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hi all! can u tell me wots the best way of keeping a red tail cat fish??
my cat is jus over 8inchs long
its in a 4 by 1foot tank
i feed it gold fishes and catfish pellets if i aint got ne goldfish
in my tank i keep it with a pl*co , a diskus.
i did have other fish bout they dead

jus about 5days ago i noticed now and again that it goes abit nutty.
like in a coughing frenzy it doesnt look nice
can it be the tank? or water??

many thanks
jon

I think you should get rid of the red tail cat immediately. They get to be 4.5 feet long and should only be kept by public aquariums.

What are your water parameters (pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate), BTW?

i am aware of its size when it grows that is not a problem becoz i can move it 2 6by 3 tank

i dont know
. wot do i need 2 check the ph level etc...

You can use any one of the many test kits available on the market (not sure which ones you get in the UK). Just make sure you get tests for all the things I listed, as they are all very important for determining what is wrong with your fish.

There are many test kits available here in the UK ranging from a fiver and upwards to about fifty,Just drop into your lfs and have a chat with the staff detailing what test kits you need and im sure they will sort you out.

Thanks,Mark

Was there any inanimate object in the tank that it might have swallowed, e.g. stones?
Red tails sometimes do that, and it could be trying to regurgitate the item.

fishboy wrote:i am aware of its size when it grows that is not a problem becoz i can move it 2 6by 3 tank

And what size aquarium do you have available when it outgrows the 6' by 3'?

i have no stones or pebbles in the this tank onli a larger rock and a few wood peices on top of each other making an arch like. it mainly lays next 2 the rock all day long. so lovely bless...

haha i aint got ne where esle 2 put it after it grows out of the 6 by 3 tank
but i dont wanna get rid of it. its family.
how much time do u lot think it will have before its too large for the 6 by 3??

many thanks about the test kit etc will get one asap

jon

i have a red tail cat/tigre shovel nose cross and have been told that my 72"x24"x30" tank is adequate
by sevral fish shops now i am beggining to wonder

well maybe they tell u that because they were hopping that the growth be stunted in your tank providing the cramped condition and all or maybe they just dont noe what they're talking about???? if u wanna keep such big cats should get a pond.

how can i keep a tropical fish in a pond in our climate in england the heating bill for the pond would be about £1000 a year what about an 8x3x3 tank

no that wont work, you need a width of more then 36" (3 feet) so he can be able to turn around comfortably. I may get an rtc for my 2,000 gallon pond, in my opinion these fish need at least 500 gallons of water, or a pond. Personally i would go with a pond. If the temperature is a problem, then could you build it indoors?




p.s. the main things you need to test for are ph, nitrite, and ammonia.

Ive had my RTC for 4 years and its 30" long. Its quickly outgrowing the 400g (10'x30'x30') tank its living in currently. You have maybe 24 months before its 18" long and it will need to get moved. As for the hybrid, most pet store owners have no clue in the US. If they tell you you need a pond...you wont buy it. If they say youll be fine with a 6' tank, youll buy it. In reality, what % of RTC's purchased ever get to 24"? My guess is that is a low number. There is a good chance that the hybrid will get bigger than both of its original species....I assume they will use them as food fish as well. The bigger the fish, the more meat. Why go through all the hassle of crossing them if they arent bigger than the originals!

our houses over here are like sheds compared to yours over in the us the room where my tank is is in a through lounge about 22 foot long and apart from the kitchen which isnt big enough to swing a cat in thats it

Here is a bad photo of my 400g. I got this fish when it was 6" long 4 years ago. The dimensions are 10'x30"x30" (the tile on the floor are 1'x1').

Im not sure how big his next house will be....there is always the 15,000 pool in the backyard....gotta get my wife bought in.

How do you get your RedTail's tail so red, does it just come with age? I think I remember somewhere that I read that you need to feed them certain stuff with certain chemicals in the food to obtain the red tail. Is what I read true or will the color just fill out with time?

Carotenoid-rich food (e.g. shrimps) will make the tails redder.

I know this is a dumb question but can you feed them shrimp that humans would eat? I could always go out and just buy frozen shrimp from my LFS or I could go to the grocery store but I have several packs of breaded shrimp that I eat. Would it be okay to feed my RedTail those shrimp after I took the breading off?

durk04 wrote:How do you get your RedTail's tail so red, does it just come with age? I think I remember somewhere that I read that you need to feed them certain stuff with certain chemicals in the food to obtain the red tail. Is what I read true or will the color just fill out with time?

Astaxanthin. See:

http://www.astaxanthin.org/

http://www.aquasearch.com/astax.htm

This is a naturally occurring carotenoid pigment found in many aquatic animals (including shrimp), but will color up fish far more quickly than (and just as safely as) feeding shrimp will. We haven't seen a great impact on our catfish, most of which are quite drab to begin with, but the impact on colorful cichlids, characins and cyprinids is nothing short of spectacular.

Jehmco (http://www.jehmco.com) sells a 1 oz trial size that's a good place to start. Best to mix it in to homemade fish food. Or you can thoroughly mix it in to a moist food (e.g., thawed frozen bloodworms) and then let the food dry out a little so that the astax doesn't "run" in the tank. Or make a concentrated astax solution in a spray bottle, spray onto dry food like flakes and then let the water evaporate.

Dinyar

I was just wondering, is it common for my RedTail to lose his mucus coat. Like every two weeks I notice his mucus coat coming off and then it floats around for a while and is gone. I was just wondering if this was normal or if I should be alarmed about something.

I do feed that RTC in the photo a frozen plate of krill once per week. It eats Hikari Gold pellets during the other days-theyre actually for the dovii and friends. Its always been fed that and its tail is brighter than most.

The mucous coat shedding is not a good thing. Mine did it every once in a while if the water parameters went bad or if I put too much algae killer in the tank.(the water in Fl has a tendency to turn green faster than most). You probably have a pH or other water problem. I use a buffer to keep the pH at 8 and it never loses its skin anymore. Basically, its a sign of stress....usually from water or other fish.

fishman33437

If your RTC is 30 ", how big is the midas and the dovii? And do you have much troble with them together?

I have a RTC which is apx 23" in a 8'x30"x30" with a few othe fish:- http://www.cichlidsoutheast.co.uk/coppe ... ?cat=10029

The tiles on the floor are 1' x1', so you can see the RTC is as big as I say it is. The dovii is around 20" and the red devil is closing in on 15". There was a managuense about the same size as the RD, but I just shipped him to a friend as the dovii and RTC finally got tired of it being in there. I got all 4 fish about 4 years ago-the cichlids are all wild from Lake Nicaragua and there was a bifasciatus in there as well-catfish ate it at 8". I havent had much of a problem keeping them together overall. They never have split fins or bitemarks. The rocks on the right was the managuense's home until the dovii kicked it out and thats when it all went downhill. Ive had a big male umbee (16"+)with a big RTC (18") in a 180 and never had a problem either. Usually the dimensions of the aquarium make the sqabbles go away-that 400g tank is 10 feet long, so rarely are there issues.

Sorry mate, was'nt questioning the size, just curious if you have had any problems as i keep the same fish (look at link in last post)

Have a look at this site and post some pics, there'll love your Dovii.
http://www.cichlidsoutheast.co.uk/phpBB2/portal.php

What else do you keep?

Didnt think you were calling me a liar-just pointing out the tiles for reference. Thanks for the link, Ill post a few pix