NANFA-L-- Re: Flathead catfish

Mark (nanfa-in-jonahsaquarium.com)
Tue, 4 Apr 2006 08:32:18 -0400

At 10:19 AM -0400 4/4/06, Moontanman-in-aol.com wrote:
>He is about eight inches long maybe ten, he was eating good up until this
>fall. The tank he is in is so full of growing plants it's difficult
>to see if he has eaten or not. I have been feeding him mostly large
>earth worms. It
>wasn't until I started to feed him crayfish that I noticed the
>crayfish weren't being eaten so I dug him out of his lair and to
>see what was up. He was in a 45 gallon cube tank, I switched him to
>a twenty high so I could keep an eye on him better this week. I
>fear he is not going to make it. I have never seen a catfish so
>skinny and he seems disorientated maybe I'll catch a bunch of small
>blue spotted sunfish and see if he will eat them. Do you think
>soaking some crayfish tails in vitamins might help? It seems to odd
>to have to baby a catfish, most of the time they grow like weeds
>and eat everything in sight. Oh yeah, I have been using a sponge
>filter along with a heavy growth of live plants.
>Moon

Yeah, cats are tough. Maybe go sparing on the food until he looks
like he's stabilized. I probably wouldn't go nuts with the vitamins.
Just see if he will eat anyting. A nice hunk of shelled crawdad tail
might be tempting. A live sunfish might be hard to catch for a sick
predator. A sucker or soft-rayed fish might be better. Definitely
need to go up to a larger tank/pond. The twenty might work for a
week or two as long as you keep the water nice and clean. That's the
one thing that always eats-in-me about fish keeping -- water changes.
One of these days I would like to built an automated system to keep
clean water flowing through all the time. That has to be the biggest
problem in keeping fish heathy. You want to feed them well, but then
you have to stay right on those water changes or it will go down hill
fast. I've got a 40 gallon loaded with a brood of rainbow shiners
right now. They are gorging on Artemia, and I know I have to get
them thinned out ASAP or the whole thing is going to crash.

-- 
Mark
Conejo Creek drainage
California USA

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