Peacock Eel Food...

[xoniac]

Hey all,

I recently got a young peacock eel for my tank. It's been about two weeks, actually. He spends most of his time in the day hiding, but comes out at night... well, some night.

Anyways, he's only about 3" long, maybe 4" at the most. He's just a tiny little fella, but I haven't seen him eat at all. I've put in sinking wafers for him and I've also tried giving him bloodworms. I started trying to shove them into the cave where he spends most of his time before lights out. That didn't work. So last night, I took an empty, clean bottle and put bloodworms in there and sunk in down into the gravel, hoping he'd find it in there while my rams would not. Unfortunately, it was still there in the morning. I have no idea what else to try - I've heard they love earthworms but, he's so tiny...

Any suggestions? Is he still too small to eat ghost shrimp? I know it takes them a while to get acclimated and such, but I really just want him to eat.

[kaceyo]

Eels go for live food so you may want to get it into a QT tank (should have been right off) and try some live worms. My eels used to love freezedried BS too.
Also eels are very shy and feed at night so it may be eating a little and you're just not seeing it.

[Herbicidal]

Many years ago I had a Fire eel that grew to over 2 1/2 feet long! He was a big boy in my 135 gallon tank. I fed him live tubifex worms via a turkey baster. He would darn near tear that thing out of my hand! So, on a smaller scale, maybe an eye dropper? The kind with the soft rubber end to suck up some worms and coax him with that? My wife is training her small Fire eel right now using a small turkey baster and it's working. :)

[xoniac]

He's scared of anything I put in the tank. He's still alive and it's been a few weeks so I assume he's eating scraps left at the end of the day. I'm going to get him some ghost shrimp thursday when they come back in stock... hopefully that'll work.