Extremely Finicky Fire Eel - Need Advice

[KHarris]

Hi there!

I have a 9-10" Fire Eel that I'm having issues with food-wise. The only food he will readily take are your typical garden earthworms, and it's been this way since I got him a few months ago. However, now that the weather is getting colder, these worms are becoming more and more scarce, and local tackle shops don't carry these worms small enough for my eel.

I've tried freezedried bloodworms, frozen bloodworms and red wigglers (which I still have plenty of) and he will either ignore them completely, or eat them and immediately spit them back out and swim away.
He is always begging for food, swimming around the front of the tank multiple times a day and inspecting my hand for food whenever I stick it in the tank, so I know he has an appetite.

I would like to start feeding him the bloodworms and red wigglers (and anything else that's good for him) from now on instead of the garden earthworms, but I can't get him to touch them or keep them down.
Does anyone have any advice/tips/pointers they could give me to get him to eat these and keep them down? I don't want him to starve.

 

[thereverendturtle]

Give it time, eventually hunger will get the best of it. A healthy fish can go several weeks or even a month or more without eating.

 

[Squidward]

I would mix the earthworms and the other food in a container and leave it for a few hours.
The other food will pick up the smell of the earthworms. And the Eel, might be convinced that way.

I have found this does work sometimes with difficult fish.