One-stripe spiny eel

Care at a glance

Overview

Keep the one-stripe spiny eel on its own, as it is solitary and grows too large and territorial to share space with its own kind. It is a big burrower that lies buried in sand through the day and hunts the bottom at night, so a deep, soft sand bed and roomy floor space are essential. It is calm with tankmates it cannot swallow but will eat small and medium fish, so keep only large, even-tempered companions. Feed hearty meaty foods such as whole earthworms, prawn, mussel, and strips of white fish in the evening. This eel needs around 450 liters with a long footprint and a heavy, tight lid.

In the wild

The one-stripe spiny eel lives in the lowland Ganges and Brahmaputra, in ponds, ditches, paddies, and slow, weedy rivers over silt and sand. Give it a soft sand floor deep enough to bury in, sturdy plant and wood cover, and gentle flow. It does best warm, around 23 to 28 C, in soft to neutral water near pH 6.0 to 7.5, with clean, well-filtered conditions to match a large, hungry fish.

Good to know

Macrognathus aral is the giant of its genus in the family Mastacembelidae, reaching about 60 centimeters where smaller Macrognathus stop near a quarter of that. Bloch and Schneider described it in 1801. A single clean stripe runs the length of its olive body. Despite study of its wild reproduction, it has no established record of breeding in aquaria.

Did you know

Most Macrognathus spiny eels are modest fish of twenty-odd centimeters, but the one-stripe grows to around sixty, making it by far the largest member of the genus and a genuine tankbuster among the otherwise small spiny eels.

Common questions

Related species

• Lesser spiny eel

  Macrognathus aculeatus

  Freshwater

  15 in (38 cm)85 gal (320 L)73–82°F (23–28°C)

• 

  Peacock Spiny Eel

  Macrognathus siamensis

  Freshwater

  11.8 in (30 cm)70 gal (265 L)75–82°F (24–28°C)

• 

  Zebra spiny eel

  Macrognathus zebrinus

  Freshwater

  11.8 in (30 cm)42 gal (160 L)72–81°F (22–27°C)
• Frecklefin spiny eel

  Macrognathus maculatus

  Freshwater

  11 in (28 cm)66 gal (250 L)73–82°F (23–28°C)

• 

  Mae Klong spiny eel

  Macrognathus meklongensis

  Freshwater

  9.8 in (25 cm)70 gal (265 L)73–82°F (23–28°C)
• Half-ocellated spiny eel

  Macrognathus semiocellatus

  Freshwater

  9.1 in (23 cm)53 gal (200 L)73–82°F (23–28°C)