What do eels eat?

Eel, also known as yellow eel, is a very common freshwater fish. It has high nutritional value, and its body is meaty and has few bones, making it very popular. Eels are artificially farmed in many areas, so what do eels eat? Let’s learn more about it below.

What do eels eat?

Eels are omnivorous fish that like to eat small animals. In the warm spring and summer, they will come out to prey on various small animals, such as small fish and shrimps, small river clams, and some small insects in rice fields. In addition, some duckweed and filamentous algae. Under natural conditions, wild eels generally eat these pure natural baits. Artificially cultivated eels can be fed with earthworms, animal offal, and some leftovers from slaughtering animals. They can also be fed with rice, rice bran, and some fresh melon and fruit peels.

What should you pay attention to when raising eels?

1. Pond selection

It is necessary to choose a place with sufficient water resources, and the water quality is very clean and without any pollution to ensure that the eels have a safe and healthy growth environment. The surrounding environment also needs to be quiet, without any noise, to avoid being frightened. When building a pond, you can use sticks to erect supports in the pond and place the breeding net on these supports. Because big eels will eat small eels when they are alive, they must be fed separately.

2. Environmental hygiene

The water depth of the eel's environment cannot be too deep. It needs to come out of the mud to breathe normally. The best water depth is 20 cm to 30 cm. The water in the living environment of the eel must be clean. The water will easily become dirty after a few days. If it is not cleaned in time, it will cause the eel to become sick. You can also plant more aquatic plants in the breeding land.

3. Feeding matters

The eel requires different feeds at different growth stages, so reasonable arrangements should be made according to its growth characteristics during artificial breeding. Suitable starter feeds for eel fry include earthworms, large rotifers, cladocerans, copepods, chironomid larvae and artificially formulated microencapsulated feeds. After 10 to 15 days of cultivation, when the eel fry grows to more than 5 cm, they begin to be fed with compound feed . When training, add powdered feed to earthworm paste, fresh fish paste, or clam meat paste, knead it into a ball and place it at the edge of the pond. After 1 to 2 days, the eel fry will eat the ball feed on their own. For the training of eel fry over 15 cm in length, 10% compound feed should be added to fresh fish paste, tadpole paste or clam meat, and the proportion of compound feed should be gradually increased. Only after 5 to 7 days of training can the best effect be achieved. In the early stage, the eel feed can also include some large rotifers, cladocerans, earthworms, etc. In the later stage, it is basically the same as the big eel, and the feed should be scientifically and reasonably rationed according to the adult eel feed.

4. Stocking time

Try to release the eels before their breeding season, usually around the Qingming Festival. This time period is particularly suitable. If you don't seize the opportunity before, you have to wait until after June and July, and then mid-August to release them. Generally, the water temperature should be controlled at around 25℃ when releasing them, which can ensure that the eel fry have a reasonable growth environment and allow them to grow healthily.

That’s it