My Fire Eel update/Question

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DMasker

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jul 6, 2010
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Arizona
So I have had my fire eel, Apollo, for about 5 months now and I love my little guy. I got him at about 5-6 inches and he is now about 11 inches. I still cannot get him to eat frozen food. But I took a break from trying for a little while and am about to attempt it again. Once I got him to take a small/medium piece of krill, but he spat it right back out. (Suggestions are welcome)

He has a best friend a P.ansorgii. They actually hunt and swim together when I feed them live blackworms. I feed the Poly some massivore pellets and he gobbles them up, but he does love the occasional live blackworm treat.

He has become more active since I added a baby Oscar into the tank (about 2") Almost like he is competing for my attention, like look at me look at me.

His new home is almost up and running. He loves his home in my 75 gallon, but I can't wait to see how happy he is going to be in my new 180. I just gotta build a light fixture and I am good to go as it is all cycled now. :headbang2

As far as my question goes is what makes a fire eel jump? I have glass lids as to never even risk it, but I have yet to ever see Apollo attempt it. Is it stress, boredom, or tankmates? It seems to be an problem with many fire eel keepers. Is it possible mine isn't attempting it? Or that I just have not seen it yet? My water parameters are as follows.

pH: 7.0-7.2
NitrIte: 0
NitrAte: 0
Ammonia: 0
Water is medium as far as hardness goes, but I will test again when I get home.

FYI its a planted tank and he has no visible marks as one might expect if he is trying to jump and his my glass canopy. Ill post pics when I get home later tonight!
 
I would suggest you keep trying to ween him on to frozen... giving in too quick is probably the number one reason for failure, but I understand it's hard to see your beloved pet "go hungry."
 
My fire eel was easy to get to frozen and yours might be big enough for market shrimp. cut the shrimp into smaller chunks and i bet it will love it. My fire eel gets down on shrimp. Ive tried to get him onto pellets but he wont do it, i starved him for 2 weeks and he still didnt budge.
 
busterbrown;4474284; said:
My fire eel was easy to get to frozen and yours might be big enough for market shrimp. cut the shrimp into smaller chunks and i bet it will love it. My fire eel gets down on shrimp. Ive tried to get him onto pellets but he wont do it, i starved him for 2 weeks and he still didnt budge.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion I will have to try it.

@ aclockwork, I agree I am a sucker for my animals. What is a pet if you don't spoil it? :naughty:
 
when I first got my eel it would not eet anything but frozen blood worms. After trying a few times I started taking one cube of BW and two cubes of mysis into a plastic cup and adding a little bit of hot water. I then stirred it until the ice was gone and poured the mixture into the tank. After a few of those, the eel starting to eat the mysis and now lives primarily on that. While on BW, he did not grow at all, but once he started taking mysis, he quickly doubled in size now pushing around 15" and loving his tank.
 
Mine got out with 5 lb weights on the top,since replaced with 10lbs.When they get big they get strong.I am not sure exactly how big these guys can get but i will say mine is 4 years old 33-36 inches and thick as my leg.I would be safe and make sure its eel safe.
 
As far as food goes mine is picky and will only eat night crawlers or market shrimp,Mine eats 50 crawlers and 36 shrimp a week.
 
They dont really think of it as "escaping". Think of how they live. How they like to live in caves and dark places.
To them , a small opening in a lid is the same as a new cave to explore.
They're not purposely trying to break-out.

And Im sure your guy checks for weak spots at night. They get real active.

My octopus was the same way...he would try to get out of any sopt he could.
I use duct tape...I always keep a roll of black duct tape on the tank. Then I get those cheap rolls of black fiberglass screen material. For any of the sopts where the filter tubes go in or whatever. cut pieces of screen and tape them in place.
 
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