Fire Eel log

[XimeD]

I am getting a fire eel today! and decided to start a thread on it. I had a peacock eel that I absolutely loved, unfortunately it climbed out of my tank through my biowheel filter and died (everything else was covered)

So, after eel proofing my 75gal tank I have been trying for months now to find a fire eel and finally I just got a call from my LFS that they have one!!! Yayyyyy I am so excited.

I will be picking it up in a few hours and posting some pics. My plan is to have this thread as a kind of log about my experience with keeping a fire eel.

Wish me luck

 

[iDream]

sounds good, fire eels looks awesome

 

[The_Desacrator]

I have one and I am gonna give you some pointer/tips
1. fire eels are jumpers. Mine has alreayd jumped ointo my filter twice, and got into the filter bag.I am stuill unsure how it did that.
2. They like to hide alot. I currently have no idea where mine is.
3. They grow huge. Be prepared to give it back to the LFS or have a big enough tank for it.
4.They are alot of fun to watch them burrow. Make sure you have sand/soft substrate for them to burrow in. If you have too sharp of a substrate they can hurt themselves by burrowing
5. I have had people tell me they are "aggressive," but I think thats a load of crap. He/she is probably the most peaceful/calm of all my fish.
6. Make sure you watch them eat. Don't just drop bloodworms/krill/etc into the tank. Make sure the food will drift past its face. Mine will stay in the gravel during feedings so you have to judge where the currents are going and adjust accordingly. I have read that in some cases you can train them to eat out of your hand. If yours is not bashful like mine, try to hand feed him.

 

[tallchik77]

cant wait to see pics!!! good luck

 

[tyspot1000]

Congrats on the new Eel! Cant wait for pics! Ive always wanted some kind of eel, but never had enough space for another tank.

Tyler

 

[ejaramillo01]

Good luck
Lets see the pictures soon

 

[TheCrazyFishLady]

I'm excited for you! And will be following

 

[XimeD]

Meet Kraken:

Here are a couple of pics, I'll post some more tomorrow

 

[Aquarium1]

He looks awesome!!

 

[tyspot1000]

He looks great! Cant wait for more pics! Keep us updated!

Tyler

 

[iDream]

yeah he looks great!

 

[ejaramillo01]

Beautiful!
Congrats

 

[XimeD]

The first day

My husband and I decided to call it Kraken, so I guess its a "he" from now on (sexing is hard on fire eels so at least we have a 50% chance of being right)

Anyway, I acclimated him by the floating bag method and as soon as he was out of the bag he proceeded to claim the prime real estate, a cave previously shared by my raphael cat and spotted leaf fish. The leaf fish didn't seem to mind kraken, the raphael cat left in huff. Pics of Kraken in the cave below:

 

[XimeD]

Exploring

At this point I left to get some ghost shrimp, and half an hour later when I got back kraken was out and about exploring his new home. He doesnt seem shy at all and I havent seem him burrow yet, I do have lots of places for him to hide though. As soon as I dropped the shrimp in he went into hunting mode. I also have 2 bigger whisker shrimp (some kind of macrobrachium) that have lasted in the tank so far because they are too big for my leaf fish, one of them might be too big for kraken too, we'll see. But here are some pics of kraken hunting shrimp. I didn't see him actually get one but hopefully he did when the lights went out. I will be feeding him some earthworms today.

So far he looks healthy and active and it seems like he is not a shy one, no signs of aggression towards his tankmates either. I am very happy to have found him I forgot to mention, he is about 7 or 8 inches now and I am hoping to be able to keep him in this tank for a couple of years before I have to upgrade.

Thanks everyone for tagging along I'll keep posting

 

[XimeD]

I have one and I am gonna give you some pointer/tips
1. fire eels are jumpers. Mine has alreayd jumped ointo my filter twice, and got into the filter bag.I am stuill unsure how it did that.
2. They like to hide alot. I currently have no idea where mine is.
3. They grow huge. Be prepared to give it back to the LFS or have a big enough tank for it.
4.They are alot of fun to watch them burrow. Make sure you have sand/soft substrate for them to burrow in. If you have too sharp of a substrate they can hurt themselves by burrowing
5. I have had people tell me they are "aggressive," but I think thats a load of crap. He/she is probably the most peaceful/calm of all my fish.
6. Make sure you watch them eat. Don't just drop bloodworms/krill/etc into the tank. Make sure the food will drift past its face. Mine will stay in the gravel during feedings so you have to judge where the currents are going and adjust accordingly. I have read that in some cases you can train them to eat out of your hand. If yours is not bashful like mine, try to hand feed him.

Thanks so much for the tips. Here's what I have done, please let me know if you have any further suggestions:

1. I'll post pics of the top of my tank, but it is acrylic and has a "cover" with two round holes for filter inlet/outlet and other rectangular shaped openings. The rectangular openings I put a piece of glass over. I know I will have to weight these down once kraken gets bigger and I will. I have a canister filter, so no chance he will climb into my filter like my previous eel did, but I covered the space left with cardboard and electrical tape (this is not in contact with the water so I don't think the tape will leach anything into the tank). This migh have been overkill but after my last eel better safe than sorry.

3. Yeah, I've seen the videos, up to 50in in the wild and between 20-30in in captivity. Plan is to keep it in my 75gal (48Lx15Wx24H) hopefully for 2 years (I will be moving then) and then get the biggest tank I can afford, probably 180gal

4. I have sand, I pretty much set up this whole tank planning to put an eel in it. I do have a cave made of slate, but people in this forum said it was ok as long as I glued the pieces together with silicone (I did)

6. I have long tweezers that I would feed my other eel with. I get about 10 ghost shrimp once a week or every 10 days for my leaf fish and now for kraken too. Also I am going to try to train kraken to hand feedings, the plan is to hold the tweezers closer and closer until I don't need them

 

[tyspot1000]

Great pic! Cant wait for more!

Tyler

 

[XimeD]

Feeding

The ghost shrimp that I put in the tank a couple of days ago are gone but I have no way of knowing who got those so I will be feeding kraken earthworms and california blackworms.

At the LFS I got him from they said they were feeding him frozen bloodworms but so far he doesn't seem too interested in those, he'll nibble one here and there if they drift his way but he doesn't actively search for more.

I tried my first earthworm feeding yesterday with great success, I used tweezers to make sure kraken got the worm (my tinfoil barbs are insatiable and will eat anything and everything). Encouraged by yesterday I went earthworm hunting and found 3 worms, one was maybe 3 inches long and I was able to handfeed that one yayyyyy. I was so excited, I wasn't expecting to be able to handfeed this soon. The next one was maybe 1.5inch and I couldn't persuade kraken to take that one so it was back to tweezers.

Overall earthworms seem to be his favorite food so far (sorry no pics, I'll try to get my husband to take a pic or better yet video while I am feeding next time)

 

[ejaramillo01]

Amazing!
Can't wait to see the hand feeding a video will be cool
Thanks for sharing!

 

[XimeD]

Hand Feeding

I now don't need to use the tweezers at all, kraken will come all the way up to my hand, not inside yet but he will check out the tip of my fingers. I am ecstatic because I thought this would take months. I have to say kraken is probably the smartest fish I have had so far, in a few days he has learnt to associate the opening of the tank canopy with food (I don't know what other people's experiences are but this took way longer with my other fish and my peacock eel not at all)

It seems pretty clear I have an extrovert, kraken likes to swim about, he now has about 4 favorite spots which he alternates between during the day and as expected with eels, swims about even more when the lights go out.

I will do my best to get a video of the feeding tonight

 

[Bnortz]

That is an awesome eel! Sweet!!!!!!!