Brichard's spiny eel

Care at a glance

Overview

Keep Brichard's spiny eel singly, one specialist to a tank, and build the setup around strong flow rather than a lot of decor. It is a slender, current-loving eel that threads the gaps between rounded stones, so a pile of smooth boulders over sand gives it the crevices it hunts through. It is peaceful but nearly blind, feeling for food, so it should not have to compete with fast, greedy fish; slow bottom feeders or calm mid-water fish make better company than boisterous ones. Feed sinking meaty foods it can track by scent and touch, such as bloodworm, blackworm, and small pieces of prawn. Around 200 liters with brisk, well-oxygenated water and a tight lid suits it.

In the wild

This eel lives in the rapids of the lower Congo, among rock crevices in fast, turbulent, highly oxygenated water. To echo that, give it strong current from a powerhead or spray bar, a bed of sand heaped with smooth rocks, and spotless water quality. Warm temperatures around 24 to 28 C and a near-neutral pH of about 6.5 to 7.8 suit it, but flow and oxygen matter more here than exact chemistry, since it is adapted to whitewater.

Good to know

Mastacembelus brichardi is a small spiny eel of the family Mastacembelidae, reaching about 17 centimeters. It is remarkable for being effectively blind and almost colorless, with tiny, skin-covered eyes and pale pinkish-white flesh. Marc Poll described it in 1958 and named it for the aquarium fish exporter Pierre Brichard. Breeding is unrecorded in aquaria, and the species is only rarely available.

Did you know

The lower Congo has some of the deepest, most violent river rapids on Earth, and they have driven fish there to evolve as if in caves: Brichard's spiny eel lost its eyes and its pigment in that whitewater, a blind, white river fish that never sees the inside of a cave.

Common questions

Related species

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• 

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• 

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