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Splendid Garden Eel
Gorgasia preclara
The Splendid Garden Eel is a delicate, tube-dwelling fish with a vibrant striped pattern. It demands a deep, fine sand bed to bury itself and requires continuous zooplankton feeding in strong currents.
Class:Actinopteri
Order:Anguilliformes
Family:Congridae
Subfamily:Heterocongrinae
Genus:Gorgasia
Species:Gorgasia preclara
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Water Temperature
24 - 27 °C
pH Value
8.1 - 8.4
Water type
Freshwater
Adult size
40 cm
Minimum tank volume
>= 500 L
Minimum group
>= 1
GH
0 dGH
KH
1 - 2 dKH
TDS
10 - 20 ppm
Conductivity
16 - 31 uS/cm
Species description
Geographical Origin and Habitat: Indo-Pacific Ocean (Maldives, Indonesia, Philippines). Lives in very dense colonies on immense sandy plains swept by strong submarine currents, generally positioned at the base or margins of coral slopes.
Taxonomy and Morphology: Splendid Garden Eel. It is a Conger eel (Congridae family). The body is extremely thin and up to 40 cm (16 inches) long. Possesses disproportionately large eyes to locate plankton and a hardened pointed tail for reverse-digging into the sand.
Social Behavior: Stationary and hypersensitive creature. Spends its entire life in self-excavated vertical burrows, exposing only the upper two-thirds of its body to catch plankton carried by the current. At the slightest alarm or shadow, it retracts lightning fast, disappearing into the sand.
Coloration and Sexual Dimorphism: The most fascinating of the genus: presents thick alternating bands of pure white and bright orange, giving it the appearance of a "candy cane". No evident sexual dimorphism. Juveniles are lighter in color.
Care, breeding and tankmates
Aquarium Setup: EXTREME SETUP: the aquarium must be designed around them. They STRICTLY require a bed of very fine sand (sugar-size) AT LEAST 25-30 cm (10-12 inches) deep, to allow them to bury themselves entirely. Strong laminar currents and a covered tank.
Diet and Feeding: Obligate passive zooplanktivore. Will NEVER chase food: waits for the current to bring it to its mouth. Administer continuous clouds of cyclops, oyster eggs, brine shrimp nauplii and suspended micro-mysis in the current 3-4 times a day.
Water Quality: Perfect Reef parameters. The titanic challenge is keeping the water clean (Nitrates close to zero) while having to feed the tank with massive doses of microplankton daily. Very powerful skimmers, macroalgae (refugium) and water changes are the only solution.
Compatibility and Cohabitation: Extremely timid, they literally die of fear if paired with large or frantic fish. Monospecific tank or shared only with tiny pipefish (Syngnathidae), small peaceful gobies and seahorses. No fish that stirs up the bottom.
Aquarium Breeding: Never achieved in captivity. They are pelagic spawners; eggs and larvae (leptocephali) spend months at the mercy of ocean currents before descending to the bottom and settling as small eels in the sand.
Risks and Diseases: Very high mortality rate in captivity due to shallow substrates (they rub against the bottom glass contracting bacterial infections in the tail) and deadly stress induced by tankmates. Acclimatization requires extreme darkness and silence.
Geographic Origin and Distribution
Indo-Pacific Ocean (Maldives, Indonesia, Philippines). Lives in very dense colonies on immense sandy plains swept by strong submarine currents, generally positioned at the base or margins of coral slopes.
Origin
Tropical oceans and reefsSouth and Southeast AsiaEast Asia
Fish profile
- Temperament
- No verified data available
- Diet
- No verified data available
- Life expectancy
- No verified data available
- Adult size
- 40 cm
- Sex ratio
- No verified data available
- Feeding frequency
- No verified data available
- Bioload
- High
- Flow
- No verified data available
- Jump risk
- No verified data available
- Reproduction
- No verified data available
- Compatibility & tankmates
- No verified data available
- Tank level
- No verified data available
The catalog's scalar value is 40 cm. The FishBase SPECIES table (v25.04 snapshot) source reports a maximum adult measurement of 40 cm for this species, recorded as total length (TL). The taxonomic record consulted is Gorgasia preclara (v25.04); male or unsexed record. These figures are not interchangeable: the first is the profile's editorial reference, whereas the second is a published maximum under a specific measurement convention; differences among sources can reflect sex, population, life stage and measuring method.
The single-adult profile is classified as high bioload. The bioload-v2 rubric deterministically assigns this class from the verified maximum length of 40 cm; it is a catalog management category, not a direct measurement of waste output.
Window to the official scientific data of the species
Data synced on: 06/15/2026
Scientific Parameters & Models
- Trophic level
- 3.4 ± 0.45 se
- Resilience
- Medium (1.4 - 4.4 years)
- Phylogenetic uniqueness (PD50)
- 0.5001
- Bayesian Length-Weight
- a = 0.00102, b = 3.06
VulnerabilityLow to moderate vulnerability (30 / 100)
Image gallery
Licensed images linked to the species or, when marked, to the closest representative taxon.
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