PlanetCatfish.com

Hi everyone, I'm new on here and still reading the archives so go easy.
I have three Channel cats that should be coming up to maturity soon and wondered if it's realistic to expect them to breed? They live in a 3000 gallon pond in my garden with excellent water quality and high oxygen content. Based on info I found on here about sexing them by the size of their heads/shoulders I'm pretty sure I have both sexes. I understand they'll need a spawning cavity and I can sort that out no probem, but is there anything else standing in my way? Cheers in advance for any thoughts or info.

Welcome to the Planet!

That's a tough one for ignorant me. I hope someone with knowledge chimes in.

A couple things come to mind. Channels breed naturally in the US lakes of decent size of, say, a few acres and larger. I am sceptical about 3000 gal. But you can get the breeding hormone used at fish farms and try adding it to the water to catalyze their breeding behavior and/or place smaller fish in there that breed naturally and they will release their breeding hormones in the water either of which may give the channels the needed jolt.

in my days at university studying fisheries, iand with my time building water features i would say that yes you can do it. feed them a lot, some meaty foods if possible, such as worms and fish. a medium sized barrel would work well. and sometime in early spring do a massive water change. the cool water should get them excited. it happens a lot with my ponds and the Koi when we do the cleanouts....many times the fish will spawn after its refilled with cool, fresh water.