Snowflake Eel question??

[jabari]

I've always been curious and intrigued by the smaller eels but a few things have made me steer clear away from them. 1} Their poor eye sight. 2) They're reclusive nature.
I've been interested in the snowflake eel, but i have heard they have to be hand fed most of the time,due to their poor eye sight. I don't want to have to hand feed any of my fish. If he were going to be in the tank by himself or with smaller fish it wouldn't be a problem. Although more than likely he will be in with aggressive bigger fish like Triggers and maybe wrasses. So question is can i get away with not hand feeding or having to use some alternative instrument to feed a snow flake eel?
The only eel that i have found to not have these issues is the Green wolf eel(I know its not a true eel, i heard its part of the dottyback fam) They have the eekl appearance, BUT have good eye sight, so they have no problems catching their own food alongside other fish. The only prob with them is they can have a rather drab appearance and dont seem to have the same eel like fangs

 

[el guapo]

I never had trouble feeding my SFE and it was housed with triggers. He would actually take food from the triggers. Weather I hand fed the fish or just tossed in the food . The SFE was always well fed .

 

[ironeagle2006]

I have a SFE in a semi Aggressive 150 and he does fine. I do not hand feed him or use a feeding stick either. He has learned that food will be along the bottom and if he wants to eat LOOK FOR IT. Mine is in with 3 Large Angels a Lunare Wrasse 2 Butterflys and 6 tangs and a blenny and a Shrimp Goby. He started off at as a 6 inch baby is now over 18 inches so he is getting food. I feed Rods Predator blend and he loves it.

 

[rcreations]

Eels have poor eye sight but excellent smell and they can locate food very fast.

 

[richard kagen]

As soon as a silver side, chunk of squid or shrimp goes into the tank he free swims. If it is flake, pellet, brine, etc he does not budge. ]
He has learned to "look" first on the side of the tank where we typically clip the food and then into an area of the bottom where current normally brings any floating chunks. After checking these 2 locations he will start sniffing to look for the chunk.
If anyone approaches the tank in the evening he comes out and free swims even with not food. We are pretty sure that this is when my son typically feeds him. He can not even see the clock from the tank and still comes out to meet people in the evening hours LOL
Now with a Huma Trigger he has some competition, but he is doing fine and today ripped a chunk of squid out of the trigger's mouth.
On another note, there is a small yellow tail damsel in the tank and the eel has not touched him even during a 10 day vacation where he had not chunks to eat. (Everyone else had flake/pellets from a feeder.)
CAUTION: we read that you could keep 2 eels together if they each had a structure for a home. We set up about 4 locations and ordered 2 eels. Not good, one was slightly larger and killed the smaller one in about 2 weeks. It was awful.