Anyone want to lose a finger? ... new fish.

[Hocky]

Because my aquarium just got a lot more dangerous. I added a 2+ foot long Tesselata eel yesterday. He is about as big around as my fist and has a lot of very sharp fang style teeth. Beautiful fish, for sure. Time will tell if all of my other fish will survive this addition. The positive note is that he came from another tank that had other fish in it, but these things are the top of the food chain and their main diet in the wild is huge fish that they've snatch up. I had to tear down my entire tank to get the Zebra eel out so that it didn't get killed by this new eel.... he was too nice of a fish to risk and once I saw this Tess I just couldn't spend another day without it. haha

The picture is kind of crappy because he is currently in the process of digging himself a nice tunnel system and is throwing sand everywhere. I'll try to snap a better shot when it clears up - hopefully I can get one with him out completely and swimming. He is bright yellow across the top of his body and fades to white through the bottom. His coloration and patterns are very attractive in person. The huge teeth are just a bonus. ;-)

 

[timm]

That is really cool. But isn't he looking at your clown fish in the pic???

 

[Hocky]

haha, yea, time will tell on that. Most of my fish are pretty large, 7"+, but I have a handful of smaller ones like the clown. Even still, this guy could definitely kill any fish in the tank that he wants to, so we'll just see what his demeanor is. What a fish accepts as his normal environment goes a long way some times, so I have my fingers crossed that I don't wake up one morning and find out that he had a $1500 dinner. lol

 

[Hocky]

Main lights are off, but I caught him out swimming. For reference, the green fish w/ yellow tail beneath him is about 10" long.

 

[DrJRapp]

Your right there with me in ways to spend our money..lol What size tank does it take to house that big boy?

 

[Hocky]

The display is 225g, about 300g of total volume in the system. I am hoping to step up to a 300g display, but I need to buy another house first so that there is room where I can do it in a wall and have a good sized room behind it.

 

[Angela]

The subject made me click straight away! who doesn't want a chance to lose their finger!?!?

It is just beautiful! I love eels!

I have always had tanks, all kinds. at one point, I had over 15 tanks including one that was 1,200 ga with S Amer cichlids. I've had one reef tank and loved it.I found that the best time to watch the action was about 3am except then I would get fixated on the bloody "bad crabs" and next thing I knew, I was diving in with forceps and dropping them in the fish tank next to it for the triggers to gobble up. Hawkfish were my favorite, well maybe them and puffers, oh and wrasses...

and you're so right about critters eating one another. I came home once and one of my African cichlids (from Lake Tanganyika) had tried to swallow another and found them both dead - one halfway in the mouth of the other. That was about a $200 find.

since we are on well water, I have not been able to keep any tanks here. The PH comes out of the ground around 6.0 and even if I "stabilize it" it fluctuates too much for any fish to survive, much less thrive. I was in denial the first few years we were here and kept my last tank thinking... one day... well, I finally sold it to some guy down in Denver that wanted to put his pond fish in it during the winter. :-(

MORE PICTURES!
Angela

 

[Angela]

oh one more thing. Your tank shows it is very healthy just by looking at those blue tangs... those guys sure are the canaries of reef systems and yours looks very healthy.

 

[Hocky]

Thanks! My coral took a turn for the worst over the last 8 months or so because I had gotten pretty lax on maintenance, but I am back on it now and it is recovering well. Having such a heavy fish load and keeping a healthy reef is definitely a chore.

A 1200gal tank is incredible. That is huge. My current display is 225g with about 300g total water volume. As soon as I buy another house with a room suitable for an in-wall with a tank equipment room behind it, I plan to step up to a 300g display with about 500g total volume.

 

[Angela]

well things are looking good now!

I found it from some guy that had it stashed in a garage that came out of a house where it was built in. It was a monster, but a great breeding tank. You could, if you wanted, literally get in there to clean, but I just had LONG handles. It was around 10 feet long and 5 feet high and 3 1/2 feet deep. That really pushed the envelope on "helpful friends" when it came time to get that bad boy in the house (plexi)