RTCxTSN claims the life of first tankmate.

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A

Antony.E

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Feb 2, 2010
56
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Ohio
As I was preparing to feed my fish today, I noticed my RTCxTSN looked extremely bloated as though he had already been feeding heavily. I asked my family if any of them had fed my fish today and they said no. Upon further investigation of my tank I noticed it was one fish short. My 4" TSNxRTC had eaten my baby albino Oscar.

This alarmed me a bit, due to the fact that if the catfish prefers live prey I'd much rather feed him goldfish than Oscars for obvious financial reasons, but got me to thinking. Is my Tiger Oscar in danger soon? He's too big for the catfish to eat now, but which will grow more quickly? Will I need to move my Tiger Oscar before he becomes lunch in a month or two? Or will he grow at a rate fast enough to keep him off the menu?
 
RTCxTSN hybrids are one of the fastest growing fish in the hobby. Even faster than oscars! Eventually the other oscar will also probably be eaten. sorry
 
I am sure this will not be the first victim if the rest of the fish are able to fit in his mouth RTC's will eat everything in their path. Try to get him to eat krill or silversides. what are you currently feeding him?
 
Go to the fish market and get tilapia, baby shrimp or squid. For the price you can't beat it. I get tilapia for 3.99 a pound instead of 4oz of krill for 5$ My big rtc ate many oscars, I had to power feed my favorite two oscars so they would grow quickly. But sadly It's just a matter of time. My big rtc 22" went after my 15" arowana two nights ago and he escaped with some serrious scale loss and injuries. I am concerned. there are two 8" tiger oscars in there also that he has left alone
 
Right now it's just him and the tiger oscar. There's a divider between them and my two convict cichlids and their fry, which is going to have to go soon and my convicts will have to be moved to a new tank.

Thanks for the advice on the tilapia. I'll definitely do that. He's eating boatloads if brine shrimp at the moment, which won't last long because he goes through an entire pack of it in less than a week.

The fish is awesome and I don't regret buying it at all. I just want to be prepared. I'm going to start work on a bigger tank that I hope will support him for another year or so until I can manage to build a huge tank for him (and maybe a few other monster cats).

I heard that they grow rapidly until they reach about 2ft and then they slack off a bit from there, but don't stop until they're about 4ft or more. So I'm thinking a few hundred gallons will support him for a little while and then I can house some of my other, slower growing fish from other tanks in that one when I move the cat to the big future tank.

Thanks for the help, people. I knew signing up for this forum would be a good idea.
 
a lfs has a 700 gallon tank with several 12 inch oscars,a hige pacu,a rtc, a snc,a rtc x snc and a few 18 inch knife fish, hes rtc is 22" or so and unfortunatly he has eatn alot of his tank mates including the knife fish,,,the sick thing about it is since hes a lfs he gets all the free monster oscars which always get eatn by the rtc,,its like free feeder fish in a sick way
 
Along with tilapia get raw frozen shrimp,smelt,scallopes and I have found that the local grocery store usually marks the price down on tues, or wednesday a pound of large shrimp for 3.99, can't beat that..
 
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