Stout Moray (Muraena robusta)?

caietaro · Apr 23, 2024

Has anyone ever heard of, or had any experience with the Stout Moray Muraena robusta? One of my LFS got one in and it was such an interesting eel, definitely not one I’ve seen before. There’s barely any info on them out there that I can find, except for the limited into on Fish Base. Looks like they typically get around 4-5 feet long, but with a species name of “Robusta” I imagine they get quite thick! This one was only about a foot long. The clownfish in the pictures is about 3” for reference. Apologies for the terrible photos; didn’t have a yellow filter for my phone on me so I tried my best to edit the photos to show its color and pattern a bit better.

It had such a unique pattern and interesting behavior. I’m really tempted to get it, but don’t want to end up with a monster eel that needs a 500g tank down the road!

ISpeakForTheSeas · Apr 23, 2024

caietaro said:
Has anyone ever heard of,

I've heard of them, yes - never owned one or heard of someone owning one, though.

From what I've gathered (there's not much info out there that I can find on them), they have a huge head, and the body tapers down to more typical eel girth from there; the inside of their mouth is a bright orange; and they can reportedly grow to be 186 cm (63"), but I'd expect ~4-4.5' to be more typical in an aquarium.

I'd guess you'd want at least 200-250 gallons for it.

If you get one, please let me know how it goes, what it eats, etc.

HAAAAAAAA · May 19, 2024

caietaro said:
Has anyone ever heard of, or had any experience with the Stout Moray Muraena robusta? One of my LFS got one in and it was such an interesting eel, definitely not one I’ve seen before. There’s barely any info on them out there that I can find, except for the limited into on Fish Base. Looks like they typically get around 4-5 feet long, but with a species name of “Robusta” I imagine they get quite thick! This one was only about a foot long. The clownfish in the pictures is about 3” for reference. Apologies for the terrible photos; didn’t have a yellow filter for my phone on me so I tried my best to edit the photos to show its color and pattern a bit better.

It had such a unique pattern and interesting behavior. I’m really tempted to get it, but don’t want to end up with a monster eel that needs a 500g tank down the road!

Never heard of them, as for the care of these, it should be just like any other fangtooths just make sure to feed them a variety of goodies and they will be just fine, they definitely need atleast quite a bigger tank down the road (bigger the better but definitely more than 200gallons), I don't know about their aggression, but if they end up being like a tessalata i am sure that no eel or fish can be able to live comfortably with that robusta!

HAAAAAAAA · May 19, 2024

ISpeakForTheSeas said:
I've heard of them, yes - never owned one or heard of someone owning one, though.

From what I've gathered (there's not much info out there that I can find on them), they have a huge head, and the body tapers down to more typical eel girth from there; the inside of their mouth is a bright orange; and they can reportedly grow to be 186 cm (63"), but I'd expect ~4-4.5' to be more typical in an aquarium.

I'd guess you'd want at least 200-250 gallons for it.

If you get one, please let me know how it goes, what it eats, etc.

Oh? I thought that moray eels typically grow out to their full size in aquariums! Would you say that it's because of deficiency in their diets in captivity?

littlefoxx · May 19, 2024

caietaro said:
Has anyone ever heard of, or had any experience with the Stout Moray Muraena robusta? One of my LFS got one in and it was such an interesting eel, definitely not one I’ve seen before. There’s barely any info on them out there that I can find, except for the limited into on Fish Base. Looks like they typically get around 4-5 feet long, but with a species name of “Robusta” I imagine they get quite thick! This one was only about a foot long. The clownfish in the pictures is about 3” for reference. Apologies for the terrible photos; didn’t have a yellow filter for my phone on me so I tried my best to edit the photos to show its color and pattern a bit better.

It had such a unique pattern and interesting behavior. I’m really tempted to get it, but don’t want to end up with a monster eel that needs a 500g tank down the road!

Looks like its a big boy! 5 feet. Everything Ive seen says they are not usually in the trade. Looks like they get thick too, probably will need a pretty large tank for one and Im not sure I would put any other fish in due to how big it gets and lack of info on them as far as in captivity!

ISpeakForTheSeas · May 19, 2024

HAAAAAAAA said:
Oh? I thought that moray eels typically grow out to their full size in aquariums! Would you say that it's because of deficiency in their diets in captivity?

They do typically grow to full size or (nearly full) as I understand it, but this eel's reported common size (not max size) is 100 cm (a little over 39" or 3'); their reported max is 186 cm (a little over 73" or 6') - (Edit: and keeping mind that any specimen which is essentially double the common size is likely to be an extreme outlier) so I'd expect them to end up being somewhere in the middle; so ~4-4.5'

That said, deficiencies in the diet could definitely impact growth/max size in aquariums too.