One Red Tail Catfish and One Tiger Shovelnose Catfish

All posts regarding the care and breeding of these catfishes from South America.
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quadpop
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Joined: 20 Oct 2005, 02:59
Location 1: Indonesia, Singapore, Australia
Interests: Red Tail Catfish and Tiger Shovelnose Catfish

One Red Tail Catfish and One Tiger Shovelnose Catfish

Post by quadpop »

Hello everyone. Very nice to be part of the group of people with the same interest - South American Catfishes! :twisted:

My name is Aeran and I am a Singaporean living and working in Jakarta, Indonesia at the moment. It is in Jakarta where I started my hobby with the catfishes. Here in Jakarta you can get everything from Arapaimas to Red Tail Catfishes. Have now been into the hobby for 1 and a half years.

I currently have a 150cm, 60cm, 50cm aquarium housing a 40cm Red Tail Catfish and a 48cm Tiger Shovelnose Catfish. I know the tank is still too small for this monsters to be, but for the mean time I'll try to live with that. I feed my RTC with 3 prawns everyday and the tiger has one to two medium sized goldfishes a day. :P

Is is ok if I feed my RTC with just prawns for the time being to bring out the colour and increase it's size since prawns are high in protein? And is the mucus from the RTC really a sign of the RTC growing? :?:

I have strong water pumps (2 x Pond water pumps) connected to 4 large external filter boxes containing activated carbons, zeolite and the white flossy material, all piped up. :razz:

I use strong aeration in the tank, at the back and the sides of the tank. I also have a third water pump in the tank solely to create a water flow (current) at the bottom of the tank. Please advice. :)

Thank you for your time.
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MatsP
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Re: One Red Tail Catfish and One Tiger Shovelnose Catfish

Post by MatsP »

quadpop wrote:Is is ok if I feed my RTC with just prawns for the time being to bring out the colour and increase it's size since prawns are high in protein? And is the mucus from the RTC really a sign of the RTC growing? :?:
Mucus from the skin of a catfish is usually a sign of something being wrong. In this case, I would suspect one or more of the Ammonia, Nitrite or Nitrate levels are high. Test your water with a test-kit.

One of the problems keeping fish of that size in a relatively small tank (the TSN is long enough that it just barely fits sideways in the tank!) is that the Ammonia released by the fish will spike quite high, then fall as the beneficial bacteria in your filter does it's work, possibly creating a temporary spike of nitrite until this has been cleared by the other type of bacteria in the filter.

Going by the standard method of 4L x 2L x 2L rule of tank-sizing, you should currently have a tank that is 2m x 1m x 1m (2000 liter/500 us gal)... They are in a tank that is about one fifth of the size it should be... This affects the water quality, as well as the quality of life for your fish...

--
Mats
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featherback
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Post by featherback »

I know the tank is still too small for this monsters to be, but for the mean time I'll try to live with that

Shoulden't our concern be about whether or not the situation is acceptable for the fish, and not if the situation is bearable for us (the fish owners).

-F
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