New to this forum....

TheFishGuy · Post by **TheFishGuy** » 22 Jan 2006, 17:21

Just thought I'd introduce myself and share a little about myself. I've been keeping fish for 20 years and am partial to the central and south american cichlids. I currently have over 900 gallons of water in aquariums in my home and am no stranger to tank buster fish. On that note I also keep a tiger shovelnose catfish and am fully aware of their appetite and potential size. The first one I had I found out the hard way what they were all about. It ate hundreds of dollars of fish be fore finding his home at a local aquarium shop where he still resides to this day. He's happy and healthy, so I'm happy for him. The TSN I currently keep is housed in a 240 gallon with various CA/SA cichlids. I feed him strips of Talapia from my grocers fish section. He accepts food from my hand and is about 8". In two weeks I will be starting construction of his new home. A tank in the shape of an "L". The long part of the "L" will be 10' and the short will be 5'. it will be 3' wide from front to back and continue the three feet wide when it takes the turn on the 5' short part of the "L". It will be 2' from top to bottom making it roughly 538.6 gallons. The veiwing area will be the 10' section. So on the left the tank will be 5' from front to back. This is the largest I'm able to make it. In the opinion of the moderators on this site.....

Do you think that's big enough?

What would you change about my plans for this tank?

I'm open to any and all suggestions.

Thanks in advance, TFG

Post by **Shane** » 23 Jan 2006, 02:12

The long part of the "L" will be 10' and the short will be 5'. it will be 3' wide from front to back and continue the three feet wide when it takes the turn on the 5' short part of the "L". It will be 2' from top to bottom making it roughly 538.6 gallons.

Not taking the turn into account you will basically have a 15' X 3' X 2' if I understand correctly. I am not sure if I am though because I am calculating 673 or so gallons.

Do you think that's big enough?

Let's try a comparison. An adult Pseudoplatystoma tigrinum should reach 42". Your tank will be roughly 180" X 36" X 24". Corydoras habrosus reaches about 1". Kept in the same dimensions, its tank would be 4" X .85" X .57". Would you keep a one inch cory in a 4 inch by 3/4 inch by 1/2 inch tank? The TSN, at adulthood, will have about the same room as a cory kept in a pack of cigarettes.
Your choices are to put the fish in the "L" tank for a few years, enjoy it, and then try to get rid of a 40 plus inch TSN or sale the TSN while it is still small enough to do so and look for something that could grow to adulthood and live out its life in the "L" tank.
-Shane

PlecoCrazy · Post by **PlecoCrazy** » 23 Jan 2006, 04:46

If the tank is not even as wide (front to back) as the fish is in length (adult size) then how can you ask if its big enough or not? He would not even be able to turn a complete circle without hitting the glass or angling his body everytime he wanted to turn around.

TheFishGuy · Post by **TheFishGuy** » 24 Jan 2006, 02:45

I'm not quite sure how to explain it short of drawing a picture, and my photobucket account is full. But 15x3x2 is not correct.

I will not give the fish up, So we can stop that nonsense

Your answers are exactly why I posted here. I wanted to hear some feedback from people who've had their TSN for more than a year or two... Do you guys? My old TSN is now 5 years old and is about 3' long. I'm a carpenter so I know what 3' is.... any way... when I gave him up I vowwed that when the time was right I'd get another and give it a proper home. Seeing as my old one is 3' I thought i'd make a three foot wide tank. As far as the fish not being able to turn around.... that's just silly. they're not stiff as a board or an ocean liner trying to dock. As far as tanks not being big enough... My answer to that is this... No matter what size "tank" you have it's still not big enough!!! A pair of oscars stake out a territory the same size as a 4x8 sheet of plywood... 32 square feet to spawn in. Yet people constantly breed them in 90 galllons and smaller. A 90 gallon is 6 square feet. Rumor has it an oscar can get 18" I've been breeding and keeping them for 20 years and have never seen one over 14". A 90 is only 18" wide. So c'mon...
The facts are these...
I've got the fish
I've got the room
I've got the experience
I've got the skill to build a tank
So in REALISTIC terms, what size tank do you think I should build, because I'm not going to kill the fish, take it back, let it go, or donate it to an aquarium.

racoll · Post by **racoll** » 24 Jan 2006, 09:30

I've got the room
I've got the experience
I've got the skill to build a tank

If you've got the room, the experience and the skill, why not make it 6' wide? or even wider?

sidguppy · Post by **sidguppy** » 24 Jan 2006, 10:26

I will not give the fish up, So we can stop that nonsense

AHHHHHHH, I can feel it workinggggg....let the FlameWars begin?

no, better not

BUT I suggest you read The Big Cats Sticky, then you get a fair idea how people on this forum feel about keeping huge fish and how it should be done properly and ethically.

Otherwise this thread is going like another zillion before it, and on and on, yada yada

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 24 Jan 2006, 11:31

TheFishGuy wrote:I'm not quite sure how to explain it short of drawing a picture, and my photobucket account is full. But 15x3x2 is not correct.

I've got the fish
I've got the room
I've got the experience
I've got the skill to build a tank
So in REALISTIC terms, what size tank do you think I should build, because I'm not going to kill the fish, take it back, let it go, or donate it to an aquarium.

Realisticly, if you want to give the fish a proper home, you should have a tank that is 4L x 2L x 2L, so if the fish grows to 3 feet, you need a tank that is 12' x 6' x 6'. You may be able to get away with a little bit less depth, but at least 4' deep is a requirement.

That's about 2100 gallons (8200 liter) (12' x 6' x 4'). That's also 8200kg/18000lbs in weight, for the water alone - add weight of tank to that and we're probably looking at 10000kg/22000lbs. I hope the foundation in your house is strong...

Of course, we can't RELY on the fish not growing beyond 3 feet given that they are recorded to grow to 42" standard length (standard length is where the actual caudal (tail) fin is not included).

You'll need to get a filtration system that can cope with your fish's waste production - it's likely that you can use pond filtration systems intended for Koi or other large fish ponds, just make sure you oversize it a lot - biological filtration is the main point here. Shouldn't be a big problem, other than money...

Now, you can either accept that if you want to keep this fish, that you need to build a tank of fairly large measures, or you can keep it in unethically small conditions - which of course makes me wonder why you're asking for advice on this site. As a carpenter, have you ever had someone ask for your advice - "What dimension wood do I need to hold <some weight>", and you answer "You need 2x4's, spaced at a foot apart", and then get the reply "Well, you think so, but I'm going with 2x3's at 18" apart" - makes you wonder why they asked, eh?
--
Mats

racoll · Post by **racoll** » 24 Jan 2006, 14:30

I would like to play devils advocate here and see what the consensus is with the goldfish Carassius auratus.

As these fish achieve an adult size of 24", is this not the case that they should be housed in a nearly 1000 US gallon aquarium!

They are many differences yes, but maybe this is why people struggle with advice given sometimes.

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 24 Jan 2006, 14:37

racoll wrote:I would like to play devils advocate here and see what the consensus is with the goldfish Carassius auratus.

As these fish achieve an adult size of 24", is this not the case that they should be housed in a nearly 1000 US gallon aquarium!

They are many differences yes, but maybe this is why people struggle with advice given sometimes.

I would say that most people (me included) are consistently and continously keeping goldfish in far too small a tank. Although I also think that most of the goldfish sold in shops are in most cases genetically "deformed", the latter at least means that they are not very likely to achieve their natural maximum size. Goldfish should also, in captivity, live for much longer than most people are able to keep them... Forty or fifty years shouldn't be unlikely - does anyone know what the AVERAGE life of goldfish is? I would guess much less than two years...

In the case of a TSN, it's almost certainly a wild-caught fish, which genetically is "natural", i.e. it's genetically programmed to grow to the maximum size that the natural variety will attain.

If I play devil's advocate back - what size tank do you think a 24" goldfish should be kept in?

[Edit: fix spurious word insertion error]

--
Mats

racoll · Post by **racoll** » 24 Jan 2006, 15:31

most of the goldfish sold in shops are in most cases genetically "deformed", the latter at least means that they are not very likely to achieve their natural maximum size

Yes, I am talking about a regular goldfish, not a fancy type.

If I play devil's advocate back - what size tank do you think a 24" goldfish should be kept in?

Well, a tank getting close to the above size i agree would be best.

But what I was really getting to, was peoples expectation that the fish will not reach it's maximum size.

How many goldfish reach this size in the aquarium? Very very few i'm sure.

Does this mean that they are all being badly cared for?

Maybe the typical adult sizes are only achievable under wild or optimum aquarium conditions.

I know we should always strive to give our fish optimum conditions, but has a specimen that has reached say 75% of it's expected growth, been "mistreated" ?

I give the example of my fathers two clown loach that are now 6" (they reach 12" in the wild), and are over 15 years old. They are kept in a 36" X 15" X 15".

Not ideal, but these fish seem to be in great health.

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 24 Jan 2006, 15:42

racoll wrote:
How many goldfish reach this size in the aquarium? Very very few i'm sure.
True indeed.

Does this mean that they are all being badly cared for?
Hard to say clearly - they are obviously not completely mistreated if they live "happily" for many years, but at the same time WHY aren't they reaching their maximum size? I think the answer would be a combination of water quality, feeding and perhaps oxygen levels, temperatures, environmental stimuli etc. Of course, not all goldfish in nature reach this size either. I would guess that very few do - most are eaten by predators long before they reach that size...

Maybe the typical adult sizes are only achievable under wild or optimum aquarium conditions.
Yes, quite likely.

I know we should always strive to give our fish optimum conditions, but has a specimen that has reached say 75% of it's expected growth, been "mistreated" ?
Not at all - not all humans grow to full size either. However, if we go back to the original question: The original poster says, that he's had a TSN that grew to 3 foot. Not far from the 42" that Shane talked about earlier. So the likelyhood is that the TSN will grow to a decent size in captivity.

I give the example of my fathers two clown loach that are now 6" (they reach 12" in the wild), and are over 15 years old. They are kept in a 36" X 15" X 15".
As far as I'm concerned, 4 * 6 x 2 * 6 x 2 * 6 < 36 x 15 x 15, so your fathers fish are fine where they are, as long as they don't grow much larger (around 7 inches or so) - but they may well grow better if they were kept in a bigger tank. I have kept bristlenoses in two different tanks, born on the same day, and the ones in the bigger tank certainly grew faster. [Cleaner water is probably a key point here!]

Not ideal, but these fish seem to be in great health.

That is important.

--
Mats

racoll · Post by **racoll** » 24 Jan 2006, 16:17

but at the same time WHY aren't they reaching their maximum size? I think the answer would be a combination of water quality, feeding and perhaps oxygen levels, temperatures, environmental stimuli etc

Yes indeed, and with regard to this and tank size, a line has to be drawn at where is acceptable treatment of a fish.

Obviously if we cared about them that much, we wouldn't keep them in tiny glass boxes, so given that we do, it is essential that we have a baseline of acceptable standards.

These standards are based on experience and your own ethical values.

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 24 Jan 2006, 16:31

racoll wrote:Obviously if we cared about them that much, we wouldn't keep them in tiny glass boxes, so given that we do, it is essential that we have a baseline of acceptable standards.

These standards are based on experience and your own ethical values.

That's correct. And if someone asks for advice, I try to convey what I think is right.

And a point of possible misunderstanding: I don't think a 6" TSN baby should be kept in a 2000 gallon tank - it's just that it will, assuming it's well looked after, eventually need one.

Same with goldfish - if your goldfish is a foot long, it doesn't need to be, at that point, be kept in a tank suitable for a 24" goldfish. But if it gets near to outgrowing it's current housing, based on the 4L x 2L x 2L guideline, I'd say it's time to start looking for a bigger tank. At least that's the guidelines I follow , and if someone has a better idea of what the guideline should be. I'm open to suggestions... But I'd like something that is a formula, not anectdotes about what fish has been kept in what tank...

--
Mats

oscar300 · Post by **oscar300** » 24 Jan 2006, 17:54

Hi fishguy, glad to see you get about and away from those cich**ds now and again

I see your making lots of friends

, you know what you should do (and I know you wont

) is sell your big cat and use that mega tank for a school of O's, you knows it makes sence

snowball · Post by **snowball** » 25 Jan 2006, 00:09

Seeing as my old one is 3' I thought i'd make a three foot wide tank. As far as the fish not being able to turn around.... that's just silly. they're not stiff as a board or an ocean liner trying to dock.

I think the issue here is that the fish should be able to turn around while swimming, not by having to pivot on its axis.

If you can make the tank at least 5 or 6 foot wide then the fish will have a far more confortable enviroment to live in.

TheFishGuy · Post by **TheFishGuy** » 25 Jan 2006, 12:14

Here's the deal... I've got a 14'x7' area to build this tank. I'd be willing to make a tank 12' long, 5' from fron to back, and 30" from top to bottom. That's the max because I've got to be able to get behind the tank to service it. All filtration will be under the tank. I plan to use three or four five gallon pails as pre filters. From the pails the water will flow to a 75 gallon tank full of bio media. From there it will go to a sump tank (plastic tub). Trust me when I say I want to build the biggest tank possible, and what I've described above is three times the size of the tank my old catfish currently resides in. IMHO I believe a 12x5x30" tank is plenty big enough to house him for life.

Thank you all for sharing with me how you feel about TSN, I personally fell in love with them when I was about 14, from a picture. I now have the opportunity to keep one for life. I will definately keep you all posted on the progress. My intention was not to start trouble but to see if what you were thinking was what I was thinking. And it was. BTW, I did read the big cats sticky.

Hi oscar 300! there will be a school of O's in the tank! People are always asking me to take their big c.i.c.h.l.i.d.s.
(Must be a "bad" word on this site)

Incidently... My old TSN lives with two other big cats, a red tail and a hybred RT/TSN in a 10'tank that's 30" from front to back and only 2' from top to bottom. Hence the reason why I had the original dimentions I had.

coelacanth · Post by **coelacanth** » 25 Jan 2006, 22:31

TheFishGuy wrote:Here's the deal... I've got a 14'x7' area to build this tank. I'd be willing to make a tank 12' long, 5' from front to back, and 30" from top to bottom.

That's a serious chunk of water! I'm against the improper keeping of these big catfish as much as anyone (partly because I'm on the sharp end of telling people that no, we can't take your RTC/TSN/whatever, you bought it you look after it), but I do feel that with some decent flow rate to provide an environmental stimulus (separate, purely circulatory pumps?) and careful attention to feeding (i.e. when hungry rather than when family, friends or neighbours want to see it feed) you could be offering a decent environment for this fish. L-shaped aquaria look great, and are really good for Cichlids because they can get out of one another's sightlines, but these big cats are simply not as manoeuverable as other fish and so the maximum footprint possible is the best to go for. Bearing in mind how you intend to build, I'd make the first prefilter as easy to get to as possible, so that it's no chore at all to clean it. You might also want to bring a water source and drain right up to the aquarium, you're going to be using a lot of water and it makes sense to make life as simple as possible.
Also be aware when adding waifs and strays from other people. Once something like an Oscar become a burden, the aquarist stops providing appropriate care. Especially when fed cheap feeders, this brings an increased risk of the fish having latent TB, which could then be passed on to other aquarium inhabitants.

I would like to play devils advocate here and see what the consensus is with the goldfish Carassius auratus.

As these fish achieve an adult size of 24", is this not the case that they should be housed in a nearly 1000 US gallon aquarium!

Bad comparison for a large number of reasons. Carassius auratus is a widely-distributed adaptable species that can easily live as dwarfed populations where overcrowding or lack of resources prohibits normal growth (I've never actually seen a confirmed true C. auratus above 18" myself). They spawn in areas adjacent to where they live, they can withstand times of deoxygenation and can gather nutrition from a very wide range of sources.
These big cats on the other hand come from environments that have been relatively stable for millions of year, they make long migrations to breed and they do not have any "reason" to retain the ability to survive in restricted, resource-poor environments.
What this means is that Goldfish will survive in the conditions we give to them, the big cats require us to provide the conditions that they demand.

I give the example of my fathers two clown loach that are now 6" (they reach 12" in the wild), and are over 15 years old. They are kept in a 36" X 15" X 15"

I've been told that there are different populations of Clown Loach, the highly coloured ones do not grow much above 6-7" whereas the very large specimens seen are invariably poorly coloured and come from a different region. Someone else may be able to confirm or deny this.

racoll · Post by **racoll** » 26 Jan 2006, 09:39

Bad comparison for a large number of reasons.

Yes indeed, which is why I added the caveat of saying:

They are many differences yes, but maybe this is why people struggle with advice given sometimes.

I am well aware of the differences you mention, but my point was that other people aren't, and as a result they sometimes (often) see the advice given on this site as ridiculous.

Interesting info about the clown loaches! They are indeed very brightly coloured, which I thought would fade with age. Thanks

TheFishGuy · Post by **TheFishGuy** » 27 Jan 2006, 01:32

Construction of the tank starts this weekend. It will be 12' long, 5' from front to back, and 30" tall. Thanks again for the opinions...

TheFishGuy · Post by **TheFishGuy** » 28 Jan 2006, 00:53

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/view ... p?t=103294

Here's a link on the progress.... Location has been chosen