im moving up to difficult

Set up a breeder tank for Black Mollies and feed these to your eel.

 

hmm i didnt think of that ill have to consider that one thanks

 

here he is

 

Thats badass.

 

I hear that you can acclimate black mollys to salt water too (pehraps lower than norm) if you really take your time. Consider doing this to help them live longer in the higher salinity. Just a thought.

 

Not Difficult at all

I've looked at so many places that profess that these creatures should not be kept by the inexperienced, The line "Ribbon eels make a striking display animal" followed by hard to keep, 99% die within a month, Everywhere you look the same crap keeps appearing... I have never seen anyone say that their eel died of starvation. i agree that Ribbon eels are picky with their food, but at the same time i believe these eels have their priorities in this order.

1. a comfortable secure territory to call ones castle.
2. Food
3. Getting a sex change to shag all the the other eels around.

many people will try to feed it and neglect the need for a safe place, this is one thing i did, The eel was spastic for 2 weeks before he hid under a rock and only then did it eat some live neon tetras.

During this time my (overgrown fat pig) puffer and ebels angel were pecking away at his fins and what was a perfect line of yellow and white became a shredded fragment, because of this i placed a washed out champagne bottle and ushered him into his new home, he never stuck more than a head out until i refused to feed him. Refused to feed him!!! he was all bloated from shrimp, live fish and chunks of frozen marine dinner, everyday he would have something. His fin has grown back now.

two weeks ago my tank crashed and i lost 4 fish, first a long nose butterfly, then the puffer, ebels angel and a fiji damsel. Not the eel, he's still sliming his way around, I attribute this crash to a possible parasite, poor water quality and maybe some toxins from the puffer. This eel is a tough competitor.

As a result of these deaths i took out the bottle as he was the only one left, and i partly thought the bottle caused a nitrite condition, as the inside never got cleaned. Since then the eel has not had a totally secure home, and he has become difficult to feed, by this i mean, frozen food isn't good enough, and i'm lucky to get him to eat shrimp meat.

Just as he had settled down and my water conditions came back to par, i bought a snowflake eel 3inch long, my girlfriend named him Snowy, I call him Houdini one morning I turned up every rock including the Ribbon eels home to find him and thought that the Ribbon eel got hungry that night, again i destroyed his castle, Houdini wasn't inside the power head like before this time he found a tunnel in the rock i never knew existed. it took a time delay video of the whole day to find him. back to square one.

3 days later he has found a new home, one that i won't have to destroy in search of Houdini. and he has started to accept shrimp meat.

these are all the things that have happened to lead me into this belief that the eel needs a home before hey will eat. I suggest that if anyone is worried with their eel not eating, to give them a home with one entrance, that is dark inside and one that has a small opening such that only the eel can enter.
also it is important that if you do such a thing and that it works, you have to let others know, so that consistent evidence can prove this theory correct, and possible save the lives of These fine creatures.

i think that one person had one and failed, They told their friends because their ego was hurt not to get one, and so the rumor was born, they will die. As people believed this it became law, and because of this law many have died, many have been turned down by people who would care for this creature because they were afraid. i refuse to believe that this creature is difficult, as all animals have one basic instinct, to survive. and as you too begin to believe that ribbon eels are not difficult to keep they will begin to prosper. They are beautiful and demand your attention, that is all. pay attention to their needs and they will live, ignore them and they will die. even if your not experienced you can still take care of one, provided you are willing to put energy into it.

Its time people took a risk and learned more then what the experts who never had one say.

http://psycotech.com/tayler/tayler1.jpg

 

cover the tank!!! when i worked at a lfs we had one eating squid, and krill. he was a black ribbon and he was a beauty. then one morning he was found half dead on the floor. very sad ending....

 

Karlas,
Your last post was back in May. How is the eel doing?

 

I got some bad news on the eel he was doing faboulous but a few weeks ago he got a slit or cut on his side. I cant figure out what he got cut on but his skin kept splitting up toward the gill area and his gills were totally exposed. After the cut was almost 2 inches wide maby a little more he passed away i was so bummed and heart broken. I spent so much time with this eel to get him to eat and then had him eating almost every other day live silver sides and even got him to take frozen beef heart off a stick. It would have been 10 months of having him if this didnt happen. The only thing i have in the tank is the sand in the picture and the long pieces of rock that are shown in the tank, its still puzzling me as to how his skin got split like that. I had him eating like a pig im still bummed out.:-[
I knew that these eels were super hard to keep but after i got him eating i thought i was past the hardest battle with these eels. But they have a super soft skin compared to other eels, i thought nothing in the tank would hurt him but someting did.

 

Very sorry to hear this happened, This is by far my favourite creature and to hear this gets to me, from the photo, yours appears older than mine and i had hoped to see yours change color.