New fish

[Mike45]

We are getting some new fish from a freind of my ladies sons. One is a catfish about 8" long and tow gourmies ,a blue and a gold. We plan on putting them into our newly cleaned and refilled 15gal tank. The people we are getting them from had planed an early flushing for them but Brian and Ray(sons) told thier friends that we would take them. Our 60gal tank is now home to 2 kissing gourms,2 minni sunset gourms,a plex 8" long,2 albino cats ,1 rosy barb,5 blue neons,6 rasboras,about 20 zebra danios and 8 ghost shrimp including 2 preggies,2 kuhli loaches and one dojo loach. We put 2 of the zebras into the 15gal for now to put some life into it and as feeders for the catfish. Our local fish place Mike's in Spring Vally CA. seid that he will take the cat off of our hands if we want to but we will wait and see how it does in the 15gal. We plan on trying to raise some ghosts and will have better luck with it this time (we lost all on our first try) thanks to the knowladge passed on to us here..Mike45

 

[Allivymar]

Coupla things.

The new 8 inch cat is WAY too big for a 15g. I'd give it to your lfs ASAP; how big are the gouramis?

The 15g is also likely not cycled; adding the zebras and feeders will not automatically cycle a tank. Do keep a close eye on your water parameters as you will probably been seeing spikes in ammonia and nitrites soon.

 

[Mike45]

Hi Allivymar and thank you but as it turns out the cat is only 5inches and we lost one of the gourmies.It got chilled and did not recover but the blue gourmy is doing great and is full grown at about 41/2 inches minus tail. The first owners had removed the fish and kaept them in a steel bucket with a trash bag as a liner and we did not get them on the day we expacted but 2 days later so we fill lucky to even have the cat servive. By the way it.s a chanal catand we don't expact to keep it long but after the way it and it's tank mates were treated we will let him settle down for a few weeks.
Thank you again and we'll watch the spikes we didn't think of that yet and tested the water as we read your note.Thanks Ally.

Mike45

 

[William]

channel cats get over 2 or 3 feet long.


I've seen a channel cat eat a full grown angelfish!! 8O 8O 8O


*waits for alli to scream in horror*

 

[myriam]

Ahhh! William, that is scary. Did the cat eat it in one big gulp? For the angel's sake, I sure hope so 8O

 

[William]

Yes, it ate it in ONE BITE 8O

And the angel it ate was fricken huge! :?

 

[PlatyLady]

OMG. Cool, but scary.

 

[Christmasfish]

Ugh! But at least one-bite eaters are better than the ones that "play" with the food >shuhdder<

 

[mike57]

hi i'm new here but they are right channel cats get huge i've caught then out of rivers that weighed 15 to 20 pounds. they realy shouldn't be kept by the home hobbiest they out grow tanks too fast. i had a small one in an outdoor pound once thought he'd be good to keep the bottom clean he ate all the goldfish in about a week.

 

[TankGirl]

Yes, these cats are the same ones you catch from a river. They will eat anything that will fit into their mouths, even things that are not edible! A 4" channel cat can actually eat quite a few types of aquarium fish already.