RTC question

[Djthomas]

Hi all,
Been a while since I posted. I have a little Red Tail Catfish, whom I have had for about a year now. I got him when he was a little thing around 6 inches, he is now around 24 inches. I have him in a indoor pond (900 gal)that I built just for him. I am using a 2000 gal Pressure Filter by SUNTERRA along with an 18 Watt UV Clarifier. This is all powered by a SUNTERRA 850 GPH pump. I am also useing a Protien Skimmer with a 130 GPH pump by yep you guessed it SUNTERRA. I have no problems with the water chems at all. He is an eatting machine. He seems really happy and his color is awesome.

My question is how much to feed? Right now I feed him 4 to 5 oz of fresh fish, fresh shrimp, or chicken per night. He also gets a treat every once in a while of a Convict Cichlid (my son breeds them) or a large gold fish. HE always acts hungry, but I know they will gorge themselves if allowed too.

[taksan]

With that Filtration I'd be feeding him about twice a week maximum. You really need much more bio filtration pressure pond filters do not have much bio filtration so you need a trickle filter. What % and what frequency of water changes are you doing ?

[Richard B]

I'd be tempted to stop feeding chicken as it is an unnatural food & creates a higher polluting waste (or so i'm told) & the proteins are harder for the fish to digest.

My preference is to feed non-oily fish, shellfish (shrimp, crab oyster, cockles etc) & soft fruit(plum, peach etc).

The waste products produced by large piscivorous fish are sporadic huge amounts & need to be addressed by good water management - changes & filtration

[Viktor Jarikov]

Sweet!!

I have a little Red Tail Catfish

define little for me?

in a indoor pond (900 gal)that I built just for him

nice! Does it have a glass wall? how did you take a close-up pic?

I am using a 2000 gal Pressure Filter by SUNTERRA along with an 18 Watt UV Clarifier. This is all powered by a SUNTERRA 850 GPH pump. I am also useing a Protien Skimmer with a 130 GPH pump by yep you guessed it SUNTERRA.

I am not familiar first hand with pressure filters, but my friends use them for their koi business - they seem to be quite efficient. Not sure what Taksan means but his experience vastly, vastly overshadows mine. Not sure why he is also focused on trickle filtering. From my humble experience, simple gravity filtration works just fine or maybe even better than trickle-type (too meany details would have to be mentioned here; see this if interested: http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... =4&t=30141 )

My question is how much to feed? Right now I feed him 4 to 5 oz of fresh fish, fresh shrimp, or chicken per night. He also gets a treat every once in a while of a Convict c*****d (my son breeds them) or a large gold fish. HE always acts hungry, but I know they will gorge themselves if allowed too.

This amount overall sounds ok to me but my understanding of a novice is that they eat big meals in the wild but rarely. So I feed my monsters RTC TSN Learious, etc. 1 or 2 times a week, but a lot so that they acquire nice and rounded tummies

HE always acts hungry, but I know they will gorge themselves if allowed too.

RTCs will eat themselves to death if allowed to! their intestines get clogged up if too much food is given too often. One of the common causes of death in adult RTCs. Caution!

What % and what frequency of water changes are you doing ?

agreed. very important. it's good that you keep track of your water chemistry. You may not know Taksan's motto, (if I may ) but "with big enough and frequent enough WC's one can keep fish of any size" (!!) His experience certainly shows for that - keeping a 1.4 meter RTC for 27 years !

I'd be tempted to stop feeding chicken as it is an unnatural food & creates a higher polluting waste (or so i'm told) & the proteins are harder for the fish to digest.

Richard may well be very right but keep in mind this topic is not without its opponents and proponents even amongst ichthyologists.

[taksan]

Purely mechanical Viktor ... no or minimal bio filtration which for a RTC is critical.
No serious Koi keeper would use a Pressure filter only ... they use them as prefilters for their bio chambers of Bakki showers or to polish water after going through a gravity fed system.

I am not familiar first hand with pressure filters, but my friends use them for their koi business - they seem to be quite efficient.

[Viktor Jarikov]

I see. Just to make sure we are on the same page: are we talking about a big, usually round chamber under pressure, chuck-full of small polymeric beads providing a huge surface area for the bacteria to live on? Seems to me there is a disconnect, likely because I do not know well enough what a pressure filter is or what kinds exist for what purposes.

[taksan]

No we are talking about a pond cannister filter filled with foam.

[Djthomas]

My tank is just open at the top. I held my phone right above the tank to take the pictures. My Filter IS a Bio-Filter. It has 4 different stages, one of wich is a chamber that holds around 15 bio balls. I check my chem levels almost daily and make sure any cat poop is taken care of right away. My RTC is a very friendly and happy guy!

The Filter was not part of my question. The question is, and I will make sure to restate it, How much should a 2 foot RTC eat in one sitting, as in how many ounces should he be fed.

I will be traveling and my wife will be careing for all my fish and I need to be able to leave a VERY detailed list of what each and every fish eats, what their water chems need to be, and what their WCs need to be.

I do a 25% water change every Saturday and again on Tuesdays

[taksan]

My tank is just open at the top. I held my phone right above the tank to take the pictures. My Filter IS a Bio-Filter. It has 4 different stages, one of wich is a chamber that holds around 15 bio balls.

15 bioballs !!! My RTC pond which 4 times is bigger then yours but only has 2 fish in it so it has less stress load on it has about 3000 bioballs plus a skimmer plus a sump with 375 liters of Matrix which is equilent to another 5000 bioballs !!!!

You have no bio filtration !!!! The amount you feed depends on your filtration and your water changes !!

As to your question the amount you feed is fine but it should only be twice a week maximum even if you had correct filtration and I'd be doing 33% at least WC's twice a week. you need another filter ..... to attach to your outlet. Get yourself something like this http://www.bigalsonline.com/BigAlsUS/ct ... rnalfilter and connect it up to the outlet of your filter and fill it with this stuff http://www.strictlypetsupplies.com/_000 ... ix-4-Liter and your in the zone.

[Shane]

The Filter was not part of my question. The question is, and I will make sure to restate it, How much should a 2 foot RTC eat in one sitting, as in how many ounces should he be fed. The Filter was not part of my question. The question is, and I will make sure to restate it, How much should a 2 foot RTC eat in one sitting, as in how many ounces should he be fed.

As pointed out above, filtration is not part of your question, but is part of the answer. Think of the old computer saying, "garbage in, garbage out." What goes in (food) must come out (filtration and water changes). Feed twice weekly and add some more filtration, biological especially, as soon as resources permit. Until that time, I would increase the amount of water you are changing biweekly.
-Shane