Ribbon eel

Rhinomuraena quaesita

Also known as Blue ribbon eel, Black ribbon eel, Ribbon moray, Bernis eel

SaltwaterFish

Ribbon eel (Rhinomuraena quaesita) — Bernard DUPONT from FRANCE · CC BY-SA 2.0

Care at a glance

Temperature: 75–81°F (24–27°C)
pH: 8.0–8.4
Adult size: 39.4 in (100 cm)
Minimum tank: 66 gal (250 L)
Temperament: Mostly peaceful
Social behavior: Solitary
Swim level: Bottom
Difficulty: Difficult
Breeding: No record
Rarity: Common
Reef safe: Reef safe with caution
Origin: Native to the Indo-Pacific, where it lives buried in sand or rubble on reef flats and lagoon slopes with only its head showing.
Family: Muraenidae

Overview

This is an expert-only fish with a poor survival record, since most starve in captivity. It needs a mature tank of at least 250 litres with a deep sand bed, secure rockwork and an absolutely tight lid, as it escapes readily, kept at 24 to 27 C and pH 8.0 to 8.4. Getting one to eat is the whole battle: start with live saltwater feeder shrimp or ghost shrimp and only later try to wean it onto frozen. It ignores corals but will eat small fish and shrimp, and it should never share a tank with aggressive feeders that outcompete it.

In the wild

The ribbon eel is a slender, ribbon-thin moray with flaring nostril flaps and a bright, changing colour. Juveniles are jet black with a yellow dorsal fin, subadults turn electric blue and yellow, and mature females become all yellow. It spends the day poking its head from a burrow, mouth open, swaying in the current.

Good to know

Rhinomuraena quaesita is a protandrous hermaphrodite: it starts life as a black male, becomes a blue male, then changes into a yellow female. It is the only moray with such dramatic colour and sex change tied to its life stage. Despite an eel-like length near 1 metre, its body is barely thicker than a pencil.

Did you know

A single ribbon eel changes sex and colour as it ages, so a black, a blue and a yellow eel that look like three different species can all be the same kind of fish at different points in its life.