Freshwater Eels

Two fish here, and only one is an eel. The fire eel is a true spiny eel: nocturnal, scaleless, and a burrower, so a deep bed of soft sand is housing rather than decoration. The dragon goby, sold also as the violet goby, is a brackish goby that scrapes algae and sifts detritus.

The dragon goby is the one people get wrong. Those teeth look like a predator’s and are not; it is nearly blind, feeds slowly, and starves in a community tank where fast fish clear the plate. The fire eel has its own catch — scaleless fish take ich hard and tolerate copper poorly, which is why I’d point you at the quarantined tier for this one.