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My LFS has recently started carrying Eels. Fire, Tiretracka and Peacock. I currently have a 48 gallon tank with a FireMouth 4-yoyos and 9-Lemon Tetras. Would any of these eels be or are they to agressive or big.

A peacock eel would be suitable, but will
probably eat your lemon tetras once its big enough.


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A Peacock Eel would probably work. Though they get to be about 12" long, they are slender fish and do not produce nearly as much waste as, for example, a 12" Oscar. Additionally, they have relatively small mouths so you shouldn't have to worry about the Lemon Tetras becoming food, as they are a rather deep-bodied species. These eels are peaceful to anything they do not consider to be food.

Spiny Eels are not very competitive feeders, however, and they will generally not accept processed foods. They relish any kind of small invertebrate prey, such as worms, krill, and ghost shrimp. And what's awesome about these eels is that they do not have teeth in their jaws, so you can hand-feed them to make sure they are getting enough to eat (which they take to with ease).

Don't expect to see the eel much, however, unless you are feeding it. They spend most of the day buried under the gravel or wedged into tight hiding places. I believe they are largely crepuscular, so if you get a moonlight bulb you should be able to see it swimming around. They appreciate sand as a substrate, but they can deal with gravel if necessary. Their scientific name is Macrognathus siamensis.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Ah, Mastacembelid Eels. These are very interesting and quirky fishes. However, an aquarium that is suitable for them needs a few interesting features.

One, they appreciate cover. LOTS of it. Complex bogwood root tangles of the kind found in their native home are perfect, but of course these need some constructing. They will take to life in caves made from smooth, rounded rocks, but if you want to get the very best from a Mastacembelid Eel, tangled arrays of bogwood are the way to go. Grow Java Ferns and Java Moss on the bogwood for added shade.

Two, they appreciate shade. While some plants in an aquarium need bright light in order to grow and prosper, the kind of lighting that would keep a stand of Cabomba happy is not conducive to your seeing your Spiny Eel. If you can arrange for some of your bogwood tangles to break the water surface, and act as surface tension traps for floating plants such as Pistia stratiotes, thus crating shaded areas, then you are more likely to see your Spiny Eel.

Three, feeding. Because these fishes are, as Natalie said above, crepuscular in nature (i.e., they are active during the twylight hours), then ensuring that they receive sufficient food in an aquarium, particularly a community aquarium with active, ravenous daytime feeders, will require some care and attention on the part of the owner. Feeding after 'lights out' is recommended for the first two weeks, until the Spiny Eel realises that you, the big looming shape outside the aquarium, are the provider of yummy treats.

The game plan for keeping these fishes should be as follows:

[1] Build a bogwood tangle in such a manner that there are openings pointing toward the front of the aquarium, so that at the very least, the Spiny Eel may show its face even if it doesn't show much else.

[2] Arrange some floating plants to provide shade over this bogwood tangle. In the long term, growing Java Moss and Java Ferns on the bogwood will also assist in this matter. Be advised, however, that if you DO grow Java Ferns in particular on your bogwood tangle, any separate piecee will become welded together by the roots of the Java Ferns over time, making dismantling for gravel vac purposes an interesting exercise unless this is done regularly from the start, thus preventing the formation of 'knitting' roots that require more than pulling apart by hand.

[3] Use a spare undergravel filter uplift tube to place food items of choice near the bogwood tangle during 'lights out'. You can drop teaspoons of live or frozen Bloodworm down the tube and just let them sink to where the Spiny Eel will find them. If need be, let some of the worms fall between the bogwood crevices, where the other fishes in the aquarium will find it hard to reach them, thus giving your Spiny Eel a head start.

Eventually, your Spiny Eel, finding itself in a carefully planned aquarium with at least part of the decor arranged specifically to its liking, will become bolder, and may even appear during more normal daylight hours, looking eagerly for yet more titbits. If you pop in some juvenile shrimps and let them wander among the bogwood tangles, chances are the Spiny Eel will find them. Once the fish feels secure and has a place to call 'home', it will (particularly if attention is paid to shaded areas) start becoming inquisitive and start exploring its home, whereupon you get to see the fish you've paid your money for.

Remember at all times the cardinal rule. Think like the fish. Ask yourself "What would I need or want if I was this fish?", then set about providing it. Do that will all your fishes, and many fishkeeping problems are eliminated at source even with 'commonplace' fishes. With more specialised ones such as Spiny Eels, the extra thought and work pays handsome dividends.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Thanks for the replies. I may look into the Peacock eel. I can easily get frozen blood worms and can get ghost shrimp pretty easily. If I put in some ghost shrimp will the fire mouth eat them up. How often would the eel need feeding. My tank has a nice bogwood area and few small broken pots for hiding places. My main worry is being able to properly feed it.

The eel will need to be fed at least every other day. If your cichlid will eat the ghost shrimp, try using frozen krill. You can just hold those right in front of the eel's face, and he will eat them. It takes some time for them to get used to taking food out of your fingers though, like a couple weeks.

I used to hand feed a three-foot long Fire Eel that lived in a display tank at the store where I used to work. These eels aren't very smart nor to they have good eyesight, so it would usually try and eat my fingers a couple times before finally finding the krill. It just feels like when koi try to eat your fingers (I'm pretty sure everyone did that as kids), but a little more sudden.

The tank that this eel was in also had many large cichlids, so handfeeding was the only option when it came to making sure this fish had enough to eat. I also found that even in holding tanks and most community tanks, they cannot get enough to eat without some assistance.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.