble about eels. i’ll try to sum it up at the end in list-format.

For a snowflake eel you need to have a large saltwater tank (eventually 50 gallons or more when they get to be adult size. if you have a male you might need to go to 75 or 100 gallons as they can get to be 36 inches long or more). A FOWLR (fish only with live rock) is fine (unless you want to do reefing, eels might mess with your nice aqua-reef-scape with their digging tho)

They can be pretty messy so make sure to have good filtration. I have a canister filter rated for 75-100 gallons.

Make sure they have lots of hiding places! If you can swing it, try to make it so they can move from one side of the tank to the other without being seen. They’ll feel safest this way. Oddly enough, the more hiding places you have the more often you’ll see the eel because they feel safe enough to come out! 

Feeding! Fish flakes wont exactly do it for them! They need shrimp, krill, crab, squid, octopus, mussels, clams, silversides, etc. Don’t hand feed. get a grabber-claw-thing like i have. (google “aquarium plant grabber” and you’ll see them. it’s actually supposed to be an aquascaping tool lmao) So you’ll need to have a steady supply of these types of foods. you can order them online but that can get pricey (they gotta keep them cold when they ship). the best thing to do is find a local fish market or a grocery store that sells stuff that your eel can eat. I used to buy food from bait shops but I started to worry about possibly parasites (bait doesn’t have to be food-grade) so I started just buying human-food-grade food for noodle. It’s kinda fun to go shopping because I can tell the person behind the counter that I’m getting food for my pet! they usually get a kick out of it. 

They can be picky eaters! Sometimes they’ll just stop eating for weeks. lots of eels do this and they seem to do it randomly. Just be prepared and always have garlic on hand if you need to encourage them a little more. 

Realize that they aren’t exactly the most exciting pets. Noodle is cute yeah but she spends 90% of her time sitting in one spot and breathing. (there’s a reason that I use the same gifs over and over, noodle doesn’t really do much) It’s like having a ball python that moves less of the time (and you can’t even pick it up.) It might be a good idea to get a larger tank (75 gallons) so you can have other fish in there to look at when the eel decides to hide for the day. The fish gotta be larger than the eel’s mouth. Noodle is a rare exception, she was very nice to the little yellowtail damsels, not every eel will be ok with having small tankmates, they might become expensive snacks later on. And no crustaceans. They might also become snacks. 

Although I don’t want to make it sound too boring. Feeding is a lot of fun! I love handing noodle an octopus and watching her go to town on it! also she likes to play peekaboo! (she’ll turn her head to watch you and if you move to the other side of the tank where she can’t see you from the pipe she’s in she’ll pop out another side to watch you. it’s pretty cute!)

Lastly, and I can’t stress this enough, make sure you have a really good lid. Eels are notoriously good at jumping and wriggling out of tanks. Lots of care sheets on snowflakes will say something like “most of the eels that die in captivity die because they escape their tanks” and i can see that being true! 

so here’s the short list-

50+ gallon saltwater tank

good filtration

lots of hiding places

variety of foods (+garlic)

feeding stick

very good lid

and if you want tankmates - they can’t be crustaceans and they should probably be larger than the eel’s mouth

Sorry this got a little long! Best of luck in all of your future-fish-endeavours!