Garden Eel Tank - Updated

Our 55 gallon garden eel tank:

Garden eels have been a passion of mine ever since discovering them on a diving trip in the Caymans.  I had thought keeping them in a home aquarium would be impossible but was excited to discover that my assumption was not entirely true.  

We started our saltwater adventure with a 55 gallon reef tank.  We enjoyed the salt water tank and its inhabitants so much that dreams quickly formed regarding more and larger tanks.  A garden eel tank was in the back of my mind but I still thought they would be impossible to keep.  Fortunately, we attended the UT reef fest this past fall and Scott Michael’s talk about unusual salt water animals to keep.  Garden eels were mentioned.  We spoke to him after the show about a garden eel tank and were thrilled to discover they might not be as difficult as expected.  

We bought a used 55 gallon tank and the process started.  We looked up everything we could about keeping garden eels but were disappointed by the small amount of information available.  We discovered that sand depth and size is extremely important.  Gardens eels like sand depths anywhere between 4-8 inches.  Sand too fine will not form a stable burrow but sand too rough will damage their sensitive skins.  We decided to go with a size 1 sand and filled half the tank to a 6 inch depth.  We put some live rock on the shallow sand side of the tank to help with filtration.



A used 55g tank we picked up and did some work to.


115 pounds of sand later


A nearly full tank!



Time to Cycle!!!

Our research indicated that the eels would only eat water borne foods that were about at head height.  The eels would not make any effort to eat foods off the sand or out of their reach.  So we needed a way to keep the food circulating throughout the tank at eel height.  We decided a spray bar would serve the purpose.  We used tubing, pvc pipe, and an old maxi jet for the construction.  We mounted it halfway up the side of the tank at what we thought would be eel head height.  We also decided to run an additional maxi jet pump to increase circulation down the length of the tank.  For filtering we are using a HOB filter with carbon that is changed monthly along with weekly water changes.  We started the tank on a budget and are looking to add a skimmer and possible auto-feeder in the future.  We went cheap with lighting and decided to use regular fresh water lighting T8s.  We came to this decision because garden eels are found around 60ft depths and are not used to bright lighting.  Some of our research indicated that too bright lighting could be distressful to the eels. 



Our loot - 3 Hassi Garden Eels from LiveAquaria!  Like Xmas in Feb.




The waiting is the hardest part.  I hate waiting for acclimation, but it is so important



Edited by jdinchak - June 18 2012 at 8:09pm

We started our feeding attempts with mysis, but it was too large and tended to scare them.  We then switched to frozen brine shrimp which they quickly acclimated to eating.  There was some concern with the location one had picked as to whether the current would bring it enough food.  Within the 1st month it had moved burrows two times to locations with better water movement for food.  They are now eating a diet of arctipods, brine shrimp, and a fish food frozen mix and seem quite healthy.  They are fed once daily with small amounts at a time.  The tank has several hermit crabs to help eat old food.  The spray bar and maxi jets work well to keep the food floating long enough for the eels to eat their fill.  

They are quite active during the day searching the waters for food.  As they have gotten more comfortable they emerge higher from their holes.  Once the lights turn off they quickly retreat into their burrow for the night and will even cover the hole with a bit a sand.  They are a bit skittish when shadows darken the tank as people walk by but they will usually quickly come back out.  Like all fish, they have different personalities and behaviors.  One is very brave and is always the first to come out when there is new stuff going on and one is very skittish and will retreat at any movement.  One is a piggy and will stretch to his maximum to eat any food morsel.  There is one that prefers larger chunks of food and one that prefers extremely tiny foods.

We have really been enjoying our garden eels.  They are fun to watch and can be pretty active during the day.  Their bodies move with the currents like they are dancing.  They also spend time cleaning out their burrows and we will just suddenly see puffs of sand in the water. 















A video of our Eels feeding. 







Edited by jdinchak - April 15 2010 at 11:54pm

Those are awesome! I enjoyed reading of your success and hope it continues.

Dang that is awesome.  I may have to leave my own house to come over.

Okay that is cool.  I might have to copy you.

jdinchak wrote:   Would also like to note that this entire project started because of the Reef-Fest in November.  Scott Micheal (great speaker) was very gracious to talk to us after wards and gave us a lot of good advice (as well as the confidence needed) to get started.  Thanks WMAS for making that happen!!!

That is sooo cool. Thanks for answering my questions in such detail. It's funny how small those Eels are. All the pics I've seen make them look much larger. The sand looks pretty small. I wonder if Oolitic sand is similar. It's round and soft. That deep sand is excellent fitration. If I were still in the valley, I'd definitely come by.

I love this thread.  That is so cool to see how successful you have been so far.  Do you think you may add more eels later?

Pretty amazing creatures.