fire eel Q's

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all_or_nothin

Eastern Painted Turtle
MFK Member
Feb 4, 2009
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ok i bought a fire eel. hes about 10". hes in a 120g tank with
3 baby painted turtles
3 baby yellow labs cichlids
1 baby LMB(not gonna be in the tank for a while)
3 baby spotted rapheal catfish
1 male albino bristlenose
1 female bristlenose
and hes not eating ive offered him shrimp pellets, krill, and other various dry foods meant for other fish. he has been in the tank for 2 or 3 days. is there any food that these will absolutly love? this was sorta an impulse buy :( but i thought i knew enough. whats the minimum tank size on these. how fast do they grow? thanks in advance
 
Try Bloodworms. Also, ask what the previous owner or LFS was feeding. Most LFS's feed bloodworms or feeders to spiny eels of that size. Give it time to adjust. He'll eat sooner or later.
 
ok
1. thanks for the fast reply
2. ill call tomoro theyre probaly closed
3. i dont have blood worms but i have beefheart, krill, mysis, and maybe someother stuff. would he like any of that
 
the minimum tank size in my opinion is 180 cause they get close to 30 inches long. they should love glass shrimp and blood worms. they can get a little mean and should be fine with most of the fish on your list, def not the lmb and maybe the rapheal catfish, the spines might harm the eel's skin. aqualandpetsplus.com has som good info on them in their spiny eels page in the oddballs fish section. hope this helps
 
ok i checked out there site and it said they should eat earthworms... would that be ok if i cut it up in like 1cm lengths? would it even eat them?
 
all_or_nothin;4247702; said:
ok i checked out there site and it said they should eat earthworms... would that be ok if i cut it up in like 1cm lengths? would it even eat them?
BINGO!!! try earthworms mine luvs um i dont cut them tho jus kill um n hot water then feed long as u dont get the big nightcrawlers it should b fine
 
They often do not eat at first.

Start with live blood worm and then add a turkey baster with dead, frozen bloood worm as the action makes them look live.

Once they get used to the baser then you can add the food by hand.

They soon realise that your hand meand food and they will investigate everything in it at this point you can mix in all the other foods. I can now lift mine out of the tank and he is relaxed about it.
 
Spiny eels will eat thawed krill, freeze-dried krill, thawed and cut up tilapia, silversides, earthworms, some pellets and of course, bloodworms. It's just that some eels are more finnicky than others. That's why my previous post just suggested bloodworms, because I know that all of my spiny eels love bloodworms, no matter how much of a finnicky eater they might be.
 
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