Fire Eel

[L~C~G]

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.

Nothing worse than needing to treat a problem in a hurry and not knowing if it will affect something else in the tank. I just wanted to know for future reference if salt would harm him.

I will gladly build this guy a larger tank when it is needed, I have plans to build a 600 gal tank buy the end of next year.

 

[jay_leask]

so did it eat the prawns?

 

[L~C~G]

I didnt get a chance to try last night. I got home pretty late so I just gave him some worms. I will try this weekend.

 

[cooper.s]

I had this problem, my fire eel is a tiddler atm thou 6/7inches maybe 7 1/2 max and all he will eat is frozen bloodworms and he will only eat it if i hand feed him.... pain in the arse sometimes.

I did try him on cut up earthworms but he wasn't the slightest impressed, came out as usuall for his feed and as soon as he see i didn't have bloodworms back under his rockpile he went....

I wanna try him on prawns thou so when we say market prawns are we talkin just cooked peeled prawns from the supermarket and just defrost them?

 

[L~C~G]

This guy is not amused by the prawn idea, I even cut it into thin strips and wiggled it around to try and make it look like a worm but he is not interested. He just sits in his pipe with a piece of prawn on his head ;-)

I eventually set up a small earth worm farm so I can get a decent supply of worms for him. I think he has some way of picking up the electrical pulses that the live food is emitting. He has no interest in live blood worm though.

At least with him eating something I have time to try and get him tame and possibly eating other things.

Any ideas on getting him tame? He as a 50mm PVC pipe that he hides in but does not seem to feel very safe, is there anything else I could try?

 

[Loves severums]

^ try krill.

 

[jclyde13]

This guy is not amused by the prawn idea, I even cut it into thin strips and wiggled it around to try and make it look like a worm but he is not interested. He just sits in his pipe with a piece of prawn on his head ;-)

I eventually set up a small earth worm farm so I can get a decent supply of worms for him. I think he has some way of picking up the electrical pulses that the live food is emitting. He has no interest in live blood worm though.

At least with him eating something I have time to try and get him tame and possibly eating other things.

If you really want it to eat the prawns, you could just starve it until it accepts them (which usually takes about 2 weeks max.).

Any ideas on getting him tame? He as a 50mm PVC pipe that he hides in but does not seem to feel very safe, is there anything else I could try?

The best way to tame a spiny eel is to just provide as much shelter as possible, and handfeed it. If you do these two things, then it should become tame after a while. My TT eel took about 6-8 months to really become tame (like to the point where it will come up to the surface of the water and beg for food, and come out regularly during the day).

 

[L~C~G]

Just an update on this guy. He is now about 13 -14 inches. He is slowly getting tame. The earthworm farm I set up for him is doing very well and he has three worms a day from it.

He always sticks out of his cave by about 6 inches whenever I sit next to the tank. He readily eats the worms out of my hand and even comes out of his cave completely if I make him chase after it. Once he has eaten the worm he tries to nibble on my finger so im pretty sure he will be eating prawn any day now.

Hand feeding him everyday is a pain in the ass but I feel, if you want the animal, put in the effort to make it happy.

I was concerned that my 120 gal would get to small for him very quickly but he is not growing exceptionally fast at the moment. The tank is square though so he has tons of room to move.

When he gets to big ill gladly build him a bigger tank.

He is a real conversation starter when I have guests over and stick my hand in the tank with a live worm, no one expects to see such an amazing creature hiding in the depths of my tank.

 

[jclyde13]

Just an update on this guy. He is now about 13 -14 inches. He is slowly getting tame. The earthworm farm I set up for him is doing very well and he has three worms a day from it.

He always sticks out of his cave by about 6 inches whenever I sit next to the tank. He readily eats the worms out of my hand and even comes out of his cave completely if I make him chase after it. Once he has eaten the worm he tries to nibble on my finger so im pretty sure he will be eating prawn any day now.

Hand feeding him everyday is a pain in the ass but I feel, if you want the animal, put in the effort to make it happy.

I was concerned that my 120 gal would get to small for him very quickly but he is not growing exceptionally fast at the moment. The tank is square though so he has tons of room to move.

When he gets to big ill gladly build him a bigger tank.

He is a real conversation starter when I have guests over and stick my hand in the tank with a live worm, no one expects to see such an amazing creature hiding in the depths of my tank.

At that size, you really don't have to feed it every single day. If you wanted to, you could slow it down to about 5 times per week without any problems (possibly less).

 

[AllFishAdrian]

Just use earthworms, black worms, or kryll. Mine eats tons of black worms with my loaches