New Eel- am I feeding enough?

[~Flighty~]

Hi guys,

I got an eel recently for my daughter's tank and am not sure if I am feeding it enough. Everything I read reinforces that it should be only fed once, at most twice a week. In other Moray owner's experience is this enough? I'm doing one piece of shrimp about the size of his head about twice a week. He comes all the way out right away and tears it off of the feeding stick. I guess I'm not used to aggressive eaters like this and he seems really hungry. When I go longer than a few day he paces the tank occasionally although this is supposed to be one of the shyest moray breeds. He even eats live brine and mysis when we feed the fish although this is ridiculously small food for him. He looks like a tiger catching flies.

It is a young Echidna pozyzona (the one that looks a bit like a zebra moray and also has the crustacean eating teeth, not the pointy fish eating teeth.)

Should I feed him more or just chill out and get used to the fact that an agressive mouth full of teeth will act like an agressive mouth full of teeth?

Here is a pic of the cute little bugger
http://picasaweb.google.com/FlightyMail/Zeebee#5257832627498994306

 

[Joel A]

well the reason they are saying 1 or 2 feedings a week is because that simulates how they eat in the wild... one big meal, let it digest for a while.. then when they are hungry they go hunting again... kind of like a snake.

My advice would be to stay the course for now...

 

[~Flighty~]

and not put my fingers in the tank...

 

[marco67]

Awesome ...

I love our snowflake,
had him since this time in 04 he's went through "cycles" in his feeding when we had the store he'd get his shrimp or fresh fish once a week (or when he came out full swimming) and freeze dried krill as treats (mainly when I had kids come in the store asking me "feed the monster", [fun memories ]) anyhow he's about 30" now and get local live crabs as his cookies and medium shrimp as his main food whenever he's out and begging which is pretty much once a week. Don't freek there will be shut down times when they'll go a few weeks without interest (IME any how) in these time I usually try a change up to get them eating again ...but ultimately I think it's just time that does it.
it's great your on a stick already, I've been hand feeding this guy since day one and now making plans to make some changes where he'll be in with a lion. It's really fun, even getting hit is kinda interesting but with a lion in the tank...... I guess I'll be trying to change over to a stick

 

[Steve H]

it should be once or twice a week until satisfied, mine would eat 2 or three silversides. I would just keep giving them to it until it was no longer interested

 

[afboundguy]

When I had my eel I did the 1-3 times a week and it was fine. As Marco mentioned there are times when it just won't feel like eating for a week or two. I always used to try feeding something different (besides shrimp and silversides) during those times to get it to eat again...

 

[jbishop]

Cute little moray. When I had one i feed the tank (all aggressive) and he ate his share. This was 3 times a week.

 

[Phyl]

We feed our moray 2 times a week (though there are some weeks where it is only once). We feed him until he stops taking food, but we're feeding him frozen krill (individually frozen ones). He eats probably 20 of those in a "sitting". He's probably close to 2' now though.