# Hitchhiker Eel



## Iishan (Mar 2, 2013)

I recently discovered a small moray eel living secretly in my 120g reef tank. i have no idea what kind of eel he is but there are a few things that indicate Moray to me: the head structure, the small protrusions near the nose, and the round hole gills at side of the head. he must have come on a piece of live rock i bought. i must have had him for about 4 or 5 years and i never knew it. recently he decided to show himself, what a surprise. now i know where all my gobies and shrimp have been going. over the past few weeks ive been trying to catch him, it was a long process but with a little persistance and luck i did it and did not have to drain the tank and start chizzeling open rocks (as ive heard some people in my situation had to do). this is how i caught him:
-i fed him a small piece of frozen silverside at about 2 am every friday for 2 weeks (he is almost completely nocturnal)
-now he had a taste for the bait i would use in my trap
-then i built a trap







-built it myself and it worked great, very proud of it
-the trap is a pvc pipe, capped at one end with a trap-door on the other. the trap-door snaps shut when i pull a string. there is also a string with bait tied on that runs from the front and out a hole in the back. i placed it in the sand close to the burrow he was in. he smelled the bait almost right away. when he got close to the bait i would pull it a lil deeper inside then once half his body was in the trap i let him bit on then i pulled it all the way to the back and snapped the door shut.
-success right? nope a lump of algae had prevented the door from closing all the way and he got away. 
-luckily he was very hungry so i set the trap again, this time i scooped the sand away from the enterance so the front inch was not touching the sand.
did the same thing again and it worked perfectly.
-this was all done during day-time. he was very hungry, because i did not feed him the week before so he hadnt eaten much for 2 weeks. this was because the week before i tried to trap him unsuccessfuly: i placed the trap near his burrow at 2am but i wasnt watching the bait close enough, after i set the trap i looked around in the tank for like a minute and when i looked back he had dragged the bait to the front of his burrow and was doing the "aligator death roll" trying to rip it off the string.
-when i caught him i put him in a large bucket with some small live rocks and an airstone and lid while i set up a temporary tank
-hes about 7 inches long, i have no idea what kind of eel it is. right now hes in a 10g temporary tank, i have a 50g tank that i bought on craigslist but i didnt notice till it was too late that it had been repaired with silicone. luckily its not leaking, i tested it outside. so tomorow im gonna built an ugly stand and get it running. i also picked up a piece of plexiglas that i will cut to tightly seal off the top, eels are masters at escaping. this setup will hopefully only be until summer when i get some money together i want to upgrade to a larger display and use the 50g (which is not drilled) as the sump. 
-pretty cool eh?!


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## The Guy (Nov 26, 2010)

Nice job catching him, so what are you doing with him now? I notice you got a couple of bubble algea which I would suggest you try and get out of your tank with out breaking them open, because if they get broken open in the tank you will be infested.


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## Iishan (Mar 2, 2013)

Here are more pics of the eel, can anyone help ID its a juvenile 7inches long and at least 5 years old


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## Iishan (Mar 2, 2013)

heres the trap







holes drilled so it shuts faster














bait ona string







bamboo pin attached to string holds open door







release pin goes through air tubing


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## Iishan (Mar 2, 2013)

ya ithe bubble algae is definatly on my to do list but not too many yet, thanks!


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## AdobeOtoCat (Dec 10, 2011)

Try going to canreef and post it there. Theyll be on top of the id asap. Nice trap btw. I cant even trap.little mice in my basement. Haha

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE


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## Iishan (Mar 2, 2013)

The Guy said:


> Nice job catching him, so what are you doing with him now?


gonna keep it. hes in a 10g tank now and oveer the weekend im setting up a 50g tank for him


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## Iishan (Mar 2, 2013)

AdobeOtoCat said:


> Try going to canreef and post it there.


i cant activate my account, i wont send me an email. it says Shaw email accounts dont work so i guess thats what i have. anyone know how i can get around this?


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## AdobeOtoCat (Dec 10, 2011)

Just make a gmail account. Hotmail account. Yahoo account. Ya shaw emails wont work. 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE


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## Dietmar (Dec 15, 2011)

Ingenious trap! 
Good find with the LR
+1 on the bubble algae. It can creep up on you and go way out of control fast if your nitrates and phosphates rise.


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## JTang (Apr 21, 2010)

Nice trap! I'm gonna build something to catch a big, fat damsel! BTW, my tangs love those bubble algaes. Some nice red ones came with a frag that I bought last year. I didn't take them off since they have such intense red color... my yellow tang got raid of them within a minute.


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## scott tang (Jan 29, 2012)

chest nut eel it looks like can i have it il buy it lol


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## Iishan (Mar 2, 2013)

scott tang said:


> chest nut eel it looks like can i have it il buy it lol


sorry everyone, this one is definatly a keeper


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## RandomTabby (Mar 15, 2013)

Fabulous job, very nice trap, and when your hard work paid off you got a free eel!


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## Foxtail (Mar 14, 2012)

I think its awesome that it has been in the tank that long and you never knew. Makes you wonder... If something that size can hide in there for that long, what else is hiding in there.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


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## scott tang (Jan 29, 2012)

After thinking bout. It looks like a chest nut almost 100%I been looking awile for one lol il give you 40 ?if not that's cool gel get bout13 "


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## Iishan (Mar 2, 2013)

Canreef suspects it is a Golden Dwarf Moray and after checking out some pics of that aswell as Chestnut, im inclined to agree with Canreef. Golden dwarfs can come in darker duller colours, like mine, and it doesnt have the curved hook shaped jaw that a Chestnut Moray has.


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## scott tang (Jan 29, 2012)

no not dwarf golden body shape rong and eyes rong


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## Iishan (Mar 2, 2013)

maybe your right scott, but i dont think it looks like a chestnut moray either. i guess ill keep digging. any other thoughts?


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## scott tang (Jan 29, 2012)

ya looks like that kinda jaw i the pic to me what coler or type of teath chest nuts have clear big teeth wile goldens have small white ones


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## Iishan (Mar 2, 2013)

i was at JL aquatics today and they have the typical yellow golden dwarfs in stock, $160 each or $400 for a pair


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## Iishan (Mar 2, 2013)

heres some pics i got last night


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## scott tang (Jan 29, 2012)

might be like a coler morph of a dirty yellow eel they max out at armoud 8 inch chest nuts are like 12-16 dwarf golden eels max at about 15-20 i think not 100 %on that


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## coral frager (Oct 17, 2011)

from your pics he seems to be a very rare dwarf golden eel they are worth 150 dollars and if he is a dwarf golden eel he is a full grown adult and known to be skidish.


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## scott tang (Jan 29, 2012)

Dwarf golden moray eel,Gymnothorax melatremus colorful tropical fish pictures dwarf golden brown coler morph <<<<<< look at the blue eyes 
the one in your a pic has yellow ring looking eyes 
http://www.johneasley.com/gallery2/main.php/v/Underwater/Chestnut_Moray_Eel.jpg.html << chest nut eels seem to develop difrent jaw and tooth structure as they mature i notised that with mine a year a go he ate more crustations as a baby as he got older he would only eat fish and squid


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## Iishan (Mar 2, 2013)

Mystery solved guys!

this is the response i got from Wet Web Media:
Let's see. It's a moray eel and no other type of eel. There are eight 
small and brown morays known to science to far. Visible on your pics we 
have a slightly darker rim around the eye and white pores on the jaw. This 
leaves three species. I think we can rule out G. panamensis, which should 
be larger after five years and has a slightly different head as well a 
dorsal fin origin more in direction to the head of the eel. There remain G. 
atolli (improbable, known only from Hawaii and Midway) and G. australicola 
(of which also the shape seems to be a perfect fit to your eel). I'd say 
you got yourself a Gymnothorax australicola (you are very lucky), a rather 
small moray eel, although I cannot completely outrule G. atolli. They can 
only be told apart by measuring their preanal length and counting their 
vertebrae. Nothing you'd like to do on a living specimen.


These people are soo awesome!


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## AdobeOtoCat (Dec 10, 2011)

Awesommeee 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE


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## scott tang (Jan 29, 2012)

i agree with Gymnothorax atolli


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## AquaAddict (Dec 4, 2010)

HMMmmm....would that trap work on a very large Emerald Crab that is eating my corals? I did'nt buy him btw, he was a hitch hiker.

AquaAddict


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## scott tang (Jan 29, 2012)

if you cach him i want him lol


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## Iishan (Mar 2, 2013)

AquaAddict, this trap worked for me because the eel really liked the bait, i think it would work for you if you found a bait that ur crab likes. to trap the eel eel i used frozen silver-sides. they are really smelly and anytime i put a piece in all my hermit crabs would go crazy trying to find it. maybe try feeding this emerald crab with some food on a stick, that way he will get a taste for the bait.


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