Few Fire eel questions

[Hayabusa]

Couple of questions I have, if anyone can help

First off I have a 180 gallon tank with 2 oscars, 1 large plec, 3 tinfoils and a couple of lima shovelnoses.

Want to add a fire eel, LFS has one for £14 but it is around 9" I guess, and looks kinda skinny so assume my fullgrown Odcars would eat it np.

So my question is, how big does a fire eel have to be before its not considered Oscar food, and second question I have a 24x12x12 tank spare (15 gallons) could I grow a fire eel on in this big enough to not get eaten by the Oscars?

Thanks in advance guys

(Little edit, the wife thinks the fire eel is smaller than 9", I'm not sure tbh she might be right)

 

[iloveoscars702]

iono 15 gal is to small. and even you do add the eel to your main tank, there is 90% chance one of your fish will eat it right away. imo i think you shouldnt add a eel, unless you really trust your fish, go ahead and get it

 

[keepinfish]

depending on how big your oscars are. You can put it in the 15 gallon by it self, and grow it a bit first. Train it to hand feed or with a feeding stick, so when you put it in the bigger tank with the other fish you can actually get food to it.
i would recomend feeding earthworms, shrimp, and mussles, mine would only tank worms till about 18" or so.. Also make sure you have a good lid on either tank, they WILL escape. 1 more thing give him a hiding spot.

 

[StripeGirl]

tilapia or other fish fillets chopped up are also good foods:}

 

[Hayabusa]

Thanks alot for the responses.

He is currently feeding on frozen bloodworm fine according to the lfs, apparantly they had him from like 3" and had him 8 months, he is currently in a smaller than the 15gal I have spare.

Think if I could grow him on 2-3" more he will be finbe for the big tank.

The oscars are adults, maybe 12" give or take.

Also would love to hand feed and read they enjoy it, think I'll go grab him as we just bought two more tinfoils that are like 1" tops, really small for £5 for the pair so couldnt resist, so set the 2 foot up to grow them on anyway.

Just to show where theyll end up when big enough (in the process of redoing the aquascaping) sorry for the poor quality pictures...

Ignore the two parrots, theyll be moved on at some point, I took them off a friend of a friend who had been sold them as fine for his 2 foot community tank, which now doesnt have any fish left except those two.

As you can see the Oscars arent small

Any more advice will be more than welcome

 

[Hayabusa]

Also any advice on hand feeding? as he seems to like frozen bloodworm how would I go about hand feeding those?

Or maybe try something else? you say shrimp, but would prawns be ok? same kind of thing and I can get those for free

Of coarse could always go worm digging I guess.

Oh how about mealworms?

 

[keepinfish]

mine really liked worms the best (earthworms)! i have never tried prawns, if your feeding frozen bloodworms and you are acutally are seeing him eat them, then hold the frozen cube in your fingers and let him peck on it. never tried mealworms either.

You can get frozen shrimp at your local grocery store (walmart) and you can also get worms there too (sporting goods dept)

 

[Hayabusa]

mine really liked worms the best (earthworms)! i have never tried prawns, if your feeding frozen bloodworms and you are acutally are seeing him eat them, then hold the frozen cube in your fingers and let him peck on it. never tried mealworms either.

You can get frozen shrimp at your local grocery store (walmart) and you can also get worms there too (sporting goods dept)

I'm in the UK, we dont have a shop called walmart here

Prawns are basicaly a larger shrimp, so I would imagine just chopping some prawns smaller would amount to the same thing as a shrimp, and we can get prawns for free

Not aware of anywhere around here that sells worms either, so I would have to dig for them myself, which I dont mind ofc.

Thanks for the tip on the bloodworm block, I thought the same but wasnt really sure as I would usualy defrost them first.

Cheers for the advice.

 

[keepinfish]

OOPS did not realize you were in the UK.. Do you guys not go fishing there? surely there is a bait shop that sells worms

diggin them will work as long as pesticides have not been used. GL

 

[Hayabusa]

Oh aye fishings very popular here, but I dont know of any fishing shops near me, also not sure that they really carry worms, its mostly all maggots here afaik.

Happy to stand corrected though, havnt gone fishing since I was a teenager.