What Can It Eat?

[mr.gobie]

Is there any foods that catfish can eat besides the food you can purchase at the fish store?

[Bas Pels]

Yes. No fishfood from fish stores is available in Amazonia, so the fish will have to do with something else

However, what one can give, will depend on the kind of fish: algae eating Loricarids like veggie food, such as courgette (=zuggini), salad and so on, or just plain wood. Others like aquatic insects one can breed, or collect in natural ponds

Large catfish might perfer fish, but feeding fish poses a risk of bringing deseases into the water. Still no good alternative exists, although whole fish, or crayfish, cna be given.

If you like to eat fish yourself, you can buy a whole fish, clean it, and cook the good parts, while giving the rests to your fish.

[MatsP]

I spent a few keypresses and wrote an article on Feeding Loricariidae - but it can be used for almost any other catfish too. You can find this in the "articles" section next to this post (under my name).

Since there are more than 2000 known species of catfish, it's kind of hard to say what "one of them eats", as the range varies from common stuff like insects, insect larvae and fish smaller than the catfish (some even chew up bigger fish into pieces) all the way to obscure things like chewing wood (not many vertebrate (spined creatures) eat wood - non-vertebrates aren't that common, but vertebrates are).

--
Mats

[Richard B]

As an example, my tank of mixed tanganyikan synos have so far been fed this month (at one time or another)....

aquarium prepared foods
flakes - 5 different types (aquarian tropical, tetra pro crisps, tetra veg crisps, delicaSea veggie, tropical spirulina)
sinking pellets - 4 types ( bloodworm, brineshrimp, shrimp sticks, TAP catfish )
Floating pellets - 2 types (Hikari cichlid gold, TAP algae granules)
Tablets - 3 types (tetra pleco wafers, astra spirulina, astra tropical)
Granules- 3 types (tetra prima welsi gran, supervit granulat)
Frozen foods - 3 types (lobster eggs, artemia, bloodworm)

vegetable matter
frozen peas
frozen french beans
cucumber
ocean nutrition freshwater algae sheets

meaty foods
live chopped earthworms
chopped cooked prawns
chopped cooked lobster
chopped oysters
woodlice
tetra delica bloodworm

Nothing like a bit of variety!!!

[darkwolf29a]

Richard, I want to be a fish in your tank. Your fish eat better than I do. LOL

Mats, Thanks very much for that article. It provides a lot of good information and a lot of testing ideas.

[Richard B]

I'm lucky that i am very good friends with my ex-employer (a lfs) & everything i buy gets discounted, & i often try new foods to provide my opinion (fwiw?) therefore i have lot's of prepared food available. Also i've seen incidents where fish become used to a particular brand of, say, flake & get fussy if another dry food is offered.

Think of it this way, you'd soon get bored if you only had your favourite dinner every night - if you only had fillet steak, soon enough you'd want a kebab!

I do try to prepare a little bit more of things i'm eating when i know it's edible by my fish - like valentines day last week i did a couple of extra oysters, or if i'm having frozen peas i'll defrost a few extra for the fish. A varied diet will always be beneficial.

[andywoolloo]

wow, that's some good variety! I am so printing that and Mats article as well!

do you think they'd like squid? Hikari makes a frozen squid, but it seems wierd cause squids are in the ocean?

[Richard B]

Mats - a really good article, well written that also applies to lots of other cats - it surely deserves to be publicised better.

[MatsP]

wow, that's some good variety! I am so printing that and Mats article as well!

do you think they'd like squid? Hikari makes a frozen squid, but it seems wierd cause squids are in the ocean?

Any "carnivore" would be fine with squid - it may be a bit "chewy", so perhaps not for all sorts of fish. But most should be OK.

I quite often use marine mussels or prawns/shrimp for freshwater fish, as well as marine fish - no big deal. Note that the fish itself would have the same salt-contente, around 9 ppt, no matter whether it is freshwater or marine - if you buy "Catfish" or "trout" or "tuna", if you don't add salt, it will taste same with regards to saltiness, right?

--
Mats

[Suckermouth]

Mats is right; marine fish and freshwater fish have approximately the same concentration of dissolved salts in their bodies, with the exception of course of the chondrichthyans, but I don't think anyone will be buying shark to feed their pet fish anytime soon. On the other hand, inverts generally try to keep the same concentration of dissolved salts as the environment. That said, I haven't had problems feeding invertebrate seafoods to fish.

Rich's menu sure is quite extensive... That's five star!

[MatsP]

There is also one advantage with marine species when feeding raw fish: any parasites in marine species are very unlikely to transfer to freshwater species - likewise, if you keep marine fish that you want to feed with fresh fish, it would be recommended to use freshwater fish to avoid transfer of internal parasites.

--
Mats

[Suckermouth]

There is also one advantage with marine species when feeding raw fish: any parasites in marine species are very unlikely to transfer to freshwater species - likewise, if you keep marine fish that you want to feed with fresh fish, it would be recommended to use freshwater fish to avoid transfer of internal parasites.

--
Mats

Actually, I have heard that you do not want to feed freshwater fish meat to marine fish. This is because freshwater fish contain higher saturated fat levels than marine fish do, and perhaps higher levels than they usually tolerate. Lionfish have developed fatty liver disease from being fed goldfish, but even other freshwater fish have high saturafted fat levels.

The link below is what I read, I believe:
http://www.reefs.org/library/article/r_toonen6.html

[MatsP]

Interesting. I was under the impression that fat content wasn't majorly different (obviously depending on what marine and what freshwater fish we're talking about, e.g. comparing a Tuna or Mackrell with a "common US catfish" would probably end up with the freshwater fish less fatty, whilst if we use Trout or such as the freshwater fish and cod as the marine fish the tables are reversed).

But obviously, using "wrong foods" is always a bad idea.

--
Mats

[andywoolloo]

maybe I will skip the squid. chewy sounds not so good. LOL

[MatsP]

maybe I will skip the squid. chewy sounds not so good. LOL

My philosophy is to give the fish a choice. If they eat it, then they like it. If they don't eat it, they don't like it, so try something else.

--
Mats

[Richard B]

Bear in mind that pl*cos rasp away at surfaces so the "chewy" factor may be negligible. It's gotta be worth a try.

[Tonyvensis]

My Royal and Synos love Prawns.
I also feed cucumber to my Royal.

[Richard B]

Palm hearts are available in cans in the uk now, for all you pl*co lovers out there, from your (well mine at least) local tesco/sainsbury.

[andywoolloo]

Mats said: My philosophy is to give the fish a choice. If they eat it, then they like it. If they don't eat it, they don't like it, so try something else.

my synos surfaced for the squid, plus i put some under one of their caves so it would go to the roof of that and they had a feeding frenzy in there.

[Richard B]

I bought a load of cooked mussels from tesco the other day when they were on offer.

I chopped them up (what a nice job that is!!!) & packed them into ice cube trays & froze them. My synos go mad for it & i may have overdone it the other day as one of the bigger multis had a job sitting on the bottom without rolling over as her belly was so round - it looked like she'd eaten a ping pong ball!!!

[alteredego]

We find through a very systematic process (OK, we just threw stuff in there to see what they like) we find that the Heteropneustes fossilis love the CHICKEN WING, Especially with spicy BBQ sauce, and an occasional half eaten rib, pork rib I think.... We have pics to prove it. These fish are in located in one of Sadams lakes here in Baghdad.

[SOBERKITTY]

I know we tend to think of catfish as "garbage eatters" before we start learning about these amazing creatures. But really chicken wings and ribs, I mean for american southern catfish sure, (J/K) but just b/c my land cat likes milk and dairy products, doesn't mean I let him have them cause it is not good for him. My girl land cat loves fig newtons ever since she snatched one out of my hand on the couch one night. Again I don't let her have them cause they are not good for her. (they really aren't good for me either but i'm less likely to wind up in a doctors office from digestive complications.) Can't this hurt them. I think it's the sauce I'm worried about the most. Those have a lot of artifical stuff in them things I can't even pronounce. (read the label seriously. I'm the opposite of diabetic, Hypoglycemic, so I have to read all kinds of labels, and there are at least 2 kinds of processed sugar in a lot of those.) At least here in the states anyway. High fructose corn syrup is the first ingredient on the label I just checked in my fridge. (i can't eat it but it get's my daughter to eat sweet potato fries)

[MatsP]

Considering that the H. fossilis in question are in a lake, and I suspect the people throwing chicken wings etc, are doing this in fairly small quantities, I'm sure that's not a BIG problem - but yes, warmblooded meat is not ideal food for ANY catfish, no matter if it's coated with barbeque sauce or not.

--
Mats

[SOBERKITTY]

We find through a very systematic process (OK, we just threw stuff in there to see what they like) we find that the Heteropneustes fossilis love the CHICKEN WING, Especially with spicy BBQ sauce, and an occasional half eaten rib, pork rib I think.... We have pics to prove it. These fish are in located in one of Sadams lakes here in Baghdad.

Are these the ones in the lake you are talking about or ones you have in a tank at home? Also hope you are staying safe on your side of the world. I'd personally love to see pictures of both your fish and the lake area in Baghdad where they are kept. It would be wonderful to see other parts of the world that are part of our global family. Are the fish native to the lake or were they introduced by the previous "keeper" of the lake?

[andywoolloo]

ok i bought cooked pre frozen prawns and I think raw mussells in the shell at the grocery store right now.

So I just chop up the prawns? All bits right? Like the whole thing chop it?

So I cook the mussells or just open the shells and chop it up?

[SOBERKITTY]

Well would a fish cook their food in the wild? Just going out on a limb, but thats my guess. Just messing w/ you andywoolloo. You know I love ya big guy!

[andywoolloo]

lol well, I figured raw is ok but I ve never eaten mussels myself so I don't know. I am kinda scared of them.

Oh and I am girl.

[SOBERKITTY]

I thought so. But I figured it would be safer calling a girl a guy then the other way around. You know how sensitive guys are about that! Check out the cory post i did please any ideas?

Oh and mussels kinda like clams.

[andywoolloo]

ok i steamed the 4 mussels and they popped open and then I scooped it out and chopped it up. I also chopped up two prawns and then put it in.

It's a feeding frenzy. Sand and food everywhere, they are all out. Wow.

I think I need to feed them real food more often.

[SOBERKITTY]

Wow something else I'll have to try when I have some finances. I try to remember to keep it in line w/ common sense. While a nice steak can be healthy you wouldn't want to eat it as more then 30% of your diet. Thats a lot of unhealthy fat in there! Same thing can go for "rich" fish food from what i've been told. Also I've noticed a change in my fishes diet can cause a change in elimination just like w/ people. So I try to make sure there is significant fiber on hand after I give them anything new just in case it "binds" them.