feeding catfish question?

[shawn123]

i bought staple food tablets made by nutrafin for my catfish, hes around 5 inchs big, bought him from a lfs not long ago, anyways, how many food tablets should i feed him? sorry if this is a beginners question, couldnt find anything on the net about it and forgot to ask when i was there.

thanks

 

[Tempestuousfury]

Yes, it's a beginner question. However, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Do you know which catfish you have? There are a great many that it could be. if it is a common plec or another catfish that grows to a similar length, your tank will not be able to support them indefinitely. They get to over a foot in length and might even become aggressive.

A tablet a day should do, though. If it's a suckermouth, then it shoud rasp it away to nothing. Feed after dark, since the other fish will probably pick it apart if the cat's "asleep" at the time.

Also, there might be some food left over afterwards, so you should try to do water changes every week or every other week to keep algae from growing (or growing too rapidly).

 

[shawn123]

its a pictus cat fish...i belive they grow around 8in or so?
so 1 of the small tablets a day because they are not very big, but you guys know more then me haha

 

[Tempestuousfury]

Do you happen to know the name of the manufacturer? What exactly does it say on the front?

 

[shawn123]

nutrafin basix, staple food tablets,

and their for all bottom feeding tropical fish


i tried to find something on the net about how much to feed, nothing, also of course looked on label, nothing So thats why i though to ask you guys

 

[Tempestuousfury]

Once a day should be ok.

What is the main ingredient? I'm guessing algae, in which case it is a good food for cats.

However, you should also augment their diets with frozen and other dried foods. perhaps somewhat meatier dried foods such as shrimp pellets?

 

[shawn123]

fish mean, plankton and shrimp meal are the first 3 ingredients in it, i feed them blood worms too, my cat fish loves them? Seem fine

just wanna keep him healty, seems to be doing real well, except i had silver tip tetras go missing and my baby tiger barbs went missing as well, so i figured he'd be the one to do it, which lead me to believe he wasnt getting enough to eat, so thought i would buy these. All my other fish now are 2in and over, so i'm hoping none go missing

 

[Tempestuousfury]

Ah, so had you been feeding him specialized food when this happened?

 

[shawn123]

nope, at this time he was getting flakes, and blood worms, he ate both, but i realized that they werent filling him when my smaller fish went missing, live and learn i guess, tonight i bought the tablets for him so i'm hoping these will sway him more to being full and not looking at the barbs as a meal, the rest should be fine where they are bigger i hope...

 

[digital_run]

Pictus cats are carnivores and should be fed accordingly....They will grow to about6-7" and should be kept in groups of no less than 3...They will eat anything which they can fit in their mouth and once full grown anything under 3" is a meal waiting to happen....They should be fed only 2-3 times a week and enough at 1 time to make their bellys swell to look like a marble.....I feed mine bloodworm/ frozen brine shrimp/ live fry and sinking carnivore pellets.