Can someone with fire eel experience tell me the growth rate I can expect, had mine for about 6 months feeding bloodworms and now just recently got him or her to accept shrimp and earthworms. From what I've been told 3 years for them to reach true monster size, does this sound right?
Fire eel
- Thread starter tcav88
- Start date
Yes, once you get them taking big foods they grow really fast, mine is around 2 yrs old as far as we know and 24 inches and very thick, he has really started to motor now he is in my tank as he now has lots of room, lots of whole foods and lots of clean water in low Nitrate.
You should see 12" to 15" in a year easy.
You can literally watch them grow if you feed daily on shrimp, earthworms, mussel, whole fish like smelt, add vitamins to my frozen food (aquatic spray on vitamins) as I worry about thiaminise in the prawns/ shrimp / crustaceans etc. Mine will now take the larges lob worms which are over 6 inches long, he can do 10 and still be looking for more food. I also use Krill but that seems a little messy. I also try to sneak in a mix of sinking pellets but he is pretty good at avoiding those so far.
I also use frozen but cooked prawns as I THINK the cooking helps remove the Thiamin, I also thoroughly wash the frozen king prawns as some have Sulphites added to help remove bacteria.
You should see 12" to 15" in a year easy.
You can literally watch them grow if you feed daily on shrimp, earthworms, mussel, whole fish like smelt, add vitamins to my frozen food (aquatic spray on vitamins) as I worry about thiaminise in the prawns/ shrimp / crustaceans etc. Mine will now take the larges lob worms which are over 6 inches long, he can do 10 and still be looking for more food. I also use Krill but that seems a little messy. I also try to sneak in a mix of sinking pellets but he is pretty good at avoiding those so far.
I also use frozen but cooked prawns as I THINK the cooking helps remove the Thiamin, I also thoroughly wash the frozen king prawns as some have Sulphites added to help remove bacteria.
I have had my largest two for about a year and a half. When I got them, they were about 3.5-4". They ended up getting stuck in my 29 gallon tank for about 7-8 months while I got their new 220 ready, which took a lot longer than I planned. During their time in the 29, they grew to about 9-10". Then, I moved them into the 220 back in Jan-Feb or so and they have grown like crazy since. The largest one is pushing 18" and is very thick. The smaller one is probably between 16-17", but not as thick.
I feed them a frozen shrimp and tilapia mixture, frozen krill and live night crawlers. They won't touch pellets though.
I would say that you can probably expect about an inch a month for at least the first two years, putting them at about 24" long at that point. Some of them will stop growing around 24" and some will get larger. I would say that you can probably expect near 30" at the end of three years, but some will continue growing after that. There are several 40+ inchers in the hobby, but I would say that the average max is between 30-36".
I feed them a frozen shrimp and tilapia mixture, frozen krill and live night crawlers. They won't touch pellets though.
I would say that you can probably expect about an inch a month for at least the first two years, putting them at about 24" long at that point. Some of them will stop growing around 24" and some will get larger. I would say that you can probably expect near 30" at the end of three years, but some will continue growing after that. There are several 40+ inchers in the hobby, but I would say that the average max is between 30-36".
