Flathead Catfish Questions

[mike_sema]

Flathead catfish are carnivorous. They are not going to eat prepared food. Period. No discussion. That's just the way the species Is. If you keep the flathead in the koi pond they will outgrow the koi and other catfish and they WILL EAT THEM. Again, that's just how they are. You will not ween flatheads on to pellets or blueberries or anything like that. Live or maybe maybe maybe cut fish will be just about all they will eat.

Not necessarily true, we had small flatheads in stock that readily accepted pellets and cut fish like tilapia, shrimp, night crawlers.


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[SePPii]

Do you have any problems with aggression? Do they interact much or avoid one another? It's cool how much color variation there is between them. Is that always the case or do they change with mood?

Honestly, they very rarely move at all. The darker one stays on that rock and the lighter colored one under the rock.


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[MN_Rebel]

Not necessarily true, we had small flatheads in stock that readily accepted pellets and cut fish like tilapia, shrimp, night crawlers.


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Crappiekeeper is correct, its main reason why many hatcheries don't raise flatheads is their diet preferences. Majority of flatheads including fingerlings who hatched in hatcheries, won't accept any pellets or fish parts and feeding them live foods is expensive. Not mentioned that flatheads are highly cannibalistic. That's why channel and blue catfish made better candidates for hatcheries and fish farms.

 

[mike_sema]

Crappiekeeper is correct, its main reason why many hatcheries don't raise flatheads is their diet preferences. Majority of flatheads including fingerlings who hatched in hatcheries, won't accept any pellets or fish parts and feeding them live foods is expensive. Not mentioned that flatheads are highly cannibalistic. That's why channel and blue catfish made better candidates for hatcheries and fish farms.

I 100% agree on there thinking and choosing, I was just giving our experience with flathead fingerlings


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[jakessvx1]

I haven't been starving them at all, but went ahead and tried giving them some spirulina froze brine shrimp. Sure enough the smaller flathead ate it without hesitation. I haven't seen the larger one eat any yet though. It's a step in the right direction. The channel cat is eating shrimp pellets, which I expected him to eat at some point, but he has taken to it quickly.


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[piranhaman00]

I had a flathead who readily ate prepared foods


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[jakessvx1]

I had a flathead who readily ate prepared foods


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Did you use a particular strategy to get him on prepared foods? And what kinds of prepared foods would he take?


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[piranhaman00]

Did you use a particular strategy to get him on prepared foods? And what kinds of prepared foods would he take?


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Shrimp and silversides. I starved him and it helped that he was pretty young.


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[MDFishTanks]

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I caught one this weekend along with some channels. I am keeping him alive for now. I was able to easily get 60+ brown and black bullheads on pellets and about 15 channel cats...now they eat whatever I throw in the pond for the koi and goldfish and they havent eaten any of the smaller goldfish in there. I think I can try with this guy too...after I get him on pellets, or just keep him separate or just fillet him.

See the post I just put up here: http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/f...t-channel-cats-caught-this-weekend-pics-video

 

[jakessvx1]

So this morning I threw a few shrimp pellets in my tank for my channel cat and smallmouth bass. One drifted over to my flatheads hiding spot and sure enough he popped out and ate it! I was pretty happy about that. I hadn't even been starving him. I just cut back to one feeding a day, instead if 2 or 3, to get him a bit hungrier in an attempt to get him to eat frozen brine shrimp. Getting him on shrimp pellets at this point didn't seem like an option so I was quite surprised. One thing that may have helped was my stuffing shrimp pellets into the earthworms I was feeding him. Maybe he got a taste for them. Either way I'm pleased to have some feeding options for the little guy.


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