Red tail Tat longevity in home aquarium?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
G

gavigan1

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jun 23, 2008
450
2
0
arowanaville
I have had 2 tat's die at about 10in. In both cases they stopped eating, became weak and began to swimm erratically and died over a course of 2 weeks. I have heard this to be fairly common scombs. Many hoobyist seem to successfully keep armatus for extended periods of time. I see very few tats over 10in successfully kept for over a year.

Has anyone else has similar experrience of tats dying for no apparent reason?

Has anyone had success keeping tats over 10in in aquariums less than 400 gallons?

I would like to see pictures of tats over 10in and any hear about special requirements IE frequent water changes, increased water current, increased aeration all of which I have tried to no avail.

Thanks
 
A 10'' tat is pretty rare. Atleast on this site.

I have a 9'' tat that has been in a 125g for the last 1.5 years and a 75g for 1.5 years before that. So a total of 3 years.

Although its not 10"+.

I really think that alot of this dieing can be tracked back to what is fed. These fish were never meant to eat krill and shrimp and smelt. Like alot of people are feeding them.

I have never known a keeper that fed a exclusively dead diet to keep a tat for more than a year or 2.

There are 2 people that are local to me that bought a tat that came in with mine at the same time. And i have been able to track there fish right along with mine from week to week. And both of these keepers trained there tat to eat market shrimp and fish fillet from the grocery. And they both lost there fish for no known reason at about 1.5 years. Both of these keepers have bigger tanks than mine. And we all use the same filtration media's and same tap water. And we all have between 9-12 turn overs per hour in our tanks.

So the only difference was food. In these 3 situations.
 
I have lost 2 tats, But I know the reason.
And that was water temps in the mid 50's during a winter power outage that lasted 10 days.

But for anyone that has lost a TAT and doesn't know why please let us know what you fed?
 
feed mine mixture of live fish. most, of the carp variety.

85% my tat deaths are due to impact. fish gets scared knocks itself into disorientation and repeats until the fish is beyond point of recovery. saw this happen first hand. My tats are 6-7" range. Main question that remains is why now, after almost a year with out losses, 25% growth, water is ok. 7 of 11 tats have died in a span of 2.5weeks

theories:
1) summer time temps up, not enough dissolved o2, the weaker fish are impacted. this was an idea brought up by another owner. it has been hotter here. 2 Celcius up to 30C from period before deaths. perhaps the higher temps also bring up activity ie heightened senses/reactions.
2) as fish matures in size, explosive power of flight response increases, "the bigger they come, harder they fall" speculation here is; after a certain size, the power of the fish exceeds it's own ability to absorb impact.
3) population of tank has become a crowded condition with fast swimming fish, all now 25% larger --> 25% decrease in unit of space per fish. And thus easier to get spooked. versus situation where owners have single or low populations. in conjunction with point (2) when tank mates become more powerful with size, chances a tat gets spooked, increases.

*note all other 20+ or so GATF/VATF/Payara/etc living in the tank are in superb condition.
 
In madness's case i would have to think it would have been #3.

Because in the wild in the amazon rain forest these fish will see very high water temps. I have read that in the drought season that some of the smaller rivers can reach 95 degree's.

And 2 because you probably have the biggest tank on MFK that has tat's in it. So that would mean that my 3 that were in a 75g tank with 5 other fish would not have lasted 1.5 years and they did.
 
ive heard of it in tats,although not as regularly as scombs.
ive heard of both species dying without reason even on 100% feeder diets.
i have seen tats grow larger than 10",but its rare.
for one thing,theyre pretty new to the hobby.
plus,they grow...SLOW.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom