This write up is my experience in getting a stubborn fire eel onto different types of food.
I purchased a fire eel which, like many, went on a hunger strike for a while once I brought it home. About a week. This eel started in a 10 gallon tank with a tiny flagtail, a bristlenose pleco, and a reedfish so I could get it used to being fed before adding it to the larger, more heavily stocked tank. Once I finally got it eating again, I realized it had no interest in blood worms or market shrimp. Two things I fed previous fire eels. Even though this is what the tank mates were eating already. No influence from other fish in the tank. I was forced to feed live nightcrawlers as it would not accept any frozen food or pellets. I knew I did not want to rely on live food the entire life of this eel, so a transition to frozen food was a must for me.
I realized in order to transition the eel onto other food sources, I’d have to bump up its feeding response. I developed a few steps in my head to make the transition despite how stubborn the eel was.
Step 1- increase feeding response
Step 2- trick the eel to eat different food
Step 3- full transition to the new food source
I began hand feeding the eel small pieces of nightcrawler that were still moving to entice the eel to eat. As time went on, the eel began to associate my hand with feeding. It came up to the surface of the water when I would approach the tank and took nightcrawlers from my hand with great enthusiasm. Eventually, moving or not, the eel would slurp the worms up like a vacuum right from my hands. Step 1 success.
Now that the eel was seeking out food from the water’s surface every time I came near the tank, I decided to proceed with step 2. I cut a sliver of market shrimp (my next target food) the size of the nightcrawler pieces I had been using. I approached the tank and received the same enthusiasm as usual, but as soon as the shrimp touched the water, the eel swam away. This happened every time I tried to offer shrimp. Admittedly, I was still regularly offering chunks of nightcrawler when the shrimp was refused. I recognized I’d have to try a bit harder to trick the eel into accepting the shrimp.
I began wiggling the shrimp slices in the water and got a little better response, but no bite. As I continued this, the eel lost even more interest.
Now I needed to fool the senses. Color, texture, smell, and taste were all off so I had to make the shrimp more worm like. I started working backward to make the WORM more SHRIMP like. I would start by thawing the shrimp in a small cup of water along with the pieces of worm. The worms began to take on the flavor of the “shrimp juice.” When offered, the eel reluctantly took the nightcrawlers soaked in worm juice, but feeding response increased after a short time. Now the eel was eating worm, but it had the taste of shrimp. My thought was the longer the eel ate worm with shrimp flavor, the more it would recognize shrimp as a familiar food source.
Convinced that success was near, I tried offering only the pieces of shrimp that were soaked with the worms. My fire eel, once again, proved to be more stubborn, and swam away from the shrimp cuts.
I continued to offer shrimp the same way with no change in interest. I decided to squeeze the internals of the worm onto the shrimp, and stack a piece of shrimp with a piece of worm on top like a tiny sashimi. The eel finally took the shrimp believing it was eating worm. But only for about a quarter second. It spit the entire stack out, then swam back for the worm chunk. I was getting closer. Once he got the taste in his mouth, I knew he would eventually recognize it as food. I continued this until eventually the eel was taking the entire stack every time. The eel was finally tricked into eating the new food source. Step 2 success.
Now to transition the eel completely off of worms, and onto shrimp. An offering of shrimp was still refused completely, so I continued the soak with worms and squeezed the worm’s internals onto the shrimp before offering. What I’ll refer to as “prepared shrimp.” It was hit or miss. Sometimes the eel would take just the shrimp, and other times it wouldn’t accept food unless it was accompanied by a chunk of worm. Eventually, the eel would eat the prepared shrimp without worm completely. Once it was consistently eating the prepared shrimp, I stopped the squeezings and only fed a shrimp chunk soaked with worms. As I’m sure you can guess, it began with reluctance, and ended with the eel on pure shrimp alone. Step 3 success.
Lessons learned here:
Find what an eel WILL eat, then set your goal based on the feeding response to the food it likes.
Hand feeding proved to be the key to my success because the fire eel was quick to recognize me as a source of food. It was eager to pull meals from my hand, and hand feeding allowed me to see EXACTLY what was being eaten, and exactly what was being left alone.
Although effective, (and highly nerve racking at times) starving a fish to get it hungry enough to try new foods does not always have to be the only option. I fed regularly and although it took a while, I was still successful.
I just had to get creative (and messy) with my approach to making one food item taste like another.
My fire eel is now 16” and eating three whole market shrimp per feeding. It also receives a small live crayfish as a treat on occasion. I don’t like to feed predatory fish live food because I don’t want to encourage them to eat my smaller fish, so it’s on a very rare occasion it gets the crayfish. I feed sparingly to keep it lean and keep the budget down.
My next goal is massivore delite which I’m now more than 2/3 complete on the transition so far. I was blown away to hear people were getting their eels on pellets so I applied this same experience to pellet training. In the near future, I will be doing a detailed write-up on the transition to pellets for those interested to follow along and attempt on their own.
I purchased a fire eel which, like many, went on a hunger strike for a while once I brought it home. About a week. This eel started in a 10 gallon tank with a tiny flagtail, a bristlenose pleco, and a reedfish so I could get it used to being fed before adding it to the larger, more heavily stocked tank. Once I finally got it eating again, I realized it had no interest in blood worms or market shrimp. Two things I fed previous fire eels. Even though this is what the tank mates were eating already. No influence from other fish in the tank. I was forced to feed live nightcrawlers as it would not accept any frozen food or pellets. I knew I did not want to rely on live food the entire life of this eel, so a transition to frozen food was a must for me.
I realized in order to transition the eel onto other food sources, I’d have to bump up its feeding response. I developed a few steps in my head to make the transition despite how stubborn the eel was.
Step 1- increase feeding response
Step 2- trick the eel to eat different food
Step 3- full transition to the new food source
I began hand feeding the eel small pieces of nightcrawler that were still moving to entice the eel to eat. As time went on, the eel began to associate my hand with feeding. It came up to the surface of the water when I would approach the tank and took nightcrawlers from my hand with great enthusiasm. Eventually, moving or not, the eel would slurp the worms up like a vacuum right from my hands. Step 1 success.
Now that the eel was seeking out food from the water’s surface every time I came near the tank, I decided to proceed with step 2. I cut a sliver of market shrimp (my next target food) the size of the nightcrawler pieces I had been using. I approached the tank and received the same enthusiasm as usual, but as soon as the shrimp touched the water, the eel swam away. This happened every time I tried to offer shrimp. Admittedly, I was still regularly offering chunks of nightcrawler when the shrimp was refused. I recognized I’d have to try a bit harder to trick the eel into accepting the shrimp.
I began wiggling the shrimp slices in the water and got a little better response, but no bite. As I continued this, the eel lost even more interest.
Now I needed to fool the senses. Color, texture, smell, and taste were all off so I had to make the shrimp more worm like. I started working backward to make the WORM more SHRIMP like. I would start by thawing the shrimp in a small cup of water along with the pieces of worm. The worms began to take on the flavor of the “shrimp juice.” When offered, the eel reluctantly took the nightcrawlers soaked in worm juice, but feeding response increased after a short time. Now the eel was eating worm, but it had the taste of shrimp. My thought was the longer the eel ate worm with shrimp flavor, the more it would recognize shrimp as a familiar food source.
Convinced that success was near, I tried offering only the pieces of shrimp that were soaked with the worms. My fire eel, once again, proved to be more stubborn, and swam away from the shrimp cuts.
I continued to offer shrimp the same way with no change in interest. I decided to squeeze the internals of the worm onto the shrimp, and stack a piece of shrimp with a piece of worm on top like a tiny sashimi. The eel finally took the shrimp believing it was eating worm. But only for about a quarter second. It spit the entire stack out, then swam back for the worm chunk. I was getting closer. Once he got the taste in his mouth, I knew he would eventually recognize it as food. I continued this until eventually the eel was taking the entire stack every time. The eel was finally tricked into eating the new food source. Step 2 success.
Now to transition the eel completely off of worms, and onto shrimp. An offering of shrimp was still refused completely, so I continued the soak with worms and squeezed the worm’s internals onto the shrimp before offering. What I’ll refer to as “prepared shrimp.” It was hit or miss. Sometimes the eel would take just the shrimp, and other times it wouldn’t accept food unless it was accompanied by a chunk of worm. Eventually, the eel would eat the prepared shrimp without worm completely. Once it was consistently eating the prepared shrimp, I stopped the squeezings and only fed a shrimp chunk soaked with worms. As I’m sure you can guess, it began with reluctance, and ended with the eel on pure shrimp alone. Step 3 success.
Lessons learned here:
Find what an eel WILL eat, then set your goal based on the feeding response to the food it likes.
Hand feeding proved to be the key to my success because the fire eel was quick to recognize me as a source of food. It was eager to pull meals from my hand, and hand feeding allowed me to see EXACTLY what was being eaten, and exactly what was being left alone.
Although effective, (and highly nerve racking at times) starving a fish to get it hungry enough to try new foods does not always have to be the only option. I fed regularly and although it took a while, I was still successful.
I just had to get creative (and messy) with my approach to making one food item taste like another.
My fire eel is now 16” and eating three whole market shrimp per feeding. It also receives a small live crayfish as a treat on occasion. I don’t like to feed predatory fish live food because I don’t want to encourage them to eat my smaller fish, so it’s on a very rare occasion it gets the crayfish. I feed sparingly to keep it lean and keep the budget down.
My next goal is massivore delite which I’m now more than 2/3 complete on the transition so far. I was blown away to hear people were getting their eels on pellets so I applied this same experience to pellet training. In the near future, I will be doing a detailed write-up on the transition to pellets for those interested to follow along and attempt on their own.