Are Lima Catfish hard to keep?

[benzjamin13]

I find most catfish are pretty hardy and easy to keep. Listen to Necrocanis. He knows his catfish

 

[unstopable4700]

it should grow like wild fire while there are baby convicts for it to eat. till tere all gone then youll have to buy food. feeding mine is getting expensive. hungry sucker

 

[Carl D]

Are you feeding the lima live convicts though? I hope not because there is absolutely not need to feed live food.

Carl.

 

[necrocanis]

I'm not so sure about that. My reason is that I have had my Sally Belle for nearly two years and feed every other day or so a wide variety of foods and although she eats with gusto she hasn't gained so much as an inch! She is about 7" long and kinda stalled out. Do ya think she'll grow out more? I kep her in a 130 Gallon tank with a Fire 24" Fire eel named Morris and they both adore each other and love frozen BloodWorms.
I have noticed that in the last few months that Sally Belle has been getting alot more personable and actually goes to the surface to get those flating Hikari food Sticks! LOL, She loves them! I hope she grows some more cause I'd love to see her go into my 240 someday!
Pics:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v672/buddah101/IM001506.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v672/buddah101/IM001529.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v672/buddah101/IM001539.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v672/buddah101/IM001530.jpg

Not to sure, but maybe it has internal parasites or something keeping it from absorbing nutrition. When I look at the pics she seems kinda skinny for a 2 year old lima being well fed. My oldest lima currently is less than 6 months at 10 inches, and the other is even younger at 11 inches. They are both much thicker than yours. Unless she has some sort of genetic abnormality such as dwarfism, but looking at her proportions I wouldn't think so. A dwarf usually looks stunted. She might just have maxed at that size. Like I have mentioned in other threads, even rtc can have dwarfism and you may end up with a rtc that will only ever attain less than 2ft. in it's entire life. There was a member with one that was only 12 inches after 2 years.

 

[buddah101]

Weird, I would possibly be able to explain that slow of growth in a 55g or smaller but in a 130 it shouldn't have slowed down that much because its gots plenty of room still. What do you keep your water temp at and what are you feeding? You won't be getting 2-3" a month like with a TSN but you should be getting an inch or so a month up to at least a foot I would think from past experience ~Trent

It seems to be very healthy otherwise. I keep the tank at 78 degrees Ferenheit and VERY VERY Clean! It used to be automated (waterchange device) but I am more vigilant that the device so I'm going manual now. I feed it very well with Fresh vitamin fortified Smelt and Hikari floating food sticks as well as Hikari catfish pelletts for a treat. I do believe she might be starting to go into a growth spurt though..She must know I'm talking about her! LOL

 

[necrocanis]

that's good to hear, but in a 55 you might not want her to grow too much lol. Hopefully she stays less than 10 inches.