Electric catfish--How fat is too fat?

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Mount_Prion

Mount_Prion

Piranha
MFK Member
Jan 31, 2012
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I have a chunky little electric catfish, who for some reason specifically goes nuts for algae wafers and ignores all other frozen/peleted food, who has gotten very fat. I used to give my pleco said wafers, but because the electric cat steals them all, I've started feeding the pleco with bits of squash on a clip higher up on the glass and only feeding the electric the occasional wafer. Still though, the fish could be used as an underwater traffic cone.

He's only been in my tank about a month, but has gotten noticeably fatter. And I started to worry because he stopped lurking in his lurking spot, but now I'm thinking it's because a) he's now confident in his ability to electrocute anything that bothers him and b) he is a little too fat to fit in the same hole in the log.

I really dig this fish, and don't want to overfeed him and make him sick/die.

If it was your ~7'' electric cat, and he had an algae wafer obsession, how many Hikari algae wafers would you feed him a week? And should I be worried about his present girth? I noticed he likes to sit in indents in the substrate that accommodate his gut and still leave him an upright view.
 
electric catfish are meant to be fat. Of course, there's always such a thing as too fat. Mine (when I had him) would only eat live food, so I suppose you should be grateful that yours is eating dead food. However, electric catfish are strict carnivores, to my knowledge, and require food that is high in protein. The algae wafers may be giving him digestive problems, and that might be causing his obesity. Or he's just a fat electric catfish... they are greedy little bastards.

As far as him not lurking, I would think that that's fine, but you should make sure that his hiding place is big enough for him to lurk in comfortably. Mine would stay in his cave all day most of the time, and only go on patrol at night time.

If you have other fish in the tank, I pity them. Electric catfish will terrorize any other fish in my experience. They will give them a little shock every time they run into another fish, and this will stress your other fish out to no end. But... who knows, your pleco might be fine. I've read that some synodontis catfish seem to be able to coexist ok with electric catfish, but I have no idea. The only fish I ever put in my tank with the electric catfish that survived was a banjo catfish... which somehow managed to slip under the radar ;). Once I did catch the banjo out swimming around during the night, and Frank (my ec) was on patrol, and their paths crossed. Frank lunged at the banjo catfish and pushed him across the tank, but after that he seemed to ignore the banjo entirely (not that they're hard to ignore). That banjo catfish was seemingly indestructible, also.
 
Thanks! Yeah, he pretty much ignores everything else in the tank. Everything avoids him, but he's in a 220g so he pretty much keeps to himself. He's too fat for his old hiding spot, but it's a planted/wooded tank and there are plenty of others, including the bigger part of the log he used to chill in.

I'm amazed to hear yours is so aggressive! I haven't read up on the species much, and maybe it's because mine hasn't eaten anything alive at least since he was like 2'', but mine is seriously not interested in any of the other fish. They leave him alone, even the more aggressive ones, but he just hangs out waiting for wafers.

I've noticed that he's spending more time by the top of the tank. I think he honestly might just be hungry, as I haven't fed him for a bit over half a week or so due to concerns about his weight. I've noticed that he's swimming up to the part of the tank I sit near a lot, which strikes me as food begging.
 
Well in a 220g you have a whole lot more space than I had, that's probably why it's working alright. I am sure that when yours gets big enough you will begin to see its monstrous nature
 
I have had two electric catfish. The first one was about 10 inches in a 55 gallon by himself so there was nothing for him to bother. This one presently is about 5 inches and in a 29 gallon with two other fish. He does harass them abit. They are really cool fish and they are usually always fat. I'm surprised you were having trouble getting yours to eat frozen or pellets. Mine will eat anything. And yea, I tend to agree, they're really cool but they can be kinda mean.
 
Well mine was around 4-5" when I got him so he might have been accustomed to live food already. To be honest, I didn't mind... Dropping a bunch of feeders in there was my favorite part. He grew to around 8-10 inches by the time I have to give up my tank because I was going to college.
 
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