New Giraffe owner

[Pestey]

Hello guy's and gal's, My partner will be taking delivery of her new baby next week after a 18 months of begging me for one.

We are getting him from my lfs in eastbourne (east sussex) and he/she is around 18" and meaty. we have spoken to our lfs who just happens to be a good friend of ours regarding feeding and have been told algae wafers and pellets will do. but we would like to ask the vast owners of this mighty cat what you all feed your giff's on.

Also we have been thinking of buying food in bulk, but not sure what would be best/cost effective/and cleanest.

Being as we are in UK we ideally need a distributor based here, locally would be ideal so we can save on delivery costs. We have seen pond pellets on Swell.co.uk and seen sturgeon pellets also labeled at catfish pellets, but once again we ask you all for the best info before hand.

We cant wait for our giff to arrive, and want to be fully prepared on the food front.

regards, Pestey.

ps, awesome site, stacks of info ;)

[corybreed]

Not sure about food available for sale on your side of the pond but Auchenoglanis will eat anything. What is the size of your aquarium.

Mark

[Pestey]

the home he is going into is a Jewel Rio 400 minus the internal filter so he will have the full 450ltr to himself.
but when we move I plan to outlaw the lady and have a 8ft+ beast constructed

[Viktor Jarikov]

Welcome to the Planet!

Do you know the species? There are a few genus in the family Claroteidae whose members go by the common name of giraffe catfish.

Since yours is already 1.5', I assume it is from Auchenoglanis genus http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/ge ... enus_id=70

They are unfussy substrate sifters - whatever edible they find in there they eat. Mine took all manner of pellets and an occasional piece of fish or shrimp or other sea foods.

IMO, the economical pond pellets from a garden outlet, like for catfish or game/trophy fish etc. are fine as a staple (usually $15-$20 for 40-50 lb bag), supplemented with some better pellets, like Hikari, spirulina tabs, shrimp pellets, carnivore pellets, sea weed pellets, koi pellets, etc etc and perhaps once in a while a piece of shrimp/fish, if they take it. They will also usually pick up almost all that is missed by tankmates.

Of course, the better the pellet quality (in your case, ideally, you'd need a pellet designed for a tropical omnivore catfish), the more of it is utilized by the fish's organism, hence, less waste but then it is more expensive. Pick your poison.

[Marc van Arc]

When I kept one more than a decade ago, my kids used to call it the Noo Noo (Teletubbies). And that was a very adequate description

[Pestey]

the one we will get most resembles Auchenoglanis occidentalis, dark brown and large dark circular markings.

was looking at this http://www.swelluk.com/pond/pond-fish-f ... 95139.html as a staple diet food, and maybe some form of Sturgeon pellet as a beefy treat along with shrimp and fish from the local fishmonger.

we also undecided about the substrate.......sand or gravel or glass bottom........ hard choice.

hey marc meneer brabantus lol, Ik wohnen bij Roermond (Vlodrop) van 2008 tot 2011 lol. En Noo-Noo is an super naam ;)

[MatsP]

They are sifters, so would prefer a fine-grained substrate. Bare bottom would be torture for this fish, and it would't be able to behave in a natural way.

--
Mats

[Richard B]

450 litres sounds way too small for an 18" giraffe cat. This fish needs a tank or pond with a 12 x 6 foot footprint as a minimum to be happy & grow successfully to adulthood.

[Thursty]

I can't find the references right now to support the assertion (we covered it in fish nutrition class in college) but it is a mistake to feed foods formulated for feeding colder water fishes (koi/pond pellets or even worse trout pellets) to fish kept in tropical waters. This is because those foods are formulated with fats that have a lower melting point and when they are fed in warmer water they melt in the water or in the digestive tract and are not assimilated properly. It's better to feed foods specifically formulated for tropical fish.
As to the Auchenoglanis sp. I can tell you from experience that they will eat just about anything such as sinking pellets, frozen foods and even flakes. They are messy feeders though, you'll want big filter capacity (not just high flow rate) and lots of water changes.

[Bas Pels]

While I do agree troud feed is better avoided, the reasons are a bit different

TRout are bred for consumption. Just as other animals, whoever breeds fish to be eaten wants them to grow quickly, and quick growth normally cost longalivity - but then, that does not matter.

We want to enjoy our fish for a long time - and fast growth in their early stages is therefore better avoided.

Further trout are fish eaters - capable of dealing with fat and lots of proteins. Giraffe catfish - sand suckers - eat whaterver they find in the sand, and their South American Colleagues - the Geophagus cichlids which eat the same there - are best kept on a 60 % or more veggie diet. I think the same will go for your cat.

Veggie food is rich in vitamins, minerals and fibers, and low in proteins and fat. If a fish eats to little veggie material, it will, therefore, get too little vitamins and minerals, the lack of fibers will result in less bowel activity, and the huge amount of vitamins and fat will be rotting inside the fish. That is, your fish wil get bloat.

many cheap Koi food is rich in carbohydrates - something goldfish and koi might be able to proces, but other fish not. However, I've often fed my cichlids with Hikari Koi feed. It was (almost) the same as the containers intended for cichlids, but being larger, I got more food for my money. Later I used winter food - wheat germ food - to alternate.

Food for cold water fish should be liquid indeed in order to be digested - and in warmer water, this makes digestion perhaps a bit easier. Not harder

[Jools]

This may prove useful for the discussion.

Jools

[Pestey]

ok, well tbh this is way off what I was asking on the food front.
suck eggs time: simple answer as to a bulk amount please, brand etc. Hikari for instance but in bulk.

[Thursty]

You write as if fish nutrition was the same as human nutrition and it isn't; not by a long shot.

While I do agree troud feed is better avoided, the reasons are a bit different

TRout are bred for consumption. Just as other animals, whoever breeds fish to be eaten wants them to grow quickly, and quick growth normally cost longalivity - but then, that does not matter.

We want to enjoy our fish for a long time - and fast growth in their early stages is therefore better avoided.

Actually trout feed is formulated to be the cheapest effective feed it can be and still produce economic results. It is also formulated to be fed in cold water. When formulating trout feed in my college course in fish nutrition we had balance and cost requirements that were very difficult to meet. We found it necessary (as do the manufacturers) to resort to such fringe ingredients as blood and feather meal which the manufacturers of tropical diets do not because the hobbyist is much more willing to pay a higher price per unit weight since they buy such smaller quantities.

I'd like to see some research on that fast growth leading to shorter life span claim as it sounds like one of those things that gets tossed around the hobby with no scientific basis. While it is true that fish never stop growing during their life span and they do slow down quite a lot as they get older and it is possible to stunt their growth, there is no sort of growth limit that they might reach and then they have to die.

Further trout are fish eaters - capable of dealing with fat and lots of proteins.

All fish are very capable of dealing with fat and lots of proteins; proteins in particular because fish are very poor at metabolizing carbohydrates for energy but very good at metabolizing proteins for energy in ways that humans are not capable. Again do not assume that fish nutrition is the same as human nutrition.

Giraffe catfish - sand suckers - eat whaterver they find in the sand, and their South American Colleagues - the Geophagus cichlids which eat the same there - are best kept on a 60 % or more veggie diet. I think the same will go for your cat.

It's wrong to assume that the organic component of the benthos consists primarily of vegetable matter. Aquatic micro and small macro-invertebrates comprise the majority of the diet of such feeders. The research cited in the link supplied in this thread by Jools firmly indicates that A. occidentalis is very much an ommnivore but relies heavily on benthic macro invertebrates for the majority of its diet, not plant matter. Your average flake or pellet food will be quite satisfactory for them and this is consistent with my experience keeping them. Algae wafers will probably be OK for them but probably isn't the best.

In the aquatic environment even what appear to be obligate, strict vegetarian fishes are consuming large quantities of these hitch-hiking organisms (rotifers, copepods, diatoms, planarids, larval insects, etc.)

Veggie food is rich in vitamins, minerals and fibers, and low in proteins and fat. If a fish eats to little veggie material, it will, therefore, get too little vitamins and minerals, the lack of fibers will result in less bowel activity, and the huge amount of vitamins and fat will be rotting inside the fish. That is, your fish wil get bloat.

This would be true if fish were people but they aren't. It's debatable if water soluble vitamins are necessary to fishes and if they are how much needs to be in the diet and how much can be assimilated from the water, synthesized or is lost to the water for that matter. Likewise with minerals which are virtually unnecessary in a fish diet as they are definitely absorbed from the water. Humans need fiber in the bowels but fish whose bowels are much less complicated do not.

many cheap Koi food is rich in carbohydrates - something goldfish and koi might be able to proces, but other fish not. However, I've often fed my cichlids with Hikari Koi feed. It was (almost) the same as the containers intended for cichlids, but being larger, I got more food for my money. Later I used winter food - wheat germ food - to alternate.

I'm not saying that won't work but I would say that's not doing the best you can do for the cichlids though cichlids is such an inclusive term it's hard to tell exactly what the situation would be. Sometimes it seems with the Tilapia/Oreochromis/Sarotherodon genera you could feed them cardboard and they would do just fine.

Food for cold water fish should be liquid indeed in order to be digested - and in warmer water, this makes digestion perhaps a bit easier. Not harder

You're confusing liquid with water soluble. Fats and oils are not water soluble.

[Thursty]

ok, well tbh this is way off what I was asking on the food front.
suck eggs time: simple answer as to a bulk amount please, brand etc. Hikari for instance but in bulk.

Sorry about that. Both my college education in fish nutrition and my experience keeping them says that you'll be fine with any decent brand name flake/pellet food. Supplement with frozen foods as desired; the link supplied by Jools suggests that frozen bloodworms would match their natural diet very well.

[Bas Pels]

Food for cold water fish should be liquid indeed in order to be digested - and in warmer water, this makes digestion perhaps a bit easier. Not harder

You're confusing liquid with water soluble. Fats and oils are not water soluble.

I'm certainly not confusing water soluble with liquid

I would assume any education in nutrition goes deeper into the way stuff is digested in the intestines.

Fat does not dissolve in water, and therefore all fat in the diet remains in lumps or droplets in the gut. These particles - or droplets - need to be broken down before digesting

In humans this happens through bile which is secreted directly after the stomach - so it has a long time of working. I have no clue what does this in fish, but I do know the fat will have to be attaced by something in order to make it accessible for the proteins which will devide the fat molecules into fatty acids.

In druplets - liquid fat - this goed much easier than in solid fat.

Please read everything you wrote again. I'm quite certain you forgot a few things more you've learned

[Jools]

ok, well tbh this is way off what I was asking on the food front.

the link supplied by Jools suggests that frozen bloodworms would match their natural diet very well.

Which is why I provided it... My main "buy in bulk" food is frozen bloodworm, it's cheap, but it does have the disadvantage of requiring above average water changes. That shouldn't be a problem in a big fish/big tank set-up.

Cheers,

Jools

[Viktor Jarikov]

Edifying discussion. Thanks, guys.

This is because those foods are formulated with fats that have a lower melting point and when they are fed in warmer water they melt in the water or in the digestive tract and are not assimilated properly.

Please, help me understand this. The way I read it it says that cold-water fats melt even in cold water inside fish, so it would melt far better and faster in a warm-water fish. Why would it hamper digestion?

[MatsP]

Please, help me understand this. The way I read it it says that cold-water fats melt even in cold water inside fish, so it would melt far better and faster in a warm-water fish. Why would it hamper digestion?

I don't believe anyone says it hampers digestion. I think the point of contention is the fish's ability to consume fat. Nature is not generally rich in fat, especially not under water. That is why for example salmon and trout are counted as "fatty fish", because they feed on rich sources of food and have a higher fat-content than other fish. This in turn indicates that their digestive system is better tuned to digesting fatty/oily products than "average fish". And of course, for commercial aqua-culture, you want the fastest growth for the lowest price, so if the fish are able to consume fat at a higher rate than other fish, adding more fat to the fish's diet would be a good thing.

There's substantial research going into aquaculture for food - because it is cost sensitive.

This shows that trout are recommended food with around 16-22% fat content.

This shows that commercial catfish food are recommended to have a fat content of around 5-6%.

So, if the aquaculture suggests that trout should be fed about 3-4x more fat than catfish, I think we should consider this in aquaria too. Yes, I admit that the Giraffe cat isn't a "aquaculture" catfish, but I expect it's dietary requirements are closer to "Blue Channel catfish" than the dietary requirements of Trout. I could be wrong, but I it would be nice to see some evidence rather than "I think this is the case" to substantiate why you think that a catfish from Africa should have similar food to a Trout, rather than similar food to a Catfish from North America.

--
Mats