Fire Eel

[ChrisCook]

Anyone ever kept these? Am I ok with sand as the substrate for them and what sort of shelters should I provide in the tank?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Well i have never kept these fish because they are such tank busters, i.e they grow massive, you don't have any space in your 40gal because it is already overstocked and a 10gal is far too small for them so you will definatly have to get a much larger tank if you want to keep one of these eels for any period of time- here's a little info page stating some basic info on care for them ;

http/fish.mongabay.com/species/Mastacemb...throtaenia.html

 

[Synirr]

There's a 7" fire eel at my LFS right now I'm sooo tempted to get, but I'm afraid my midas hybrid would tear it up, and if it couldn't live in the 80 gallon with her I'd be screwed.... plus it's like $40.

Anyway, sand should be good for one. Some people use PVC pipes for their eels to hide in, but pretty much any small shelter they can hide completely in and feel snug and safe would be good.

 

[Dangerousdan]

I keep 12" fire 7ubut are k uyg

 

[Juno]

chris

i keep loads of eels. the fire eels are by far my fav. they do grow quite big and quite quickly. my biggest one is about 55cm at the moment, he lives in a 1.5 meter 550 liter tank and will be moved to a 2.5 meter setup in a couple of weeks. they are wonderfull fish to keep and do well in a non aggressive comunity, however the fact that they can top out about 100cm needs to be taken into consideration.

they love a sand bottom while small (they love to dig and will spend most of their time completely burried with only the mouth or head sticking out), as they grow they tend to stop digging and like hiding under wood or in caves. they are also very strong and move big pieces of wood by themselves therefore loose rocks piled on top of one another should be avoided. the are also quite succeptable to skin disease so avoid anything with sharp edges that they can hurt themselves on.

when small feed it blodwoorm, as it grows switch to earthworms and when big enough you can try beefheart or ox liver.

i am not too hot on conversions (from SA and we use Liters, meter etc.) etc but you would need to have something in the range of a 4 to 6 foot tank to keep it in, but you would need to upgrade to accomodate it when fully grown. they normally top out at about 60 to 90 cm that is 2 to 3 foot in aquaria.