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I have a Red Cat Tail Fish and i want to know if i can put in his tank gravel or any other caribsea rocks..?
is there a chance he might swallow them...?
is it better to leave the tank empty (without rocks)..?

i would be happy to hear any tips about taking care of the fish.

thanks.

Red Tail Cat Fish
They can probably tell the difference between food and gravel. I guess it would come back out their gills if they ate it, like in corys. Any large rocks or other features need to be well fixed down so they can't fall over and squish anything, and more importantly crack the tank. You can normally get aquarium safe sealent from your LFS to stick them down. These catfish grow very big and need more than adequate housing. They will need a lot of food as well!

frfori wrote:is there a chance he might swallow them...?

There is a high chance of that, it has often happened, and once it has, it can be very difficult to deal with, especially if the fish has swallowed an angular object.

Anyway, this fish grows too big to be practical for almost any tank other than an indoor pond.

RTC's will eat ANYTHING including rocks that will fit in their mouths .... gravel is generally ok but rocks are often swallowed.

Even large rocks can be swallowed when RTC get excited during feeding time. I have some bare spots in my tanks where I hand feed my catfish. It eliminates the possibility of them eating rocks on accident. Once had my hybrid eat 2 3" stones when feeding on shrimp. Took 3 months for him to regurgitate them. I then removed all rocks small enough for him to eat. That was something else for a fish that at the time was nearly 3' long. Now he's 38".

loachy_406 wrote:Red Tail Cat Fish
They can probably tell the difference between food and gravel.

I don't think they do... I don't think you should have sand because they MAY eat it! Maybe at most TIGHTLY glued driftwood....

Red tailed catfish often swallow gravel on purpose. Some have suggested that is to aid digestion but I think this may be speculation rather than based on observed evidence. They usually puke it back up after a while or just pass it backwards.
I personally think that you should use medium rounded gravel like you find in regular LFS. Keeping redtails in a bare tank is not on really. They really are intelligent fish (as are all the bigger pims) and assuming you are intelligent also, try to empathize with the fish, would you like to be stuck in a room with nothing in it fr your whole life?
I wouldn't have thought so.
They get bored, if they have something to do they are much happier. They have been known to spend all day moving gravel around the tank like you often see oscars do.
By the way I have noticed that in order of "intelligence" red tails seem to rate the highest, followed by perrunos and marbled catfish, then Tigrinus with brachyplatystoma juruense being the stupider cousin.
This is just my opinion based on observation of all the above, albeit in an unnatural aquarium environment.
Good luck with you're hopefully decades long friendship with your redtail and I would advise you get hold of a copy of Dr Sands book on keeping them, it's worth it's weight in oil and an invaluable aid to keeping these fishes successfully and happy.

Matt

id just like to ask ur thoughts on something i see regular.at a very well known aquatics in my area there is a large red tail cat beaing kept by the owner.its in a tank no longerthan 8ft and its about 2ft wide.the cat in question is about 4ft long and as you can imagine it is so cramped in the tank.its disgusting to see a creature as large as that in those conditions.the poor thing has been in there for years and must be stir crazy.do u think it should be reported.

I guess that's a larger tank than some others. But it's far from ideal.

Unfortunately, it's very hard to find a good solution - even moving a 4ft RTC is a major task, as you can imagine. Finding it a suitable home is also very difficult, as most places that would possibly take one, usually have several already.

As to report it or not, what's the benefit of reporting it?

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Mats

i suppose its just one of those things.but i find it a disgusting sight.you would think a well known aquatics center would have more about themselves than to showcase a fish in such shit conditions.it doesnt send out a very good message.