American eel in saltwater

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Someone say American Eel? My Sushi is just under 4' and anything but pretty. But he's got one heck of a personality. He doesnt bite, likes to be pet, eats from my hand and is generally maintenance free. He eats A LOT though. Like... 6-8 6" smelt every other day. He'll smash a 18 pack of nightcrawlers in one sitting. He came from the bay at a bait shop. And has also escaped twice and found rock hard after 48+ hours. He's indestructible. I had to upgrade to a tall setup so that he couldn't use his tard strength to get the top off. As for saltwater.... I probably wouldnt risk it on such a cool dude.


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Post a video of you petting it. I also remember you posted a video or picture of him eating some big. You have the link to that thread. Awesome eel.
 
Cu455 said:
Post a video of you petting it. I also remember you posted a video or picture of him eating some big. You have the link to that thread. Awesome eel.
Click to expand...

I think I posted him hunting down a helgramite. Maybe? I'll look. Its nearly impossible to video myself but I'll try. My gopro fails miserably in artificial light... Even good artificial light. I want to get an underwater vid of them eating. I'll put up a thread when the stars finally align! Thanks, he is seriously the coolest fish ever.


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I know this thread is 2 years old but before I purchase any fish I like to make sure I conduct research, learn everything about the fish and provide the proper environment for the fish . While this stuff usually takes more then 2 years I expedited the process because these fish are so cool.

I got 2 of them. They are about 8 in long long and 1/4 thick. I normally measure my fish before putting them in my tank but these came in a shopping bag with no water. When I asked for water I was told they will die if they put water in the bag lol. As soon as I got home I just wanted to get them in water, so they were not measured. One of them has a deep cut on it's head. They were both eating right after I placed them in the tank.

I am not sure if they were in freshwater or saltwater at the bait shop, I forgot to ask. Since they came with no water I poured some bottled water into a bucket with the eels and then driped them from my saltwater tank for a coupled of hours.


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I'll have to chime in on this, I live near the ocean and see the tiny ones in plankton nets in the early spring. I catch them in both salt and freshwater on hooks but the females travel upstream to get large and fatten up the males stay closer to the ocean and salt water.

In an aquarium they can be quite destructive and cryptic, I had a 15 gallon tank that i had set up for about three years, only three fish managed to live in it, all others would vanish without a trace and the pleco and black shark certainly were not eating the new arrivals. I finally took the tank down and found a 3' eel living under an old UG filter plate that was part of an attempt to keep a dead water space under the sand, they eel stayed under the plate and only came out at night to eat his fellow tank mates...
 
Wow it hid in a 15gal when it was 3' long? HOW!? You'd think something would be sticking out somewhere :P

Is one of the eels in the above video missing its eyes?
 
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