Oh boy.

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BuffaloPolypteridae

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Aug 5, 2013
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Buffalo
OK, here's the thing. I've been helping my buddy get into the whole fish thing, got his 20 ga long tank cycled correctly w/ some BB from me and we were going to go pick out the stock together.

Well I've been super busy lately, haven't been able to find time to do it. So he went and got one fish himself. He had seen my striped Raphael and liked it so he was looking for one or something similar, I guess he needed dog stuff so he decided to pick up a fish while he was there w/o me.

He calls me and goes yo got a catfish like yours! I asked him to send me a pic, expecting some sort of raph or big cory.... well it was an RTC. I texted him, being like oh man, that fish can get like 4 feet! He didn't remember the name and thought the baby RTC was a striped raph!

I don't blame him, the mistake is sort of easy to make I guess if your really new to fish.. plus the store attendant didn't say a word about tank size. Go figure. He loves this little guy and wants to keep him, I told him it would eventually need a massive tank or pond and he would like to know about how much (money wise) it would be to keep one RTC for life.

I have 0 idea how much it would cost, so I figured some of you catfish guys can give me a round about estimate? He's not rich, he's not broke either so I'm going to help him all I can if he wants to go for this

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Does he have basement or a garage to set up one of those 12' pools then I don't see a problem keeping it not sure cost just a guess 150 and heating it might be a large cost I spend a $100 a month in electricity for my fishroom about 2000 gal


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I'd setup a 300 gallon stock pond. Im sure you could get one used for <$100. Add filtration and heating your around $300-$400. That gives him plenty of time to upgrade to a 700+ pond. Or he could just sell it.
 
festaedan said:
I'd setup a 300 gallon stock pond. Im sure you could get one used for <$100. Add filtration and heating your around $300-$400. That gives him plenty of time to upgrade to a 700+ pond. Or he could just sell it.
Click to expand...

A 300 gallon will give him a year and a half or so. Should get to a foot in 8 months or so...

TO THE OP: with red tails, it is not as much the exact gallonage that matters... It is the footprint. It should be AT LEAST 12 foot long X 6 foot wide. And I thought festaedan HAD a red tail do I am surprised he did not mention feeding costs! An adult will cost about 75+$ a month to feed. These guys STUFF themselves. And my 75$ estimate is if he doesn't use feeder fish. He can always buy a temporary kiddie pool "ghetto" pond if it starts really outgrowing his 20...

Wow man, you got your wish. You REALLY got him into the hobby! :D


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I would start building a 2000 gallon tank for that fish and start it right away, I bought an RTC planing on keeping it for life, and am in the process right now of a 2000 gallon plywood and Acrylic tank, mine has gone from 6" to 24" in less than 5 months, they grow fast real fast mine is currently in a 240 gallon 8 footer, I prob have till the end of next month before he needs to be transferred out of the 240. I feed mine almost a whole Bassa Filet a day already, it costs me about $50 a month to feed just him.
 
+1 this is the easier option and should be the first really , im sure if you go to the store with your mate and tell them how stupid it is to sell rtc's to people who know nothing about them or cant house them they'll produce a refund
 
Yeah that was the first thing I suggested, trade it in but he looked into em and is kind of eccentric and likes em so I figured I'd give him the best info I could. I'll tell him the dimennsions of the tank he would need. He does have a big basement, it could fit a tank big enough but it will be if he wants to do that. I said it'll be somewhere around 10x5 feet as a guess, wasn't too far off haha. I don't think he would be prepared for that kind of growth rate though, its only 2 inch but it'll be less then a year to over 10 inch. If he does decide to keep it I'll make sure he starts it off in a big stock tank as suggested.

I'll be hanging out w/ him tmw after work so well see, if he doesn't want it I really hope they take it back. The place he got it from doesn't have the best rep

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If you are talking "for life" housing, then perhaps the biggest your RTC will grow to will be ~4'. Absolute minimum dictates around 4 times the fish's length = 16' pond length and 2 times the fish's length = 8' pond width and likely at least 4' deep as the fish will be ~2' tall. That's 514 cubic feet = 14.3 cubic meters = 14,250 liters = 3,800 US gallons.

The same volume of water would be held by a round intex pool (will need to put a rubber liner in it) of 13' diameter and 4' depth and that could be more or less adequate.

Now this is minimum. Needless to say, minimum is not good enough for most keepers of this fish that take it really seriously.

On the up side, you can house a collection of large fish in such a pond.

You live in northern US, hence, the heating will be needed. If you insulate real well, it's a huge saving. But in any event, in the, say, 25+ years of the life span of this fish, be prepared to absorb the cost of from perhaps $15,000 if you set up everything close to perfect, to the likes of $50,000 and may be even up to $100,000.

That one is excellent especially by Mats Petersen, one of the prominent PCF leaders and workhorses: http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=34454 :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"Right, so without knowing WHICH red-tail catfish this is, it becomes quite hard to get good numbers. Suffice to say that you are looking to build an indoor heated pond of a pretty decent size [unless you live in a tropical country]. Since an indoor swimming pool is similar to a pond, the price of around £100k from the page below is probably a reasonable starting point:
http://www.indoorpools.co.uk/about.html

It may be that the £100k pond is a bit larger than what you need for a red tail, but I doubt the price goes that much lower by making the pond smaller. The measures Richard gives would be around 20 cubic meters (20000 liter or rougly 5000 gal).

There are probably a few filter, water circulation and a few other such things, but in the whole scheme of things, probably only a few thousand pounds or so.

Add to this that you need to keep it heated to around 25'C. To heat a 20 cubic meter tank will probably need around 5-10kW for approximately 25% of the time (averaged over the year - in winter you need more, in summer you need less). To make the calculation simple, let's pick the number if the middle, 7.5kW * 365 days * 24h * 0.25 = 16245 kWh - at current prices, 1 kWh = 12p, so around £2000 for electricity per year - of course, this will probably increase above levels of inflation for the future. Gas heating is more expensive to install, and may need a bit more maintenance, but will probably pay itself off in a few years. However, it's nowhere near free, and who knows what the gas prices will be in future... So I'd not count on it being sufficiently cheaper to make a huge difference.

Next, you'll need circulation and filter pumps. Given that a 5500 lph pond pump uses around 200W, you probably want three of of these, so 600w * 365 * 24h = 5200 kWh * 12p = £600 per year.

Lighting isn't essential, but will make it nicer. I'd reccon another £500-1000 per year. Say £750.

Water: Making 25% water changes per week on a 20 cubic meter is 5 cubic meter. Current water rates is around £3 per cubic meter, so £15 * 50weeks = £750 per year.

Food: At a reasonable size, probably around 1-2kg "meaty" and another 1-2kg vegetables per week. Say £10 per week = £500 per year. [For one fish, obviously, you could keep multiple fish, likely without much extra cost above the food].

So, around £4500 or so per year. I'm sure I've missed a few things out.

Given that these fish should live for at least 25, probably 50 years, the cost is somewhere around £100000-200000 for the "keeping" of the fish.

--
Mats"

See also:

http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=39227&hilit=+heating+cost

http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=35540
 
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