Gulper Catfish - Help eating frozen foods please

[Gosu]

I am happy to announce, my gulpers have started eating frozen silversides! I dangled them in front of their cave for about 60 seconds the first time then 45 for the next then 30, then eventually they started taking the fish out of my hand right away. Success!

I will try to buy them in bulk now.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Yeah my first three gulpers I had, just wouldn’t eat frozen. I starved them for 5 weeks. Then they said, “I’d rather die than eat your frozen crap!” And then.. they died..

From the little I know, this is definitely an unfortunate exception.

Another question. I have the gulpers in a 75 gallon. They hide in their pot all day. I regularly see them only come out only at night time, sometimes not even. I have a Fluval FX6 and two Tetra Power Filter 60’s and two powerheads for surface agitation.

Could the current be too strong for the fish? Will this stress them out? The water is crystal clear but I want them to come out and play more. The feeder fish appear to be continuously blown around but that’s just because they are small.

I want enough aeration to keep my gulpers healthy but yet I don’t want the tank to feel like a whirlpool.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

If the lighting is dim (e.g., no tank light, just soft ambient light), they may not need a hiding place that much, or you could lean a flat rock / slate against front glass. That way you will always see them and they will swim around and play. Mine did anyway.

As for the current, they are poor swimmers from stagnant swampy waters my impression is and as such they don't cope with current too well but mine liked to be in gentle current. In any case, areas of little current would be needed at least.

I am happy to announce, my gulpers have started eating frozen silversides! I dangled them in front of their cave for about 60 seconds the first time then 45 for the next then 30, then eventually they started taking the fish out of my hand right away. Success!

I will try to buy them in bulk now.

Excellent. Great work.

 

[Gosu]

From the little I know, this is definitely an unfortunate exception.



If the lighting is dim (e.g., no tank light, just soft ambient light), they may not need a hiding place that much, or you could lean a flat rock / slate against front glass. That way you will always see them and they will swim around and play. Mine did anyway.

As for the current, they are poor swimmers from stagnant swampy waters my impression is and as such they don't cope with current too well but mine liked to be in gentle current. In any case, areas of little current would be needed at least.



Excellent. Great work.

Thank you sir. Yeah the only thing I would have done differently with my first trio of gulpers is to have tried to feed them whole fish instead of headless shrimp and mussels.

I now was able to get my gulpers to eat headless smelt that I purchased from the grocery store. They are gutted and be-headed for human consumption. Thus, I took the smelt and stuffed the living crap out of them with North Fin jumbo cichlid pellets for an extra nutrient boost and they ate the whole thing.

I think this feeding journey has become a success. I hope the vegetable based pellets make them very healthy. I will continue to feed them pellet stuffed fish and move on to shrimp, scallops, and random seafood.


Let me know what other food you feed your gulpers and how it's impacted their health. Thanks a bunch.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

I've only fed mine whole marine bait fish and nothing else. They might have inhaled some pellets meant for their tanks mates but IDK if they spit them out or swallowed.

However, mine is not a success story because I lost inexplicably two of the three at around 2.5 years with me. As it could have been diet-related, at least theoretically, I'm not the one to advise you on what to feed your gulpers.