PlanetCatfish.com

i recently got a asian red tail catfish about 4" and i was wondering what kind of food i can feed it at this stage of its life?

It seems what you feed isn't important!

Feeding......Will eat anything and everything. In nature the diet consists of fish, shrimp, and crab. Like all large predatory catfishes, it should only be fed every two to four days once it reaches 12 inches in length.

Hi Karas

As Dave says it will eat everything and anything and anything that maybe is too big to eat it will probably harass to death.
Years ago a guy I knew even had his hand attacked whilst he was cleaning the class of his 4000 gallon (imperial gallon) tank.

If you trawl through the pages in this section you will come across quite a few threads regarding peoples experiences on keeping this species

ANYTHING!
Before mine died he was 24 inches and gobbled anything that would fit in his mouth. On NY eve a few years ago he had a Cory lodged in his mouth. My wife had to hold him while i snipped off fins and pulled it out with forceps. All types of sinking food were eaten. Pellets, algae wafers, thawed shrimp, cut off shrimp tails before cooking, any little fish,live worms from the garden, those little grey roly poly bugs....When i opened the lid he would come up and beg and stick his barbels out of the water. I was able to feed him by hand. great fish if you have a LARGE tank. 100 gallons minimum.

Errrr hello...... what was a cory doing in a tank with one of them??? (apart from being scared shitless! that is)
And the big fish gets a mouthful of spines. Lovely.

I hope he takes your finger off

That wasn't very respectful...
It was many years ago and ART was about 6 inches long at the time. Had he been bigger cory would have been gone.

The writing was on the wall the moment you put them in the same tank.
Its your responsibility. You choose what fish to put together. Can't you see that.
It was like putting Danny Devito in the ring against Mike Tyson!

wrasse wrote:The writing was on the wall the moment you put them in the same tank.
Its your responsibility. You choose what fish to put together. Can't you see that.
It was like putting Danny Devito in the ring against Mike Tyson!

And you've never, ever, made any mistake in putting fish X with fish Y that wasn't, in hindsight such a great idea?

Yes, if you know what you're doing, you don't keep Asian Red Tail fish with anything that fits in its mouth.

--
Mats

yeh thats me.

Of course I've made mistakes, loads, never claimed otherwise. And you learn from them.

Big fish eat little fish. simples.

wrasse wrote: It was like putting Danny Devito in the ring against Mike Tyson!

I'd pay to see that . Don't suppose it would last long though...

RickE wrote:It was like putting Danny Devito in the ring against Mike Tyson! - I'd pay to see that . Don't suppose it would last long though...

Don't underestimate the power of Danny Devito, after all Arnold Schwarzeneggar is his twin brother!

i had an asian redtail many years ago.
Unfortunately also learned the hard way when the LFS didn't tell us what it was and that it was a predator. We lost many smaller fish in our community tank before we seperated him and our loses stopped.

Once he was in his own tank he was pretty chilled. He even ate frozen fish fillets sometimes. beautiful fish though.