Hey everyone. I own a zig zag eel. Never do i see him, i know eels like to hide and such so that im not worried about. Every now and then i do get a peek at him, Id say is only at about 4-5". I have had him for 2 months now. So i know he is eating. Alls i do is de-thaw sum brine shrimp with the tanks water and suck sum of it in with a turkey baster and squirt it in the skull i have in there for him to hide in. Now from there on i just hope he is eating. Ive also did the same with frozen blood worms. But I know people who have eels and say they can watch them eat. He is very skinny. I would have to say 2 months and still alive, hes definitely eating. But wut other things can i try to fatten him up or possibly watch him eat so i know for a fact he is eating.
New to eels.
- Thread starter bbenjamin21
- Start date
when i bought my TT eel i never saw him or saw him eat. now i hand feed him brine shrimp. when i first gave it to him i thought he would tear it up cuz it was twice the size of his head, but he swallowed it whole. so try brine shrimp. i also froze blocks of food with gravel so it would sink. he'd dig around in the pile after it melted on the bottom, goodluck
Handfeeding is the best way to get an eel to come out more often. If it is skinny, that means you need to feed it more, and feeding it bloodworms will help. Also, just because it has survived for 2 months doesn't necessarily mean it's eating, the only way to know for sure whether it's eating if you don't see it during the day is to put food in and see if it dissappeared the next day.
I don't think it's possible to jump directly from a hiding eel to handfeeding that same eel. The OP said he doesn't see the eel eat. In order to start handfeeding, the OP has to at least, see the eel eat. Some eels are shy hiders and never change their behavior, while some do. I have 2 tire tracks. One eats from my hand and the other one will occasionally eat from my hand. I also have a fire eel that probably will never learn to be handfed. I never see him eat but I know he's eating. He's still alive. I suggest that you try using a BBQ skewer and placing food on the end of it. Eventually, your eel might take from it. Once he starts taking from the BBQ skewer, he might eventually take from your hand. That's how I did it. Look at it from the eel's perspective. If I were the eel, I'd rather eat from a less imposing skewer, than a big, scary hand with arm attached. Once the eel becomes comfortable with you feeding it from the skewer and learns to associate you wth food, you can try your hand.
Try live foods. I bought a fire eel and for the first week I tried everything to get him to eat. So I got some live blackworms at my LFS and he ate from my hand on the first try and now he can't get enough. I just gotta work on transitioning him to frozen foods now.
hmm well thanks for all the help so far, ill try the skewer 2morrow when i can get 1. But as far as knowing he eats, its not just that hes still alive. but every food that i put in the skull isnt there when i clean the tank so i do know he is eating. i would just like to see him more. i know that might not be but if i can id like to. When i clean the tank tho and lift the skull out, if he doesnt burry in the sand he actually sticks around above the sand and hangs out, which is odd becuz thats when i would be the most scared. The only other times i have seen him is. Twice ive seen him out (when the light is off), the first time my ray went over top of him and i was scared for all hell but she didnt take him, then he swam around her for a few then burried in. And the 2nd time he was right next to her again. On the food note tho. The brine shrimp ive been squirting in the skull is very very small. Maybe ill try something bigger. And as far frozen bloodworms, ive given up on them, they make more of a mess than anything. The currents end up pushing them around until the filter picks them up. And blackworms, u cant get around where i am. So any other ideas?
It actually is possible, ime. When I got my TT eel, I literally never saw it at any time of the day (even at night when the lights had been off for hours), but I found out where it had been hiding and started putting bloodworms directly into its hiding place and after the second day of doing this, it started taking them directly from my hands (and believe me, mine was about as shy as they get). After about a week of hand feeding, I started seeing it come out more and more during the day, and now it comes out whenever I come near the tank.phillydog1958;4278957; said: