Peacock Eel

[Mustang Boy]

I am buying a tank this weekend that is coming with among other things a peacock eel now i really like him cause he is pretty cool now the rest of the fish i am gonna trade to my LFS cause i am gonna go a different route with the tank but i was wondering what size tank a fully grown peacock eel would need cause i would like to keep him but i dont think he would go along with the SA dwarf cichlid theme i want to do with this tank

and also any other information on the care of this guy would be greatly appreciated

 

[DarkEntity]

Sand base is essential as they bury themselves constantly, ive had mine a few months and have seen hime 2 or 3 times lol..mine eats live and frozen foods and seems to be pretty much harmless and ignore by all others in the tank

 

[Mustang Boy]

sweet and i was thinking of keeping it on a mainly live food diet of brine shrimp, ghost shrimp(when it is big enough), and fish fry and feeder guppies(again if it ever gets big enough for these) and some frozen food and see if i can eventually get him to eat out of my hands

and the tank that he is coming with has small gravel which i will slowly switch out for sand cause i like sand much better

 

[connorsbala]

Scrap the brine shrimp and fry idea lol! Go for live foods such as bloodworm and tubifex...much easier for them to take and theyre more likely to eat these

 

[Mustang Boy]

thanks i will definitely take that advice

 

[Starfishpower]

i have one of these. great fish. mine is about 6" right now and i feed it on chopped red wiggler earthworms. they get cut (with scissors, dont try a knife) into about 1 cm long segments for easy swallowing since peacocks dont really seem to chew their food, they just kinda choke it down. a tip with live earthworms, if you buy them in one of those plastic tub containers it helps if you store it upside down - with the lid on of course lol - this way when you go to find one you can flip it rightside up and all your earthworms will be on top waiting for you ~ they gather near the "bottom" so it can be very hard to find them sometimes

sand is an absolute must. no getting around that.

cover the top of the tank as they can very easily escape. mine used to do this thing during eating where he would ram himself at high speeds into the glass top on the tank he's now in. very strange, but point made, if there hadnt been a top that fish would have gone flying!

i wouldnt recommend cichlids unless it was something really peaceful like rams. one of my friends keeps SA cichlids and i know how mean and brutish those suckers are. try it if you like, its your fish, but i thought i should mention that.

goodluck, they are great fish. oh and for tank size i recommend 36"l x 12"w as an absolute bare minimum... period. i am upgrading mine to a 48"l x 12.5"w to keep it in for the rest of its life, as far as i know right now anyway. they are great fish, enjoy, oh and this is one of the few spiny eels that actually like the company of its own kind so you could get a few more

 

[Mr._Fishy]

As said before, they certainly need a sand substrate. I would also like to add that if you keep them in a tank with low light and plenty of hiding places you should see more of them. I have my group of three in a tank with loads of drift wood and plastic plants and I see them out of the sand quite a bit.

 

[Mustang Boy]

thanks for all of the help guys and right now the tank he is in is a little over crowded so i am gonna quickly setup the 29gal tank that i have and stick him in there with the rainbow fish until i can get him a larger tank and when i do that i will get him some more eel friends to hang out with