Peacock Eel Feeding

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Jenny&Mort

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Oct 11, 2016
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Hi all!

I had a spiny eel about 10 years ago, finally got a new tank set up and added a 6" peacock eel 5 days ago. He's doing really great, he's so much spunkier and active than my previous eel and eats like a champ. My question is how often should I feed him? So far, he's eaten an entire cube of frozen bloodworms every night for 4 nights. I don't want to overfeed him, my understanding is he would eat every few days but I also have zero problems feeding him as much as he'd like to eat. Any tips? Thanks in advance!
 
Spiney eels can be overfed, but I don't think one cube a night is getting close to overfeeding. You have to remember, most of that cube is water not worms. I wouldn't be surprised if he could put down 2 possibly 3 cubes a day. My fire eel started out on blood worms and I usually tossed 5 or 6 cubes in a night (other fish at a lot as well). Now that my eel is 16 inches long I usually feed him once every other day or so. I give him deshelled prawn chunks with pellets smashed into them. When I dont do the prawn, I give him 2-3 nightcrawlers. They are very healthy eaters, just remember that blood worms don't have a lot of nuitrience in them. They are okay early on (lord knows they are extremely picky eaters). If it were me I would melt a cube down, crush a couple pellets, and then re-freeze the cube. I have only been doing these pellets for a couple of weeks now but they do seem to be improving my eels color quite a bit.
 
Cosmic_surfer said:
Spiney eels can be overfed, but I don't think one cube a night is getting close to overfeeding. You have to remember, most of that cube is water not worms. I wouldn't be surprised if he could put down 2 possibly 3 cubes a day. My fire eel started out on blood worms and I usually tossed 5 or 6 cubes in a night (other fish at a lot as well). Now that my eel is 16 inches long I usually feed him once every other day or so. I give him deshelled prawn chunks with pellets smashed into them. When I dont do the prawn, I give him 2-3 nightcrawlers. They are very healthy eaters, just remember that blood worms don't have a lot of nuitrience in them. They are okay early on (lord knows they are extremely picky eaters). If it were me I would melt a cube down, crush a couple pellets, and then re-freeze the cube. I have only been doing these pellets for a couple of weeks now but they do seem to be improving my eels color quite a bit.
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Thanks! What kind of pellets do you use? I can definitely add those in. I'll look around town and see if I can find nightcrawlers and try him on some shrimp too. See what he does with it!
 
With your size of eel I wouldn't do the nightcrawlers, but see if you can find some red wrigglers, those should do the trick nicely. The pellets I use are Hikari gold cichlid sinking pellets, and recently I am trying the blood parrot cichlid pellet to bring out my fire's reds. Really any high quality pellet should do, it offers a balanced diet. The problem is tricking an eel to eat it... like feeding a dog pills... gotta mush it in meat or peanut butter.
 
Perfect, thanks! I'll see if I can incorporate that in to his diet! Now if I could just get him to chill and stop rubbing his nose against the glass all will be well.
 
Jenny&Mort said:
Perfect, thanks! I'll see if I can incorporate that in to his diet! Now if I could just get him to chill and stop rubbing his nose against the glass all will be well.
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Unfortunately that is what a happy eel does, he is happy to see you and knows that you have food. Fire eels are pretty intelligent. If any fish could be considered the puppy type of the monster fish it would be thsee guys. Yes other fish do form unique bonds with their owners (some anyway) but cichlids are known to be aggressive biters, and red tail cats while I have heard love to have a little head scratch, fire eels mostly can't scar you for life... I bet a full grown rtc could Nibley a finger off if it wanted.
 
My eel 10 years ago would swim up and eat from my hand, he was very mellow and shy. I love these guys, they have so much personality. This new guy is a polar opposite from my old one, much more active and brave. I won't be trying to hand feed him, he'd definitely try and grab a finger! Lol

The weird thing is he does it off and on all day. He's very active but almost in a restless way. It's anthropomorphizing a bit but it's like he's pacing and searching for something. He'll hide in one of his many spots then spend 20-30 minutes lapping the tank and rubbing his nose on the glass most of the time, swimming up the length of the glass to the surface then back down to swim a few more laps.

I've checked water quality, temperature, gave him more hiding spots, and am feeding him more since we've been talking but he's still so restless! He's got a little white spot on the bridge of his nose now and I worry he's rubbing so much he's damaging his skin :(
 
Well, I have heard the peacocks actually enjoy the company of other peacock eels. Perhaps you might add a few more. They don't get near the size of the other spiney eels. I think peacocks max out at like 10 inches or so, so you know keeping several wouldn't be that aweful. I would like to keep 5 fire eels someday.... won't even consider it till I can get a 500ish gallon aquarium.
 
Hmm.. maybe I'll add a second. It's a 55g aquarium with the one peacock, 5 neon tetras, 5 angels, 2 mystery snails and 5 ghost shrimp (eel snacks hopefully), I don't want to overload it. The tetras will likely get snacked on at some point in the future, they were my "let's make sure the tank is ready for fish, they're $0.99 so I won't cry if they die" lol

One day I would love a nice 150-200 gallon long tank and have a fire eel, they're so beautiful. My grandparents had one growing up and he was so fun to watch. Ghost knife fish and bichir are on the list too. Don't have much in the way of fish stores out here, so they're hard to find. Petsmart carries the peacock and bichir but the other fish store won't carry eels due to the escape risk.
 
Hmmm, I don't know. 55 is kinda small, eels are perfectly fine, but 5 of those angels... wow. Those guys tend to get quite large. If you use craigslist, get on there and look for used aquariums... eventually you will find a good deal on a larger one if you are looking to upgrade. I have an ornate bichir in my 55 currently and I am thinking of moving him soon... my other ornate is like 16 inches long now, her head is HUGE, just worried she might eat the 8 inch male.... we will wait a little longer.
 
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