Fire Eel

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L

L~C~G

Candiru
MFK Member
Aug 14, 2006
253
2
48
South Africa
Hey Guys.

I am pretty sure you are sick and tired of fire eel questions, but I am battling to find specific results with the search function.

On Saturday I bought a 12" fire eel for my 120 gal Malawi peacock tank. I have put a piece of 15" pvc pipe in the gravel which he seems to feel fairly safe in and the tank has a few decent size live plants. My fish leave him alone and seem seriously confused by him.

I have not been able to get him to eat yet but im guessing he will need a little time to settle in first, how long would you say is reasonable?

I tried to feed him some frozen (defrosted) blood worms with a syringe and air hose to get it right to him but he is not interested. he doesnt freak out when I come near him which is helpful. I also bought some small feeders but my peacocks nail the feeders before he even knows they are there.

I was not able to find any live blood worms or brine shrimp over the weekend. Do your fire eels take feeders or only dead food?

When I turn the lights off in the tank he swims around quite freely. This morning when I got up an put the lights it seemed like he was trying to get to the feeders that are in a floating trap in the tank but the lights upset him a bit.

Is there any way to stun a feeder so that I can put it in his cave and it will not escape right away? I bought white clouds as feeders but they are incredibly fast and always head for the surface as soon as they hit the water.

Is there anything else I can do to make him happy or do I just need to be patient. I get the feeling he wants to eat because he looks on curiously whenever I am near the tank, but maybe he is not used to what I am trying to feed him.

This is the most amazing creature to watch, it is so graceful and is incredibly timid for such a big thing.
 
try some freeze dried krill or live earthworms. I've found that they aren't aggressive at feeding time so try and feed the others first and then dropping in some food for the eel. be patient and good luck!
 
earthworms, cut-up if need be for size issues. And once he settles in.. watch your peacocks.. it's not a matter of If imo.. but when they will need to be seperated.
 
I went to a local earth worm breeder to pick up a few worms to try and he loves them!

Now I am going to have to set up a worm farm ;-)

As soon as he settles in properly ill try him with frozen foods again.
 
when i got my 2 all they would eat is bloodworms, and that was getting quite expensive. i got the same advice on here to try earthworms, and it worked also for me. but then i started reading that there isnt that much nutritional value in them, but at least it was something else for my fire eels to eat. and now they eat cut up pieces of prawns so maybe eating the earthworms got them used to eating something else. it took at least a couple of months for them to try anything else so its just a waiting game i think. anyhow im glad they are finally eating other foods.
 
When you say cut up prawns, Are you refering to ocean prawns?

Ive got a whole tray that I bought and cooked half but they dont have the best flavor so I would be glad to give them to him.

One other question. Can I used salt in a tank with a fire eel? I used it with just the peacocks but I wasnt sure with him having no scales.
 
L~C~G;4415498; said:
When you say cut up prawns, Are you refering to ocean prawns?

Ive got a whole tray that I bought and cooked half but they dont have the best flavor so I would be glad to give them to him.

One other question. Can I used salt in a tank with a fire eel? I used it with just the peacocks but I wasnt sure with him having no scales.
Click to expand...
Yes, you can, but why do you need to? The only reason for using salt in a freshwater tank is to cure/heal health problems (diseases, parasites, injuries, etc.), if you don't have any of those problems, then you probably shouldn't be using salt anyway. Also, you will eventually need a much larger tank than your current one (and by eventually, I mean within the next 2-3 years), they can easily get to over 30" long, and will usually max out at around 36", with a diameter of about 5-6", so they require a bare minimum of 180 gallons.
 
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