thank you so much that helped a lot. I'm still looking for them :\ i went to check again at my LPS and they said they didnt carry them and they didnt know who would. Im going up north this weekend so im going to a bait shop on the way and im going to see if they have some night crawlers. Are night crawlers the ones you usually find everywhere on the ground after it rains?
Best diet for fire eels?
- Thread starter LeePakao
- Start date
Yep, you can collect them just be careful that they don't come from the ground thats had chemicals recently used on it. I also prefer to put them in a "worm box" for a week or to to flush their systems of any potential toxins. I've never had a problem doing this. most my spineys doens't like the smaller red worms, that kinda have more segmented bodies and are only 2" long or less also refered ot as "panfish worms" by most bait shops. Nightcrawlers are messy to cut up but I've minced them up very fine in the past to get smaller eels eating when I couldn't find black worms.
Are you putting these night crawlers in alive?...Are these considered earth worms?Lol..I feel so sillly asking this...
Like aside from putting them in a worm box for a week or so to let the possible toxins flush out...if the eel is big enough can it be placed directly in the tank for him to eat?
Like aside from putting them in a worm box for a week or so to let the possible toxins flush out...if the eel is big enough can it be placed directly in the tank for him to eat?
Same thing yes, and they are alive.. I've not found a way to really keep them intact... when you freeze them they turn to a pile of mucusy ick... they are quite easy to keep alive in a perferated box, with some leaf litter of worm bedding. which just about any bait/tackle ect shop carries. I fed my fire eels at about 16" full size worms.. I cut them in 1/2 for my M. dayii that are in the 8-12" range.. and smaller I cut up smaller. imo it's better ot cut them up to small then not small enough and rick a fish potentially choking ( though I've never had it happen)
if all else fails go online and get a culture of california red wrigglers and raise your own in a big tupperware tub. Takes a couple of weeks/months to get the culture going, but it does work. Look up methods online as well. I've had no luck, but I seem to be the only one (read: knucklehead) to screw this up.
They're relatively small compared to night-crawlers so you don't need to cut them up and they're easy to keep/raise and you can control their chemical intake and (sort of) influence their nutritional value through gut-loading. They also don't (seem to) drown and live in the substrate until the fish dig 'em up. Makes for habitat enrichment and keeps fish active between feedings, particularly for bright fish like loaches or eels (or puffers or mormyrids blah blah blah).
They're relatively small compared to night-crawlers so you don't need to cut them up and they're easy to keep/raise and you can control their chemical intake and (sort of) influence their nutritional value through gut-loading. They also don't (seem to) drown and live in the substrate until the fish dig 'em up. Makes for habitat enrichment and keeps fish active between feedings, particularly for bright fish like loaches or eels (or puffers or mormyrids blah blah blah).
