scubasteve
Distinguished Member
To be honest he looks like a perfectly healthy eel to me. They are violent at taking food. If your ever in the area let me know and you can come check mine out during feeding for comparison
I'm being extra cautious with everything that goes into my display tank. When you loss thousands of dollars in livestook, more than once in 12 years. You vow to do thing properly and never let that happen again. I think the eel looks good too. Its the scratching that makes me nervous, if you said that eels commonly scratch then my mind would be put to rest, but I realy think he's got something. If eels get different illnesses then fish, then it may not transfer to fish. I'm going to add a cleaner shrimp today to see if that helps the eel get rid of hitchhikers.
Unless my zebra eel got sold to you from the person i sold it to, you've not gotten an eel from me As for feeding, it was easy to tell when mine was hungry because he would swim all over the tank until i fed him, which was only 2-3 times a week. Sometimes he'd eat 3 or 4 pieces of shrimp/squid, sometimes just one. The rest of the time he'd just hang out in his "rock pile". A cleaner shrimp is definitely a good idea.eels dont eat alot or very frequently their digestive track works like a snake and is very slow. mine is 2 years old and i dont know how long jeffopentax had it forprior to me. i feed it one peice about half inch thick 3" long chopped slightly smaller than his head i feed with feeding spike twice a month if he no longer takes any he is full and anymore is just waste. sounds like your trying to feed him too much. If he is not very active that is another sign of overfeeding. They should be slowly cruising through your tank happily searching for nothing.