Hey guys I’m looking at getting a fire eel tomorrow...
Any tips for me?
Are they hard to pellet train?
Growth rate on them?
Any tips for me?
Are they hard to pellet train?
Growth rate on them?
Most likely won’t ever eat pellets. If they go into a tank on their own, they are not too difficult to get eating. If you put them into a community tank, they can be very skittish and many have simply died without eating. Depending on the size of it, frozen bloodworms, live red wigglers, and frozen cut up tilapia small enough for it to eat are good foods to get it eating and start putting on size. Once larger, about 12+ inches, you can start feeding them night crawlers and larger chunks of frozen fish. The best food for these guys is probably a chopped up frozen seafood mix consisting mostly of tilapia. I have a thread of how I make mine and it is very economical. Currently, my three fire eels are about 24”, 23”, and 17”. They are all quite thick, but the 24 incher is by far the thickest. I feed them every three days. At each feeding they each get two live night crawlers, and then I alternate the frozen food portion between my frozen food mix and frozen krill from my LFS.
What size tank do you have for it and what are the tankmates, if any?
What size tank do you have for it and what are the tankmates, if any?
Oh, as for growth rate, the two that I got first were 4” when I got them. They are now 23” and 24”. This occurred over about a year and three months. However, I drug my feet getting my 220 ready and they probably spent an extra 2-3 months in my little 29 gallon tank. I believe this may have cause them to not grow nearly a quick while they were in that tank. Also, I only feed them once every three days and have done so for the last 7-8 months, at least. If I fed them more often I have no doubt that they would grow a lot quicker. I would say that these guys can easily hit 30” within a year if cared for properly and fed often.
Thank you for the reply and advice..He will be with a 15cm endlicheri poly and 2 10cm gulper catfish...He will be in a 2m tank for now
the best advice I can give is try to get the biggest one you can preferably over 30 cm I say this mainly because you can skip the bloodworm stage it is expensive and a pain to get them off bloodworms and when feeding bloodworms their growth is slow.
Also
Fish Tank Travis
how did you get yours onto tilapia my tire track accidently got on tilapia and exploded in growth going from 3rd biggest eel to biggest eel in 2 months. He was going for bloodworms and accidently ate some of the bichirs tilapia and loved it now he won't eat anything else. My fire eels and black spotted eel however will only eat nightcrawlers
Also
Fish Tank Travis
how did you get yours onto tilapia my tire track accidently got on tilapia and exploded in growth going from 3rd biggest eel to biggest eel in 2 months. He was going for bloodworms and accidently ate some of the bichirs tilapia and loved it now he won't eat anything else. My fire eels and black spotted eel however will only eat nightcrawlers
Thanks bud will try take the biggest one but i am sure they only have smaller ones left..the best advice I can give is try to get the biggest one you can preferably over 30 cm I say this mainly because you can skip the bloodworm stage it is expensive and a pain to get them off bloodworms and when feeding bloodworms their growth is slow.
Also
I thought about trying to feed him Hikari Cichlid Gold Mini pellet any thoughts on that?? Its really tiny food
I doubt you could get them to eat them most eels don't like how hard pellets are, you might try cutting up red wigglers or nightcrawlers and see if they would eat them that would be a good way to get them growing fast my problems with that was even though they were worms I just couldn't cut them up
The gulper May be a dangerous mix. It could probably eat the eel if it tried. Even if it couldn’t, it could still try and kill the eel. I recommend you try to separate them. Even the endli could make a go at him.
the best advice I can give is try to get the biggest one you can preferably over 30 cm I say this mainly because you can skip the bloodworm stage it is expensive and a pain to get them off bloodworms and when feeding bloodworms their growth is slow.
Also
I really didn’t have nearly as much trouble getting my eels to eat as most do. I basically started them off in their own tank and they got to know that it was feeding time when I came and opened up the lid. From there I started to introduce new foods and they would often eat them on accident because they were such voracious eaters that they would grab stuff immediately. Then, they would usually just start going for it. My eels will eat just about any frozen food I put in, but they still won’t touch pellets. Lol