First Salt Tank - What eel?

I have a 45 gallon corner cylinder tank that is currently being cycled. This is my first venture into saltwater. My plan is to get a dwarf zebra lionfish (dendrochirus zebra) and either a snowflake eel (echidna nebulosa) or a chainlink eel (echidna catenata). I was wondering if anyone has had any experience keeping either of these eels and could recommend one over the other. What are the pros and cons of each species?

 

I had a great snowflake for a few years, hand fed him. Best advice I can give you is provide a varied diet. I fed mine silversides pretty much exclusively and probably led to an earlier than needed demise. He was great.

 

A Chainlink will need a much bigger tank.125 gallons or more.The Snowflake is probably your only option but even that is pushing it. You will need to do weekly WC's with a small predator tank IME.

 

welcome to 3reef!i think the snowflake would be your best bet of the choices listed, if you are willing to push the envelope in the price category (maybe a few hundred bucks)there are dwarf morays that would be even better suited for the 45, and IMO are much better looking..the golden dwarf (gymnothorax melatremus) is my personal favorite and generally runs anywhere between $100-300 IIRC..as Vinny stated, two predators will require some serious filtration and/or more frequent WC's. HTH

 

Thanks for the advice. It looks like I'll be getting a snowflake eel as soon as the tank is done cycling. I'll probably wait a bit to get the dwarf lion, as i heard they are pretty finicky compared to the hardy eel. I'm still nervous about saltwater, so I'm trying to go slow. As far as filtration I currently have 2 filters (totaling 70 gallons of capacity) and a protein skimmer. Do you think I need more?

 

What kind of filters/protein skimmer???

 

Welcome to 3reef.