ribbon eel not eating

Hello,
I am new here. We all heard about stubborn ribbon eels not eating, and blah blah blah about the normal status que because there are people out there that do have the patients and desire to keep these animals alive. I am looking for another person like me that is devoted to keeping a ribbon eel for the long term. I was hoping someone here has one or two or three, or has a friend that has been able to keep one to help me with the acclimation period and shorten the time to where it will be prepared to start eating.
I am not into the whole negative aspect of giving up on this beautiful eel because of some article about some famous guy saying that its impossible because there are people out there that have them and had them for long periods of time.
Sorry for the overpowering straightforwardness, but I have researched this for a while and have gotten good information about this eel. I would like to chat with someone who has had experience first hand, rather then a reader with no first hand experience. It's the way I am.
Primer

 

Be happy to help you out.

First off has the eel got a good secure place to hide where he will stick his head out but can completely hide if he gets spooked.

second. how are you trying to feed him. and what exactly are you giving him.

please add a picture of tank, hiding place. also you may as well click on search and put in ribbon eel, there will be a thread called moving up to dificult. have a flick through.

ps. welcome to 3reef

 

Hey,
I appreciate your help. So far I got him to eat twice since I wrote my message. He has finally eaten two and a half mollies. I chose to keep mollies over damsels in the tank with him because two damsels died during the initial ammonium spike from setting up the new tank. I can tell now, I think, when he is getting ready to eat. he becomes extremely active leaving his cave and speedily swims across the top of the tank and around the middle. it had taken him nearly three weeks to eat. I am studying him very carefully in order to understand his personality. he seems to be reverting back to black from blue which i have read is not uncommon when put in captivity and during stress. i agree with you about the hiding places and the security issues. I currently have two large live rocks, and an ornamental plastic type cave were he goes after he eats. that's twice I have noticed that. I think I am going to transfer more live rock to the center of the tank. and keep his "cave" on the side of the tank. I am hoping that after about three more weeks I can break him into eating frozen foods and/or freeze dried krill and place him in the 125 that has a good 30 pieces of live rock. I will email you a picture of the tank he is in now and the 125. currently he is in a 55 gallon tank which i feel might be a little small for him considering he is very close to being and 3 and a half feet and the tank is about four feet. I also noticed that all lights in the room must be off and the room completely dark when he eats which leads me to believe he does not have a comfortable and secure hiding place. He is an amazing creature and I hope he does well.

 

Thats great to hear. I don't see why he wouldn't eat the mollies during light. my guess is that mollies are more active swimmers and stay to the top of the tank. he will strike when the fish isn't moving. also he has the advantage at night being blind and relying on smell this is when day fish are easily caught. mine ate little feeder fish that usually swam to the bottom to hide, but the eel would sniff out their place and wham. i'd be feeding them all through the day. cause he was happy to eat 7 or so. they were about an inch each.

The eel i had was only 2ft. and hadn't developed his nostrils, so perhaps your one has already developed a habit to eat at night.

now I take it you have been de-sens-e-ties-edddd to death by now. make yourself a feeding stick with a toothpick end. and put a live fish on the toothpick. go in through the mouth. simply hold it in front of the cave, don't make it move to much and wait for him to gain some interest, typically he will strike at the head, give him some room to come out of the cave so he can position himself. if he touches it and goes back in it simply means he is gaining confidence. try to sway it gently i think their sight is more focused on motion.

once he is used to the stick then you can start on other food because he will learn that this is a source of food.

i don't doubt that he will do well. however i always gave him some fresh shrimp meat, at least once in a week unless he wasn't up for eating it.

 

foods i have tried

Hey,
I am going to try the stick thing somemore. So far, I have tried frozen brine, frozen silversides, freeze dried krill, thawed muscle in the shell with it cracked, thawed scallops, thawed shrimp, live ghost shrimp, and live goldfish. I have tried the stick on all food specimans. what happens is he will come out, move his head and than turn away and look away. It's enough to have a priest get upset. I also tried canned tuna. I have also tried to stimulate the eel by soaking the food in tuna oil from the can, clam sauce, and a garlic appetite stimulator the LFS manager told me to try.
I am going to place a dark bottle in the tank and a length of PCV tubing with a bend and a cap at one end.
Man, I cant believe your baby eel ate 7 fish a day. thats amazing. mine eats one about every four days lmao.
what happened to your eel? BTW I am calling him Ghandi because he likes hunger strikes, he gets around, he is very thin, and ervybody loves him.

 

sounds like your stressing about his eating. fair enough i was too when i first got mine. the thing is they can survive for quite some time without eating. so relax a bit. don't bother with the frozen stuff, stick to what he will eat. ribbon eels prefer fish, they have very tiny sharp teeth to get a good grip, and even though they are very gentle to touch they are fairly strong. they also prefer them alive or close too. as a comparison it may have taken my eel 10 min of staring at the food before taking shrimp meat. when it came to fish once he knew it was there you could tell he was hunting. if it was dead fish, he wasn't as interested.

I found that sometimes he wouldn't respond to the feeding stick so i would retrain him by putting live fish there, then the next time i put shrimp meat he would go for it. although if he is a good hunter and gets his meal once every 4 days is actually what most people recommend for all eels. if he eats more often then thats ok.

the feeding stick was the only way mine would eat untill he learned how to hunt, from there on i let him catch his meals, since your one already knows how to hunt the reason why your trying to use the stick is to feed him shrimp meat so as to not be buying live fish. when i said mine ate 7 or 8 at a time you may not have thought that he hadn't eaten all week.

i think i've ranted on a bit. in short only live fish on the stick until he is used to eating that way. then try shrimp. thats about it. keep feeding him the live fish every 4 days or you can try to wait a week if you can hold your temptations and give him a fish on a stick.

I like the name. it suits it. atm i have only got a snowflake eel since he is the only one that survived a tank crash of over 5ppm of ammonia, the ribbon eel got to 2ppm before he turned south. my bad.

look foward to see a pic.

 

i think he is doing ok

i think your right. i am stressing a bit too much and trying too hard. right now, i have been stocking the tank with about six new mollies at a time. usually he eats about two a week and stops when they have been in the tank for a few days. i noticed he will eat the first night i put new mollies on the tank.
i stocked it yesterday and he snapped at one in about 30 seconds. then he waited about an hour and finished him and ate it. it was cool watching how fast he is. early this morning another one was eaten. i am watching him tease one right now nudging him very gently with his nose.
i am not going to restock. i will get another batch after he finishes these or they pass away. then do the stick thing. then try to get him to feed on frozen stuff. i take it he will not eat dead or frozen stuff for a while, if ever, so, i have an expensive eating, high maintenance fish to deal with.
I am going to get a digital cam to get a high quality picture or two. i should have them to you in a week.
how do you like your snowflake? i love mine. i got mine about four months ago, and he was about 9 inches and a pencils thickness. he has grown to atleast 13 inches and about two large fingers thick. he eats well two to three times a day and has only hunger striked when i had ghandi in with him.
well take care for now. I am going to start emailing you and detach from this thread. the bottom line is the ribbon eel is eating and is difficult to entice feeding and requires tremendous tenacity and patients, and he is going to live in captivity because he has learned to eat on his own terms in an aquarium.
Primer