Fire Eels

[Carina]

opinions please?

Was reading up on them and some people have written the are agressive but others say they are a great community fish as long as they are big ish fish in the tank.

I personally love the look of them

Carina

 

[cane76]

ime fire eels do fine in large fish communities i have only seen aggression towards other eels.they will need a large tank my fire eel is 20"

 

[ringham]

I have had quite a bit of experience with fire eels and IME they are gr8 community fish. I have found IME that fire eels are NOT territorial and are only aggresive towards other fire eels, and even this aggresion is hardl anything. Normally they will greedily accept bloodworms and leave all fish alone. I keep 2 fire eels in the same tank with other types of eel and there is only minor aggresion with each of the fire eels.

I keep fire eels with angel fish and silver dollars and BGK fih and cichlids (non-aggresive) and plecos and LOADS of diff fish.

 

[Carina]

My fire eel is settling in very well.....he is not aggressive at all so i guess some people that have written bad things about them just had a bad experience.

Or maybe because my other fish arnt stupid and when they see a 10inch fish coming towards them they run!! lol

 

[cane76]

glad he is doing well

 

[k.o.d]

This is our big lad, he comes in at about 25"

he is no trouble at all, but he eats whole king prawns, so if he can eat them ( in large quantities ) you will definitely have to say he is a community fish only for the larger communities

Steve

 

[Carina]

Oh hes gorgeous!!!

Mines yellow - do you think he will go red? on his tail i mean

 

[ringham]

Carina, would you mind posting a pikie of your eel?

Both of my fire eels are so tame and non-aggresive also.

My largest fire eel is in m sig and i lso have a smaller fire eels but he is a lot less colourful so i am hoping he ill get better colours. I wouldn't be surprised if yours does colour up.

 

[Carina]

yes thats fine - i will post a picture as soon as i can get a decent one.

he comes out and by the time ive got my camera out he wriggles back into the darkness lol

will do it later today

 

[SamUK]

dnt mean to hijack your thread but whilst im here, what eel would go best in my 180g tank?

fish list in my profile.

thanx in advance.

 

[cane76]

fire eel or maybe tyre track just get it at the right size depending on how big your fish are

 

[ringham]

I strongly reommend a fire eel.

The tyre track eel has a nicer pattern but then a fire eel is the tamest and the most personality.

Fire eels get bigger tan tyre track and also they very rarely eat your fish, unlike tyre track eels do.

Tyre track eels have a very strong tendancey to be very terriotorial and aggresive, also there is a small posibily that he won't like your clown loaches. My tyre track ate my clown loaches admitidly my tyre track was 14" and my loaches were only 3".

If i were you i would defo get a fire eel although tyre tracks are gorgeous I admit it can be a very difficult choice.

I have a better Idea. Why not just get a tyre track and a fire eel. Although if you do decided to do this there are a few things that you need to know.

Firstly, becuase tyre track eels are so territoral then you need to put the fire eel in the tank FIRST this is very important, also (you tank is already big so there is no problem there) you need to make sure that there is onle tunnel or somehting that are at each end of the tank so they are as far away from each other as posible.

Secondly when they are first purchased try and buy a big-ish fire eel (15" or so) and when you buy a tyre track eel get one that is as close to half the fire eels length as posible (8" or so). If you do thi then you can have the best of both worlds.

 

[SamUK]

thats awesome thanx ringham.


if i went for both do you think id need to rehome a couple of fish? maybe some cons. or are they not a big hit to the bioload.

not sure but the tank must be pretty well stocked now.

 

[ringham]

It depends on how attracted you are to each fish.

I am afraid that if you got both eels then you may need to lose 1 or 2 fish. but in general eels arent actually that bad. If I were you I would get rid of te oscar but i think that you like it dont you. I recommend losing 3 cons and buying 1 fire eel and then 1 tyre track eel. 10 cons is a bit OTT anyway, don't you think?

IMO a fire eel and a tyre track eel are way better than 3 cons anyway. If you want you can even gt rid of more than 3 but it is up to you.

 

[simonas]

It depends on how attracted you are to each fish.

I am afraid that if you got both eels then you may need to lose 1 or 2 fish. but in general eels arent actually that bad. If I were you I would get rid of te oscar but i think that you like it dont you. I recommend losing 3 cons and buying 1 fire eel and then 1 tyre track eel. 10 cons is a bit OTT anyway, don't you think?

IMO a fire eel and a tyre track eel are way better than 3 cons anyway. If you want you can even gt rid of more than 3 but it is up to you.

sorry to hijack thread fellas but I've just got a 15 inch fire eel to replace my old one that climbed out of a new tank.

My old one fed on everything especially prawns which was greta however this one swims away from everything except live bloodwrom and an earthworm but they are impossible to find when you want to!!!

any ideas cos I've never had this problem with supposed finnicky fish before