PlanetCatfish.com

Redtailrob wrote:Amazed by this project !!

Jools

Thanks, all!

Second iteration under way. The last batch of fish is transferred into the 4500's from the temporary ponds.

That really truly is so amazing, it is nice to see such large fish given adequate room and exemplary care! So often I see juvenile catfish of large species and it just breaks my heart to think what will happen to them when they reach a mature size.

You are truly to be commended for taking on such a project and assuming the responsibility of caring for all these beautiful creatures!

Thanks, all!

My first attempt at making videos. Need more and different lighting but for now these utterly dissatisfying videos - Playlist of nine vids, first six are of tank 1 and three last are of tank 2 -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyE2qh5 ... GTrsSCyv3k

Or Tank 1:













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Tank 2:

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there are 2 books that help a lot on planning aquarium exhibits. they give a lot of specifications. I hope they are of use to you.
Fish and Invertebrate Culture by Stephen Spotte published by Wiley Interscience
Aquacultural Engineering by Wheaton published by Krieger
water flow through pipe diameters should be covered in Aquacultural Engineering

Thank you, Lobsterclaw!

An update: the ten 240 gal tanks 8'x2'x2' are on line. The last exhibit, koi pond, to go to a hopeful opening.

A friend stopped by and took three videos of 4500 gal Tank 1 with a MUCH better camera:

Hi Victor,

At the start of video #3, is the fish near the front of the view one of the injured IDS that was so eaten up by a Harlequin Shark in one of your previous posts? If so, it looks so much better.

Cheers, Eric

Thanks, Eric. The large IDS has indeed recovered completely, that is, it is fully skinned again but the scars are there - the places where there was no skin are slightly depressed and the border is visible but may be it's just me because I know where to look.

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An update on the stock, Aug 6 2015.

The major addition is courtesy of Wes Wong who kindly sent me:
his lovely trio of ~1.5'-2' spinibarbus denticulatus,
four 1.5'-2' Tor species - soro, progenious, khudree, and malabaricus,
cichla occelaris ~1' from Guyana that Wes caught himself, and
a ~1' Crenicichla sp.

Another major addition is a 25 years old, 3' Oxydoras niger who spent his last 20 years in a 6'x2'x2' and an average ammonia of 0.25-0.50 ppm.

Other fingerlings and juvies include
vulture catfish x 6 (snookn21),
spotted gar (not a FL gar; Shark Aquarium),
Nigerian lungfish and a Cephalosilurus sp. (snookn21),
bolt catfish x 2 (Ted Judy),
Cichla sp. orinocensis "brazil" x 4 (Wes Wong),
Hoplias lacerdae green "Argentina x 4 (Wes Wong),
Trachydoras paraguayensis x4 (Wes Wong),
lates calcarifer (Wes)
siniperca chuatsi (Wes)
black lancer catfish (Wetspot)
Pterodoras granulosus x 3 (snookn21)
red tail giant gourami x 3 (Wetspot)
firewood catfish (Rehoboth)
Distichodus sexfasciatum x 1 and lussoso x 2 (Rehoboth)
dorado catfish and tigrinus catfish (Shark Aquarium)
Wallago attu 1' (Shark Aquarium)
Brachyplatystoma capapretum (LFS, Aquarium & Reef Center, Cape Coral, FL)

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The last exhibit (before opening) #13, koi pond, has been underway. So far I had prepared the site and have been constructing the enclosure, which will house the pond and a walkway from the parking lot. The same idea as the main fish house - a greenhouse-type cage (wooden this time) with shade+tarp for roof and shade cloth or insect screen for sides.

The pond's planned to be 45'x10'x4', ~10,000 gal, lengthwise running flush between the house and the walkway, half in and half above ground, wood, plywood, and rubber liner, a wet/dry filter (already acquired 6000 nylon mesh pot scrubbers from Kole Imports for $500), and three or four 5000 GPH, 360 W submersible pumps, the same kind running the 12 tanks inside.

I'm continually amazed by this project. So many fantastic fish

Sept 26, 2015. A small occurrence here: we got our first arowana babies.

Kinky and Alf, the 2.5-year old silver arowana pair, had a first spawn ever early May, and Alf had the fingerlings in his mouth for a month and a half but a few days prior to the planned harvest date in early June, he spit them out overnight and all got eaten up.

They had gone straight to courtship after that and had a second spawn ~5.5 weeks ago, August 19, and Alf's been carrying the young in his mouth since then. Yesterday we caught Alf and had him spit out the babies, about 30-35 two-inchers in total. Six have not survived the violence of the forced removal. Others have been ok so far.

Since April, when the first courtship began, through today, end of Sept, Alf has eaten only a couple of tree frogs that I managed to get close to him. He's had no interest in food. He's been either courting Kinky (the circling dance, the chasing and biting) or mouth brooding the babies and tolerating attacks of a beta male Eddie. He got pretty thin.

Him and Kinky were eating a LOT before the first courtship. Kinky has been eating throughout both courtships more or less steadily and was eating extremely aggressively in between the two courtships and now too.

Viktor, I'm speechless, Just saw this thread for the first time, I had no idea as to what you've been up to the last 5 years! What an ambitious and amazing endeavor you've taken on. Your level of expertise in keeping fish as well as engineering and construction skills are truly remarkable! I seem to recall that in the past you had a couple of indoor ponds and a few tanks with some large pet catfish but now you've ascended to whole other level, the envy of us all who ever aspired to advance beyond a few hobby tanks… Maximum Respect!! Cheers, Kirk

Great many thank you's, Kirk (@yellowcat)! You are way too kind. You need to find time and have a few mojitos with my wife and your perspective will be on a receiving end of a fair and dramatic correction In these 5 years I've also managed to kill scores of fish, literally hundreds, including losing 80%+ of my prized NY collection on the move from NY to FL. Sure, I've learned a lot but it was not without much, sometimes too much, pain. Oh, c'est la vie.

Small update Oct 12, 2015.

A few pics of the koi pond house in progress. I know I've done a lot since the last update but looking at the pictures they appear to be of the "find 10 differences" kind.

Two photos of Pangasius larnaudii I got from Sam Lai (aka Fishonlinerus) a month ago. Grew from 2" skinny to 4"+ and robust. Indiscriminate, gluttonous eaters but pronouncedly more nervous than IDS. Go bezerk sometimes still after a month and swim with lightning speed all over their 240 gal in random directions and random body positioning - upright, up side down, on a side, vertically, splashing and jumping out of water and hitting (but surprisingly lightly and damage-free to themselves) bottom and walls.

Viktor, this is a very impressive/massive project of yours! It's awesome to see that even though setbacks have happened you really haven't been discouraged much and kept pluggin away! Keep up the awesome updates!

Thank you!

Small update Dec 3 2015. Still working on the koi pond house. Been getting delayed by weather, bait harvest, car problems, fish trips, etc.

A couple of videos of one 240 gal having 5 Silurus asotus, 4 tropical gar, 1 spotted gar, tigrinus catfish, woodcat, jello cat (never came out of the cave). They are quite nervous as they usually sit without any lights:

Eel hug?

I had to shuffle fish yesterday and thought I'd see how a 4' Synbranchus marmoratus, aka SA marbled swamp eel (courtesy of Raymond Chan of Amazing fish), would be with a 14" ARTC (courtesy of Rouben "rmkblades") and an 8" Umbee. The cat tried hiding under the eel all day and sometimes it looked like the eel was hugging it Although it looked like the eel didn't care, this morning the cat had a bite mark (mostly just the slime removed) on its head. Nothing serious (yet?). Will keep a close eye.

Those Silurus Asotus are real cool. Would love an update, such a great project all this

Love your project! My husband and I have been following your progress and can't wait for it to open.

Thank you all for your interest and support. Much appreciated.

Finally, I started looking into HD video cameras. Here is the product - 9 videos of all the tanks we have going here, 12 in total.

Tank 21, 4500 gal, shot inside the tank, Mar-Apr 2016, "peaceful" community and grow out, niger catfish 4x, marbled pim 2x, marbled sailfin pim 3x, iridescent sharks 4x, black ear shark, Phoenix barbs 3x, Tor khudree, Tor progenious, Tor malabaricus, Tor soro, 4-line pim 5x, sun catfish 9x, giraffe catfish 2x, bolt catfish 2x, albino Hemibagrus nemurus (?), red hooks 4x, silver dollars 2x, vittatus tigerfish 3x, peacock bass 6x, giant gourami 2x, red tail giant gourami 3x, siamese carp 2x, Catla catla, banded leporinus 2x, Pterodoras granulosus 3x, irwini catfish 6x, Murray cod 2x, flowerhorn, red midas, umbee cichlid, vieja cichlid 2x, vulture catfish 6x, aluminum catfish 3x, horse face catfish, bala shark 5x, tinfoil barb 4x, Indian pacific tarpon 2x, Synodontis 4x, koi 2x, Distichodus sexfasciatum 2x and lusosso 2x.


Same tank 21, shot from the outside


Tank 22, 4500 gal, shot inside the tank, Mar-Apr 2016, "aggressive" community, RTC 9x, Jau catfish 2x, silver arowana 3x, peacock bass, paroon shark 6x, pacu 7x, TSN 3x, TSNxRTC hybrid catfish, TSNxMarbled Pim hybrid catfish, Apurensis catfish


Same tank 22, shot from the outside


Tank 41, 240 gal, in and out, Mar-Apr 2016, Silurus asotus, tig catfish, West African lungfish, Chinese mandarin perch, true and false eels


Tank 42, 240 gal, in and out, Mar-Apr 2016, grow out: high fin Chinese loaches, lima shovelnose catfish, fire eel, yellowcheeks, flagtail prochilodus, bala sharks, brown bullheads - southern and northern, black lancer catfish


Tanks 43 and 44, 240 gal, in and out, Mar-Apr 2016, Wolf fish 4x, Barramundi, Wallago leerii, channel catfish, common pleco, Labeo sp., black shark 3x, Asian USD catfish


Tanks 61, 62, and 63, each 240 gal, in and out, Mar-Apr 2016, 2' African lungfish, Asian RTC, gulper catfish 3x, dorado catfish, firewood catfish


Tanks 64, 65, and 66, each 240 gal, in and out, Mar-Apr 2016, Apurensis catfish, pike cichlid, tropical gar, spotted gar, Brachyplatystoma platynemum aka slobbering catfish or 747 catfish, Brachyplatystoma capapretum, Pimas

Some photos:

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