Red Tail Catfish (RTC) Fish keeping

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
yeah sure will. What is the substrate in ur tank? by the way what is the name of the fish called ZZ? Will aligator gar or shovel nose catfish live in harmony with rtc?
 
sounds cool. Does anyone one know what makes the tail "red"? Mine, (i mean my RTCs') tail is very faint in colour. I heard that shrimps bring the colour, but he eats only shrimps.. still it doesn't look good. :( any experiences?
 
it will get brighter as he gets older the red should start comeing out at about 9 inches or so
 
Well, after 4 days of fasting, rollong eyes and dashing its tail against my hand had made me soft to feed him with dried shrimps again. I read about making fish food at home and mixed pellets, shrimps with gelatine and started feeding him. Experiment worked. He eats the set jelly now. So I guess I can stop worrying about it. However, there is an issue. May be you guys has withnessed this too. He has a bad habbit of vomiting what he has in his stomach and eating it again. Yikes! A little difficult to watch. The issue is that he vomits, some of the portions are all coming loose and goes all over the tank and being sucked into the filters. So it stays there and make the water go bad. As I said earlier, I have a DIY filter as well as a smaller powerhead filter in the tank. I don't have a system where i can back wash. So I am thinking all those tiny half digested stuff foiling the water being trapped inside the filters. I cannot clean filters daily and i don't think that is good either. Also vomiting will change the pH in the water. This too is a problem. How are you guys are managing this? Is it only with my fish? :nilly:
 
I actually haven't experienced my cats vomiting regularly. Maybe once or twice when I net em for tank transfer/moving and they spit/vomit some food back out. But that's rare. Do you mean spiting food out or vomiting food out? Cats are messy eaters and if you feed sinking pellets or homemade/diy pellets they will chew/suck and spit some out and/or some will go out the gills and all over the tank. That's just cats and some fishes do that too. But if it's vomit dunno, maybe the gill curl has an effect? Keep us posted, I'd like to know if anyone knows what the problem may be. Filters whether diy or not if it's clogged with waste or food you gotta clean it. Just a part of the hobby. Remember water quality is important especially for cats and if your cat has gill curl you want to make sure the water is pristine.
 
I have seen it twice and it is definetily vomiting as it happens hours after feeding. But since they eat most of it back, i wouldn't know if it happenes regularly when i am not looking. Filters don't get clogged as they are large. So my worry was that they will start decomposing while being in the filter increasing the bio load. My RTC has one of the gils little longer than the other and it is almost touching the base of the lateral fin. I will upload some pics tomorrow for you to see.
 
Hasitha said:
...by the way what is the name of the fish called ZZ?
Click to expand...

Probably this large pim, rather common in the trade - Zungaro zungaro http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/species.php?species_id=429

Hasitha said:
Will aligator gar or shovel nose catfish live in harmony with rtc?
Click to expand...

Mine all did. The gars are biters and may attempt to bite any fish, even the ones that they cannot eat at all but mine did that only to some more timid fish, like IDSs, not to TSNs or RTCs.
 
 
Regular or often vomiting is not good, not normal by any means. Either the food is no good or he has a desease, perhaps an intestinal parasite. To eliminate the latter hypothesis, one could mix in some praziquantel - a safe, common de-wormer for all kinds of pets - into his food for a week or two and see if he improves.

The food may be either spoiled or has wrong ingredients or wrong make-up. One common mistake involves giving their large predatory cats foods of non-aquatic origin that have fat as a staple.

F1 Vet has a few nice threads on DIY pellets/foods, like this one and others http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?507349-EASY-WAY-TO-FEED-PELLETS-RIGHT-NOW!

Also, too low a temp may cause digestive issues.
 
Good to know. I never experienced my cats vomiting like that. I have seen my jar over eat and vomit food back but that was only a couple times and once I realized it was due to overfeeding I changed the portions and it never happened again. As for uneaten food always syphon or net or get the left over out somehow especially if they are larger pieces. You don't want it decomposing in your tank. And if it keeps vomiting you should change the diet see if it continues to vomit or not. And a ZZ is a Zungaro Zungaro Jau. Though Zungaro is a syn for many other species of SA cats. Zungaro Zungaro is a syn most commonly used/associated for/with the jau.
 
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