"At least a 55 gallon"

[kimberly]

I was at Petsmart today getting crickets for my firebelly toads. As I wait for the person to count out my crickets I look at the nearby fish and I see that they have albino channel cats and that they are listed to get to 27" long. I ask "Out of curiousity, how big of a tank do you need for a fish that gets to be 27" long?" The answer: "at least a 55 gallon b/c it is 4 feet long." I said "Yes, but it is only 12 inches wide!?" No good response other than "bigger than 55 is better". Poor channel cat that ends up in a 55 gallon. If it survived it wouldn't even be able to turn around.

 

[Jchillin]

Unfortunately, this seems to be the latest "rage". I don't know if you've heard of this particular chain, but Petland Discounts here in NYC did the same thing. I guess after numerous customers berated the employees about it, Management decided it wasn't a good idea as I haven't seen any in a few months. I guess yelling really loud will get some attention.

 

[poppab02]

I had an albino channel cat in a 55. It took exactly 11 months to grow from 1 " to 12" and at that point I donated to a store with a 1000 gallon aquarium. Channel cats are really cool and have a lot of personality but I would say that about 1000 gallons is the minimum a full grown channel cat could be in.

 

[id10t]

A 55 would do nicely, until it was 12-15" long. At that point, I prefer a cast iron skillet, corn meal, and hot grease.

(hey, this *is* a channel cat we're talkin about)

 

[Scottm]

those things are darn tasty. I catch them up here at about 2' long. As far as keeping them in a 55 thats just wrong. If you are going to be solely responsible for the care of an animal make sure you care for it well.

 

[ChileRelleno]

Kimberly,
a good formula to use for minimum tank size is to take the max adult size of the fish, say 12"/1' and then figure tank dimensions as Lengthx6, Widthx1.5, Heightx1.5...
That is to say you'd need a tank 6'x1.5'x1.5' or a 100gal tank.
LxWxHX7.47=gallons
Alot also depends on the particular species needs, e.g. swimming style, a adult Bala Shark max's at up to 14", prefers schools, is skittish and is a very fast swimmer who ideally needs a longer than average tank in which to swim somewhat normally. So I'd calculate Lx8, Wx1.5 & Hx1.5 which equals aprox 150gals, but there are no standard tanks with those dimensions and a 150gal would be too small for a average 5 fish school, so more likely you'd want a 8'x2'x2' or 240-250gal tank.