Need Help! Fire eel not eating.

[ocellatus]

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

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..