New eel! Need help identifying please!

[GreenTerrorNoob]

So i was at jacks pets and they had a few eels not labeled or priced so i asked manager and he could find them in his directory and made a few calls with no luck he eventualy offered to sell me one for 8.99 i jumped at the deal . I need help identifying tho at first glance i thought of a half banded spiny eel.. Am i correct? Thznks for the help!

 

[HUKIT]

You forgot to add pictures.

 

[GreenTerrorNoob]

Heres a photo

 

[GreenTerrorNoob]

Heres another

 

[GreenTerrorNoob]

Any help?

 

[Jess1ca]

Can't help ya but, wow, that thing is AWESOME!

 

[HUKIT]

Any help?

I'll be honest I don't know a thing about eels, but looking at pictures of the half banded I'd say your right or at least very very close.

 

[Gboy66]

I'll be honest I don't know a thing about eels, but looking at pictures of the half banded I'd say your right or at least very very close.

+1 i'd say it is definitly a type of spiny. At first ithought tirrtrack, but that isnt it. Nor is it a fire. Cool fish! Hope you have room for him to grow!

 

[GreenTerrorNoob]

I cant get him to eat anything? Algea wafers. Bloodworms, mysis shrmp , plankton . Flakes and cichlid pellets.. Im about to move on to something live? Any help?

 

[HUKIT]

I wouldn't be to concerned seeing how he's a new arrival, I generally leave the lights out for 24-48hrs without feeding to help relax the fish. I do know that most eels are carivoires that do well on things like bloodworms, nightcrawlers, or prawns in conjunction with a quality staple pellet. You also could ask the pet store what they were feeding him during the time they had him.

 

[Tony Gill]

Looks like Macrognathus circumcinctus to me.

Tony

 

[abstract373]

its a tire track eel... i have a one thats 10 inches feed him ghost shrimp red wigglers live black worms & assortment of frozen stuff he eat when the light goes out so its going to be tuff to see em eat...it took mine about a week before i could tell if he ate...good luck great find..its going to need some type of caves

 

[Duddits]

It's actually a zig zag eel which is commonly mistaken as a tire track eel. The zig zag has the light brown on the top of its back as for the tire track has a pattern from back to belly. As he said above, live food is best preferably ghost shrimp. Eels tend to want to hunt for their food. Use some PVC pipe in the tank to build caves and hide aways for him as well as the shrimp. Great find. Good luck!

 

[George9]

Awesome find!

 

[Tony Gill]

Yet more problems with common names. It seems the name "zigzag eel" has been applied to a number of different species. Moreover, even photos on the web that use scientific names are messed up - or at least those on aquarium websites are. I have tried to track down some of the research papers on Asian mastacembelids to see if I can sort this out a bit, but these are scattered and not all are readily available electronically. Macrognathus circumcinctus is the only species on Fishbase that approaches the unidentified fish in question. Fishbase is not without its share of errors, but in this case their identification seems to match Roberts's 1986 key to Asian species. Fishbase doesn't provide a common name for this species, but uses "zig-zag eel' for Mastacembelus armatus - which is a rather different fish altogether.

Tony

 

[Gage]

It is a Mastscembelus circumcinctus, stays quite small