just wanting to share eel experiences with anyone who owns a eel. I have a "Gold batik eel", and have had him about, say a month maybe, he is about 18-20cm and getting less shy slowly, He spends most his time buried in the gravel with his head protruding ( i can hear him at night when the lights are out wriggling through it) , or lurking in his cave watching everyone else swim from the darkness. He will take earthworms from my fingers, but only when he is sure its ok and if he is REALLY hungry, and watches suspiciously with beady little eyes. I have never seen him eat any of the bloodworms i put in, but i have been told he might be coming out at night scavenging them from the floor. He has never bothered anyone else in the tank, not even the juvenile cockatoo cichlid who is 3cm... and he is having a love affair with the pleco who sucks the slime off him on a regular basis. Has anyone got a eel similar, or have tips for taming the beast, or making it less shy. I havent seen him SWIMMING since the last time i moved his cave about, which was like 2 weeks ago.

I'm getting a gold batik eel next week :D

I have most of my comunity fish eating out of my hand.

this includes hoplo ctfish (has anyone ever had one that was afraid of something?? ), neon tetras and my banjo catfish . My true siamese algea eater cleans my hand when it is in the tank as well

mr eel ate 8 worms from my hand last night, so hes getting better, has taken him a while to get less suspicious, but he hasnt got the stage when he will come to my hand. I was doing a water change last nite and the bubbles were going into his cave, he was getting excited about the bubbles and wiggling about

...this includes hoplo ctfish (has anyone ever had one that was afraid of something?? )...

our pet rabbit fell in the tank the other day - the hoplos swam around trying to get a closer look at the new furry fish whilst everyone else went into hiding!

LOL dark

may i ask how it 'fell' in??

:lol: :lol: :lol: that is sooo funny.

I'm also wondering how the rabbit managed to fall in the tank :lol: :lol:

does anyone know if hoplos have any natural enemys?? they don't seem to be afraid of anything 8)

One of my cats has fallen into my tanks twice. I guess he doesn't understand that when I'm doing water changes I usually take the lids off....

interesting nite again, i was about to hand feed mr eel a earth worm, when of the kribs came up begging for a worm, so i gave him one, and he took off across the tank, pursued by his female, past mr eel who was sticking his head out of the gravel in antisapation of his meal. Mr eel shot out, stole the worm from the mouth of the krib, and munched on it happily, while poor old mr krib sat frozen staring thinking most likely "what the HELL was THAT!!". I have never seen mr eel take a interest in the fish before, but then again, they usually dont have his dinner hanging out of their gobs!! I havent told you guys about our new gourami either, we got him on sunday from hollywoods, and on the way home we had a car crash, so while we were down at the cop shop and stuff, poor fish was sittting in his bag for like 2 hours!! I got him home, and the water was ICY cold, but he survived. I have named him crash. Crash and our Geophagus are constantly sizing eachother up, chasing eachother in turn, and facing off. Its rather amusing, as i always considered gouramis meek in nature, but not this guy!! He guards the food when i put it in in and flares up at poor geophagus

and he is having a love affair with the pleco who sucks the slime off him on a regular basis.

I had a pleco that did that to my fire eel, I'm sure its not a good thing. I got rid of the pleco ASAP.

My fire eel would eat blood-worms from my hand [5 cubes a day when it was about 14"!], you should start trraining them to eat a variety of foods whent heyre younger otherwise it can end up getting very expensive...

I've had mr eel for almost a week now

from day one he was ating blood worms outta my hand....

I'm slowly getting him further and further out of his cave

such beautiful eels