Fire Eel

[Chris_JT]

i saw a fire eel today and wondered whats the deal with these wacky looking fish. the one i saw was about a foot long, he was a beauty. i wanna know more about these guys. what do they eat, how big do they get, environment, ect.... Also he was selling it for 75 bucks, is that a good price??? thanks.

 

[CFC]

Fire eels can grow up to around 3 foot but specimins this size are rare in the hobby due to their excessively fussy eating habbits.
They should be fed on large frozen meaty foods like mussels, cockles, fish and shrimp but usually it is just a case of giving them whatever they will eat to keep them alive, many eels will refuse to eat anything but one type of food and will even starve themselves to death if not offered it. Frozen and live bloodworms and live earthworms are good places to start with feeding fussy eels and live shrimp is rarely refused.

 

[Bomag]

can only echo what cfc has said that they do need a big tank and they are fussy eaters as i no personally could not get any of my three to last very long @ all they basically to cut a long story short killed them selves by not eating

after trying to get mine to eat various things including shrimps whitebait and bloodworm to no avail also another spiny eel which is fussy to keep was what we call round here a peocock spiny eel which also was hard to keep.

but like i have said before my first and easiest eel to keep which has gone from strength to strength and just keeps getting bigger and fatter (slowly mind) is the tyre track eel

if you do decide to get a eel that would be my choice in terms of being the easiest to keep he hand feeds everynight and also trys to feed on my hands everynight as he grabs hold of my fingers lol


also the other eels you my see are marbled eel s not spiny a totally different kettle of fish which is a very fussy eater

hope this can be of some use to you but remember its only my experience with them

 

[judcoynehunter]

I AGREE with what has been said the thing i find best when i buy a new eel is to ask the seller exactly what its feeding habits are and follow his advice

when i first bought my tryetrack eel the lfs informed me he would only eat frozen(not live )bloodworm so i feed him on this but as i was feeding my other fish on frozen mussles he changed his deit to this and rarley eats anything else now (prawns and the occasional pack of bloodworm(not segment)

so i would stress that if anyone is looking into buying one of these magnificent creatures then ask the lfs or person selling the fish what its feeding habits are

 

[Chris_JT]

the fire eel he's selling is eating freeze dried krill. funny you mention that, he actually fed it while i was there. it came right out of the pipe and ate the krill off the surface. is 75 bucks a good price? Also are tyretrack eels easier to feed than fire eels?? thanks for the info.

 

[FishDan]

The tire track eel is similar in feeding habits as the fire eel (incidentally, neither of them are actually eels. They are part of the Mastacembelidae family, also known as the Spiney Eel family. They are simply elongated tropical fish.) The tire track will get to be a maximum of 2'6". Mine loves frozen bloodworms, but will occassionally eat sinking pellets. They, like the rest of the family, are primarily carnivorous and should be feed live black worms, earthworms or frozen bloodworms or other meaty foods.

[EDIT]Oh, as for $75 I imagine the price is fairly resonable for such a large fish. Mine is about 4" and cost me $10.

\Dan