eel feeding question

FuzzAz

I have an animal called a fire eel...overall he seems in good health. My concern is that he never eats anyhting but bloodworms, thankfully he will accept frozen bloodworms since the LFS went out of busness. He wont eat BS or or any other kind of frozen shrimp or worms or snail and absolutely no dry food whatsoever. The only exception is once I put a small BN pleco in there and the pleco was gone in about 3 seconds, no I cant feed him BN plecos every day. Not that I mind feeding him bloodworms, it just doesnt seem like a healthy diet. somtimes I drop him a pellet just to see but he wont even humour me.

Mikaila31

You tried regular worms and chopped up fish from the grocery store... jeez he is picky. Did you let him go hungrey for a few days before hand? If he is picky and not pressed for food he will ignore unfamiliar foods. Fish can go a week easy without eating, so put your foot down. Fast him for 3 days. Then offer a new food. If he ignores it try a different kind a in the evening. Keep going offering him 2 different new foods a day. I would suggest cutting things up pretty well to about the size of bloodworms. You can really mess with him and dethaw some bloodworms, but just add the bloodworm flavored water to the tank(fish can smell/taste this) then a new food. He will eat once he gets hungry enough. Its not that he doesn't like all the things you are offering. Animals generally prefer to stick to food they know as this is safest. I wouldn't use prepared foods, stick w/ fresh and frozen. I personally would just get him onto a cheaper food. Blood worms are expensive same with prepared foods. A pound of cod costs like $5-6 dollars and is very appetizing to most fish. My caecilian, which look like eels are pretty much the exact opposite. Bloodworms and BS are not in their diet due to their small size and price. Mine will eat most anything: shrimp, worms, cod, catfish, talapia, smelt, walleye, crawdads and treats they probably shouldn't like cheese, pork, chicken, beef, and once even a sauteed mushroom.