Snowflake eel

Care at a glance

Overview

The snowflake eel is a mostly peaceful moray that spends the day hidden in the rock of a saltwater tank. It is hardy and easy to keep.

Caring for the snowflake eel

Give the snowflake eel at least 50 gal (189 L), with plenty of live rock offering caves to disappear into. Morays are relentless escape artists, so above all, keep the lid sealed with no gaps. A snowflake eel that finds any opening at the waterline will use it, often within the first few weeks in a new tank. Most losses come from a poorly secured tank rather than anything else.

Keep the water at 72 to 79°F (22 to 26°C) with a pH of 8.1 to 8.4. Offer chunks of fish, shrimp and other meaty foods a couple of times a week.

It is a predator rather than a fighter, and generally calm with tank mates it cannot swallow. It leaves corals and anemones alone, but it treats shrimp, crabs and other crustaceans as food. Skip it if your plan includes a cleanup crew or ornamental shrimp.

Good to know

Echidna nebulosa, also known as the clouded or starry moray, belongs to a group of morays sometimes called pebbletooth eels. The pebbletooth name comes from their blunt, rounded teeth, built for crushing crustacean shells. Fish-eating morays have long, needle-like teeth instead, for grabbing slippery prey. Like other true eels, it has no pelvic or pectoral fins. Most snowflake eels in captivity stay well under their maximum length, more often topping out around 60 cm.

In the wild

Snowflake eels live across a huge stretch of the Indo-Pacific, from the Red Sea and East Africa to Hawaii. An isolated population turns up again along the eastern Pacific coast, from Mexico to Colombia. They spend the day tucked into reef crevices and rubble and come out at night to hunt.

Common questions

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