Fire Eel

[Nick]

Perhaps it was mislabeled as a pleco? I'd guess it was a river catfish of some sort, some of those get well bigger than 3 feet and can look pretty plecolike.

[jimi]

the problem with your eel is the substrate he needs sand or could get bacterial infections maybe your sould get him a tube to take over so he wont dig around so much pluse most eels will go about 3 weeks before they starve to death ( or turn on our smaller fish)

[groovitudedude]

Actually, I've had two eels, and neither of them has had any problems with the substrate. The first one died because it jumped out, and this one's fine. Thanks for warning me, though.

[DarkEntity]

he is correct though, eels do far far better with sand, they seem to struggle without it. Id definately remove the nasty gravel and do some sand so he can bury himself etc...

[groovitudedude]

Thanks for telling me that, but I think I'll leave my fish-killing gravel where it is.

[Happy_Puffer]

I just want to say I love the rock! I have red, black and white in my tank but I am getting ready to change it and I was thinking about purple and seeing yours I really like the purple and the black. My fav color is orange but the orange rock that I used to have looked all nasty and it was really orange for awhile but then got all nasty and changed to a green. So I gave it to my boyfriend and he put black over it and now it looks like halloween in his tank all the time. Do you have any other pictures of the eel, hes neat looking!

[groovitudedude]

Of course! 10 inches.

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Sorry about the bichir and uprooted plastic plants in the background

[Happy_Puffer]

He is super cool I have never seen one like that. I love your orange tube hee hee!

[groovitudedude]

I took out the orange tube unfortunately. The original plan was to make a bichir/eel hiding place, but he's not very shy, so I just kinda removed it. My specimen actually isn't full grown, however, and I would NOT suggest eels for new fish owners. They are very picky eaters and tend to eat smaller tankmates. They get up to three feet, I've heard, on MFK, but mine's still young.

[Happy_Puffer]

Ya I don't think I would ever get one. I had a weather loach a long time ago ( if thats what it was called) he was neat but he was a master of getting out and that just wasn't cool because he wouldn't stay around the tank he would make it to the kitchen and look like a snake on the floor and that just wasn't cool hee hee! I would never want a 3 foot slinky animal in the house not that they are bad I'm just not ready to pick up snake-like animals off my floor

[groovitudedude]

Yeah, these guys can get pretty big.

[jimi]

i think your pretty hard pressed to find a small eel

[DarkEntity]

i think your pretty hard pressed to find a small eel

Not really there are a number of Eels which grow to much smaller sizes than the Fire Eel. Spaghetti eels for example.

[jimi]

samller then the fire yes but still not to small your never going to find a eel that will live happly in a 20 long its whol life

[groovitudedude]

The spiny eel family doesn't even consist of actual eels.