How do you keep butterfly's or tangs with predatory fish like eels? Eels are fed every 3-4 days but butterfly or tangs need to be fed almost everyday

HAAAAAAAA · Jan 29, 2024

I am genuinely curious, whenever you feed the fish, doesn't the eel also come up wanting food? Doesn't that also increase the chance of the eel mistaking a fish for food because you didn't feed the eel but only the fish? These are just my speculations because i want to try keeping them together

KrisReef · Jan 29, 2024

They eat different prey items. Many folks train their eels to tongs or hand feedings with silversides that are too large for the mouths of most other tank fishes that you mentioned. The eels are not likely to go crazy over nori, for instance.

Still, food smells in the water are likely to attract attention of many things in the tank.

Reef By Steele · Feb 7, 2024

I have generally had enough predator fish in any tank with eels or my cat shark so I fed daily, and the shark or eels ate when they wanted to. Always made sure a piece or two got past the groupers, lion fish etc. At the same time I would feed frozen or now homemade frozen in a different part of the tank for the small mouthed fish like the tangs and butterflies. But as mentioned above, training an eel to a feeding prong is a good plan.

littlefoxx · Mar 10, 2024

HAAAAAAAA said:
I am genuinely curious, whenever you feed the fish, doesn't the eel also come up wanting food? Doesn't that also increase the chance of the eel mistaking a fish for food because you didn't feed the eel but only the fish? These are just my speculations because i want to try keeping them together

Ghost, my snowflake is very mellow. When she smells food she just comes out and is very polite about it. Ivar, the jeweled is a butthole. He comes out and tries to chase all the fish off and catch the food in the water column when he is hungry. I distract him with his food and then he takes it and goes back to his cave. Just gotta watch their behavior and what they do when they are hungry. If they are not hungry I wont see either out and about when feeding my other fish

littlefoxx · Mar 10, 2024

Reef By Steele said:
I have generally had enough predator fish in any tank with eels or my cat shark so I fed daily, and the shark or eels ate when they wanted to. Always made sure a piece or two got past the groupers, lion fish etc. At the same time I would feed frozen or now homemade frozen in a different part of the tank for the small mouthed fish like the tangs and butterflies. But as mentioned above, training an eel to a feeding prong is a good plan.

Oooo shark!!! Must post a picture. I love sharks, one of my dream fish if I ever win the lottery and can get a tank for them lol