Best Foods For Blue Ribbon Eel?

[Cole_Voeller]

Hey all! I was wondering what would be the best food(s) to feed a blue ribbon eel? I pestered my boss and told him I would pay for it if we added one to our tank, and I’ve been trying to feed him every day a pretty wide variety of options. He seems super healthy, he has three places where he will tuck himself in and stick his head out, and he doesn’t bother any other tank inhabitants. We’ve had him for three weeks, and just yesterday I finally had luck with him using a feeder minnow. I’ve fed him three in the past two days (figured he’s pretty hungry), and he now gobbled them up super well! But I’m pretty confident that giving him freshwater fish isn’t great long term, so what would be the next best live, and eventually frozen food for him?

 

[KQuillan]

@littlefoxx

 

[littlefoxx]

@littlefoxx

Never kept one of these guys because they dont do well in captivity. Usually they only will ever eat live foods not frozen is the general consensus from people who have kept them. Lion king has an article on feeding predators live foods and I believe has an article about these guys. For sure an expert eel for someone with a lot of experience in difficult to keep predators.

 

[littlefoxx]

Are ribbon eels still doomed?

The last time I considered keeping a ribbon eel was 20+ years ago. At that time, they were as doomed as a cut flower. Husbandry has improved by leaps and bounds in other areas of the hobby, so I'm curious to know if this is still a forbidden species. Anyone keeping them long term? Are there...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[littlefoxx]

Just found this with some of lion king’s comments and a link from him to help you with the ribbon!

 

[Cole_Voeller]

Seems like getting some mollies is the next step for him. He is showing interest, but so far when he realized frozen food isn’t alive, he lets go. I’ll just give him a rosy red every three days or so until I can get some mollies. Im hoping I can get silversides to work though.

 

[Cole_Voeller]

 

[littlefoxx]

I love how they always look like they are screaming lol

 

[Cole_Voeller]

Update: I used tongs and held both a feeder minnow and slice of silverside together, he went right up to the minnow and closed his mouth on it, then stopped and stared at the silverside for a solid 15 seconds, then decided to eat that instead and didn’t even attempt to eat the minnow haha.

 

[littlefoxx]

Update: I used tongs and held both a feeder minnow and slice of silverside together, he went right up to the minnow and closed his mouth on it, then stopped and stared at the silverside for a solid 15 seconds, then decided to eat that instead and didn’t even attempt to eat the minnow haha.

Ivar my jeweled eel does that all the time with different foods! Picky eel.