[BoBotheEel]

Hi all! New here. My hubby bought me my first sw tank that is a FOWLR tank. He has had a reef tank for numerous years and I got hooked when I bought my first eel and started him out in a small 20g which is now my feeder tank. I am very attached to this eel. Last week I added a green bird wrasse and small niger trigger to my 65g tank that houses my precious eel. The first few days were fine, everyone getting along great. The bird wrasse has since turned into a DEMON at times and is picking on the niger and trying to eat the eel. (I have had to remove the eel from its little beak already. He had it 1/3 down. Thank goodness the eel was okay and undamaged. Just scared s***less!) The bird wrasse is about 8-9" in length. My eel is about 9" and the niger is about 5". Even though the wrasse is a beautiful and unusual fish, I'm ready to take the wrasse back to lfs because I can't stand the thought of losing my eel. The wrasse is well fed and I know he isn't starving.

Any suggestions?


Thanks!

[leebca]

WELCOME TO REEFLAND!

The display aquarium you are using is too small for those fishes. They are, in part, feeling space stress. They will not share resources very well with each other as time goes by.

The adding of fish into the aquarium should not be that much, that soon. Good rule of thumb is to add only one fish and let at least 6 weeks go by before adding another fish. Your marine system needs time to adjust to the new bio-load. Regarding this, you can do some reading to better understand the whys for this recommendation:
What is Water Quality
The Secret Cycle

Lastly, adding fish that have not been properly quarantined is a risk to the fish you like so much. If you care about the eel, you will not add fish to its aquarium without first putting all additions through a quarantine process. This is more reading for you on that:
An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure: A Quarantine Tank for Everything by Steven Pro - Reefkeeping.com
A Fish Quarantine Process

You're putting aggressive fishes together and that has to be done very carefully, after you investigate and determine the general disposition of the fish you want to keep. You may have gotten some poor advice about what fish go together well. BEFORE you decide on a new addition, it is a good idea to post in a Forum and ask others their experience with a particular fish or how that fish might get along with other fishes. This would avoid the sequence of events you've been involved with.

I'm sure you've heard it before -- go slow. Part of that is planning; avoiding any spontaneous decisions; and getting others' opinions on what you'd like to do.

Even though your system is up and running, there may be some information here that you may still find useful: Setting Up a FOWLR Aquarium

I know it's a lot of reading, but the 'secrets of the experienced' are contained in those links/references.

Ask if you have any questions about what you read. We're here to help! Good luck!