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Old 10-14-2009, 04:29 PM
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Delphinus Delphinus is offline
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In that video it was the squid, I sort of did a spur of the moment "Hey I should try filming him" after I had already fed him some mysis in the same manner. In fact I'm more feeding him mysis now, I cut up the sheets of it and keep it in an old margarine container in the freezer so I just grab two cubes (smallish, say 3/8" - 1/2" square), throw one in the tank for general consumption and then quickly put the other in the prongs before it's even thawed, this way it thaws in the tank and stays together long enough for the eel to come out (since after the first cube gets put in, he smells the food and starts coming out). But I also feed flake and nori at the same time, so the tank is almost overwhelmed with food. The others in the tank are so focused on chasing down the loose food they don't notice the prongs right away and by the time they do, I've got the end into that opening between the rock and clam and none of them can really get at it in there so they go for the easier pickings. I guess I must have gotten lucky in that the eel has associated the prongs with food because he's not the least bit scared of them?? He definitely doesn't get all the mysis, he spills a lot much to the merriment of his tankmates but he's definitely getting some.

I was thinking that an other idea might be to put a spin on the "nori PVC pipe" idea - take a piece of say 1/2" or maybe 3/4" PVC, say 3"-4" in length, cap it on one end, drill a hole and attach some fishing line (so it's easy to pull out), and jam some mysis or other food down the open end, and jam it to the other end, and then just put it in the tank in a low flow spot or near the favourite burrow opening ... theoretically the eel would be the only one capable of pulling food out of it. I haven't tried it yet but maybe that could work for you?

The previous eel I had, man, he didn't eat for like 2 months, or at least, I didn't *see* him eat. So they are capable of lasting a realllllly long time without evidence of eating. When he finally did start, it was either the cubed squid or a piece of oyster that finally convinced him. I see now though, now that I have this guy, that my choice of foods was probably a good part of the problem back then. He's just not interested in anything that's too "tough" to bite through, and even silversides are too tough (or at least, "not tender enough"). I'd offer mussels and oysters now but I know I will have a hard time getting that past the tang to him because he also looooooves the clam on the half shell.

Good luck!
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