Need Help! Fire eel not eating.

[riverfishguy]

I got a 7-8 inch fire eel from the LFS 3 weeks ago and as far as I can tell he hasn't eaten once. I've tried HBH super soft, Hbh Shrimp pellets, Hikari Bio Pure Bloodworms, Mysis shrimp, krill, white worms, and earthworms. He sniffs food then looks around expectantly for food. It's like he doesnt even realise it's food. It's been long enough since ive seen him eat that im getting worried.

[Bre]

I have 3 striped peacock eels and I have NEVER seen them eat. I assume they must because I have had them for 3 months and their weight looks healthy. I feed frozen bloodworms, krill, plankton,glassworms, and brine shrimp. Maybe he does eat and you just don't see him as with mine.

[thefishguy7]

:iagree: Yeah, it's common not to see your spiny eel eat. When it gets bigger you should see him/her a lot more.:iagree:

[bitme4u]

:iagree: thats very true i have never seen my tire track eel eat either but hes growing so i know he does

[ShadowBass]

You guys don't understand, this fire eel is NOT eating. It's not that we don't see him eat, the food goes untouched no matter how long it is in the tank.

Just from the fact that he seems to be losing condition leads me to believe that he hasn't picked up one bit of food.

[killerfish]

hmmm check your water
are there other fish in the tank ?
what kind of tank planted, drift wood , rocks ?


my fire eel would eat blood worms out of my hand so i saw him eat for sure however i lost my peacock spiny eel a little while a go i finally got him to eat some worms but it was to late he was to weak to eat any more he died on top of his food very sad poor thing it was soooo skinny i feel really bad for that poor guy

[ShadowBass]

The water is fine.
The tank he's in now (for about 3 days) is with our baby clown loaches and dats and some others (various juvenile fish other than a few platies and my angelfish) in our 75g inhopes that they'd get him eating plus the water quality is kept pretty perfect. That tank gets a ton of feeding of small foods daily because of the baby loaches.
The parameters on that tank are no1=0, no2=0 and nitrates=5. The pH is consistently 7.4. The TDS is around 160. I would be surprised if anything else is wrong with it since there's clown loaches in there, a SA leaf fish and some other fairly sensitive fish and they're doing great.
It's aquascaped with some mopani wood and pvc and plastic decorations.

Up until a few days ago he was in with our arowana and clown knife in a 125g. We don't test the water as much in there since it's only those two fish plus the fire eel at one time, but the pH is the same (that's what it comes out at in the tap and with all our tapwaters buffering it doesn't vary) and the nitrates are always below about 20. Obviously no ammonia or nitrites.
In that tank there was absolutely no competition for food because our clown knife only eats beef heart and the arow eats pellets + krill and sometimes steals some of the knifes beef heart but hates everything else.
That tank isn't really aquascaped, it just has a bunch of pvc for the clown to hide in and also the fire eel when he was in there. The arow doesn't exactly use decorations and the tank is temporary anyway, lol.

The only similarities between the tanks is that they're barebottom so we're thinking about moving him into sandbottom pretty soon to see if he'll be more comfortable maybe and try to eat. I doubt it will do much since he has plenty of hiding spots either way, but I guess it's worth a try. I'm not very optimistic since we had a peacock eel at one time that was in a tank with sand, no food competition, perfect conditions and it didn't want to eat either no matter what we tried. At least this fire eel is bigger and has a bigger mouth so there's more options as far as food, but he doesn't seem to care about any of it.

[Oni Angel-Hannya]

Good luck.They always seem to do this!

[ShadowBass]

Good luck.They always seem to do this!

Thanks.

We rarely have trouble getting fish to eat, but I guess spiny eels in general just don't like us :screwy:. Usually fish will at least go for live food.

[SimonL]

Fire eels are a pain to get eating, at least it's a small one. I had an imported 30"er that would only eat live earthworms (at night). Have you tried live blackworms?

[ocellatus]

What was he eating at the LFS? I've always through that small earthworm chunks / frozen blood worms were irresistible to eels :confused:

I have a TT that is a pig for frozen blood worms, and started eating them on day 1. From what I've read that is definitely an anomaly with spiny eels.

Have you tried soaking the food with garlic? I've heard that works for picky polypterus when they go on hunger strike.

Good luck!

O

[jiapei]

my fire eel only eat living earthworm..he is driving me mad!

[sQwiReL]

feed only live food AND with the lights off. also got to stick the food literally right in front of their face. if black worms dont work, try another kind of worm. i had the same problem.

[ntxhuav1]

i have a fresh water snowflake eel...i've had him for about 1 month or so. Never seen him eat. i'm just assuming he is. Sometimes i can't tell. I leave food for him in his cave, sometimes the food disappears, times its still there. The only other fish that go in the cave thing are plecos so i guess it has to be the eel

[ShadowBass]

Fire eels are a pain to get eating, at least it's a small one. I had an imported 30"er that would only eat live earthworms (at night). Have you tried live blackworms?

We haven't tried black worms yet. I'm going to order some in as soon as possible, however our credit card company is being stupid at the moment so it'll probably take a few days to get some in from online. We asked our LFS to order some in a long time ago and they still haven't, so I dunno what the deal is there. No one in town carries that kind of stuff normally.


What was he eating at the LFS? I've always through that small earthworm chunks / frozen blood worms were irresistible to eels


He didn't get a chance to eat there. We got him the same day their order came in and he was still in the shipping bag (yeah I know, a risk, but he would've been snapped up that same day by someone else). Actually there were 2 and we bought both, but the other simply disappeared. It was when they were in with our arow and clown knife so I'm guessing he got out somehow even though I thought I had the tank well sealed, neither of them could have consumed him like that. You can't get behind the stand for that tank at all so there's no way of telling unless you drain the tank and physically move everything. So for all I know I have another fire eel dried up behind my tank...


also got to stick the food literally right in front of their face. if black worms dont work, try another kind of worm. i had the same problem.


He spazzes out if anything comes near him. In fact he got extremely annoyed by a little piece of earthworm squiggling around by him for a few minutes and swam off.

Thanks for your comments. I'll try black worms and if he won't eat those I'm not sure what else I can do.
I have some garlic extract I can try too I guess, so we'll see.

Maybe I'll order in some little tiny red worms too. The ones at the store weren't huge but they weren't real small either, so maybe that will help.

[ecuacura]

I just bought a fire eel also and for the first few days I fed frozen blood worms. She would eat them and then spit them out, so I never actually saw her eat them, but 20-30 mins later, there were none to be found in the tank. Today I got some live blackworms from the LFS and put a small pinch in there. Well... most of them burrowed down in the gravel, but I guess she will find them someday, right? Next time I will feed when she is out and about. She's too new to the tank for me to try to put them right in front of her right now.

My LFS fed all of their eels blackworms and bloodworms, so I'm sticking with those. Good luck with yours!

J

[ecuacura]

Sorry to doublepost but...

I FINALLY saw her eat tonight!!! Live blackworms did the trick. She's been hiding under a huge clump of java moss, and I put a nice couple of pinches of blackworms in the tank tonight. She kinda worked her way through the moss picking them off one by one. She's gonna be a little fatty!! I'm so happy to see her eat now.

My advice would be to make sure that yours has a good hiding place. The current from my filter carries the worms down near her spot on the moss, but you may need to help get them a little closer to your eel. As soon as mine could get the first few that dug down to where she was hiding, she came out and started hunting for the others. She never came out into the wide open, but ventured out more than usual to eat. I only have about 1-2 days worth of worms left for her, so I will run back out this weekend to get more.

Also, you might want to feed a little before lights on, or about a half hour after lights out. They are smarter critters than we give them credit for and won't give up their hiding spot if they feel threatened. My eel's eyesight appears to be excellent. While I was watching her, as still as I could be, my dog jumped on the bed behind me, my eel saw it and shot back into the moss again.

Good luck! Try blackworms and hiding spots!

J

[ShadowBass]

I think mine is now eating since I can see a little bulge in his belly.:)
He must be picking up little pieces of stuff at night now since we've been dropping stuff in just after the lights go out.

I figured this would be a better tank for him since there's always a ton of food because of the baby clown loaches and other fish, so I'm glad I didn't move him again. Hopefully he starts eating consistently.

As far as giving up his hiding space, he moves around the tank a whole lot, so I don't think that's an issue. There's a bunch of pvc and other decorations in there for the clown loaches, so he always has somewhere to go.

I wish I knew where the other one went. I still don't see any places where it could have gotten out, but that's the only option since nothing was there to eat it :(

Anyway, good luck with your own eel, sounds like you're off to a good start.
I've yet to try any blackworms on mine yet, but I do have some on order so I should have them within the next day or so.

[ShadowBass]

Hmmm...well we found our other eel unfortunately.

He was pretty crispy at this point. The only way I see that he may have gotten out is by swimming out the opening where the water flows out of one of the emperor filters. My husband thinks he probably filled the tank too high during one of our water changes and it gave him just enough extra help that he could slither out.
Pretty disappointing now that the other one seems to be eating.

[charliegirl]

with my fire eel, I thought i had it sorted and he was slowly starting to eat then a couple of days later he was swimming around strange like in circles and couldnt get far seemed to be struggling i kept a close eye on him but by the end of the day he died im not sure weather it was cause it took a while to eat or maybe a parasite he was only in with 4 clown loaches at the time, i really want to try again with another eel but am worried if they are hard to get to eat might not be the right fish for me, so my tank is sitting rather empty at the mo with just the loaches and new edition of a oscar. Anyway good luck with your fire eel..

[ermgravy]

if all else fails spinny eels wont refuse live river/feeder shrimp!