Under natural conditions, the seedling stage, eels mainly ingest rotifers, branches and horns, flexipods and other large zooplankton; ready to species stage, eels mainly ingest aquatic insects, silk grasping bandages, shaking mosquito larvae, dragon boat larvae, etc., but also partially eat organic debris, filamentous that class and yellow burial, green algae, diatoms, naked swallows, and other phytoplankton; adult eel stage, the food individual accordingly increased, eels mainly prey on small fish, shrimp, The main predators are small fish, shrimp, young frogs, small snails and aquatic insects and small terrestrial animals (such as chickens, fried manganese, moths, crickets, etc.), in hungry conditions, eels have a large eat small intraspecies predatory habits.
Artificial farming conditions, eel bait source is very wide, generally maggot taut, fly maggots, silkworm pupae, yellow mealworms, small fish and shrimp, snails and mussels Yao meat, animal slaughter scraps and other animal high-protein bait, supplemented by some commercial feed, such as rice bran, several skins, soy sauce, tofu dregs, soybean cake, vegetable seed cake and so on. Large-scale, intensive eel farming, according to the eel's nutritional needs, animal feed and plant feed according to a certain proportion of mixing, crushed and then pressed or puffed into the appropriate specifications of the pellet feed, feeding eels. Artificial breeding conditions, eels also ingest a small amount of melon skin, vegetable leaves, duckweed and other fresh green fodder, eels generally do not eat rotten food.