Channel catfish and children

[the.koi.maiden]

I was told to come here for catfish help from the NA natives section. This is going to be long. Please bear with me. I have a lot to explain.

My mother is a middle school science teacher. For the past 3 years she has been participating in a program called Catfish in the Classroom. It's similar to Trout Unlimited's Trout in the Classroom except with channel catfish as our local river is naturally too warm to support trout. For those who don't know, this program give classrooms around the US a fish tank and some trout (or channel cats in my case) to raise throughout the year. The kids learn about how to take care of the fish and why it's important to keep our waters clean. At the end of the year, the fish are released into a local river (this is done with special permits, don't worry). My mother's fish have been the only ones to make it through the year all three times without dying; my involvement with them has been minimal thus far: a few water changes here and there as well as helping her dismantle the setup.

Through an odd course of events that I won't bore you with, I will soon be in charge of this program in my city. I want to improve the survival rate of the catfish as well as attempt to teach proper aquarium care to the school children. As of right now I've only kept koi, goldfish, bettas, and small soft water communities (I have to wait to get my large tanks). Catfish have not been on my radar, and I have a lot of questions regarding the care of native catfish. Now let me explain the setups. Thanks for bearing with me this far.

The tanks have 4 to 6 fish that are between 4 and 6 inches long. They are 55 gallon tanks that aren't filled all the way to allow for extra surface agitation. The tanks have two bubble stones for more oxygenation. They run on a single Bio-wheel 350. Since our water is soft and prone to pH swings when weekly water changes aren't done, in years past they have kept a bag of crushed coral in the tank to stabilize the pH. All of the tanks have gravel, but none have lights. Some of the tanks have decor and hiding places. I understand these are not the ideal conditions to keep channel cats. These tanks were set up with limited grant funds. I will see about getting more grant money for larger setups and better equipment. I can't put any of my personal moneys into this as I'm a poor kid just out of undergrad. I have to work with what I have.

1) Is all of that surface agitation needed? Can I fill the tanks up those extra four inches? Is the extra water volume worth what we would loose in surface agitation? Just how high are the channel cat's oxygen needs? The man whose position I'm taking over seemed to think they were rather high.

2) Feeding. We're not trying to get max growth from these things as I've read they can grow fast. The water temps stay around 68F. How much and how often should we feed them? Teachers want to feed them almost daily, and I want to have something to back up when I tell them no.

3) I know the stocking is high, but kids don't like to see empty tanks. I will try to shoot for a lower number, but are there things like shoaling numbers, pecking orders, or general aggression towards conspecifics that I need to know about?

Thank you for any help you can offer (and reading through my dissertation!)

 

[MonsterMinis]

1. imo the surface aggitation osnt so important as the turbidity in the water, i would think replaceing the airstones with small powerheads or "circulation pumps" would be much more effective. this is something you may try getting in contact with a local koraline, aqueon, ect vendor and they might donate them to the program?

2. imo 68 is abit warm but tolerable, they do best in unheated tanks. the warmer they are the more they need to eat, metabolizim and all that. ime catfish do best like most large predetory fish on a few big meals a week as juvies then constant food. even feeding them every other day would be better then daily. particularly if they arent being fed on the weekends, that purge would help.

3. not knowing your exact water perameters... water changes really should be done particularly on an overstocked setup. imo if your mom was doing this even rarely, and others where just topping the tanks off ect.. this could be why shes had such success.. without knowing the GH/ KH of your water hard to say if crushed coral is even beneficial to the setups ect. it may be as simple as the water needing to sit over night before doing the water change, so any PH swings wont effect the fish.

overall catfish are hearty fish, but being scaless my biggest worry is going to be and is water quality. amuseingly enough the best channel cats ive seen kept, where all in koi ponds or otherwise " outdoor" pets.

 

[the.koi.maiden]

Thank you for your response, Amy. It's been hard to find info on these guys. Especially for the setups I'm working with. Not exactly how most people keep them.

1) Glad to know that the surface agitation isn't key. There is a local pet store that I could ask about donating some powerheads to the project. Thank you for the suggestion. I will also look on craigslist and see what I can find.

2) The tanks are unheated, but they tend to stay in the upper 60's because the classrooms are heated. My mother usually fed hers on Mon/Wed/Fri schedule with fasting over the weekend and for breaks. Does this sound like a good plan?

3) I believe that the monthly water changes were the reason my mom's tank succeeded where so many others failed. The man who set up the project didn't stress that enough to teachers, but I will be this year. It's no fun for kids to see the class pet die.

Our tap water parameters are 3 dGH, 2 dKH, and a pH of 7.8. I have a home test kit because I have to harden the water in my goldfish tank. Without weekly water changes the pH gets very very low. I was asked to help with another teacher's tank (not related to this project), and the pH was so low it was off the charts.