SIlica sand and catfish??

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
I know that a lot of people say you can only see the fish from the top if you do a pond, but it's not really true at all. Check out my gallery and look at the photos I've taken of my fish -- you can see the whole fish! LOL even in my avatar, you're seeing a good portion of the fish, and you're seeing him from an angle you'd miss out on in a tank.

You'll need about 2500 gallons for those cats. Check out the DIY part for some ideas. I went with concrete, but it was probably more expensive than the wood-frame ponds, and definitely more expensive than the intex pools.

As for getting them up to size, the 12 inch cats aren't going to catch up to the TSN we're talking about in this thread -- all things being equal, there should always be a size difference, until they are each full grown. So, I know what you mean -- it would be good if they were all about the same size -- but I think leaving the 2 in the 125 for much longer is going to begin to endanger their health, and also, fish do wierd things when they're in small quarters -- you don't want anyone to get mean, especially if they're all going to be together eventually.
 
I was not meaning catch up to the same size, im hoping they can get big enough to not be looked at as food. I looked at the diy plywood stuff and it's all spread out through 60 pages or so, i need a manual start to finish haha. im thinking i like the pool idea, i just need to figure out filtration.
 
We built our filter into the pond. It's huge -- about the size of 2 125's stacked on top of each other, just a little shorter. It's full of Matala filter media sheets -- we just cut them to fit. For mechanical filtration, we buy the big sheets of filter pads from Drs. Foster and Smith and cut them to fit, tuck them in to the top, and voila! Giant filter. LOL our water flow is around 12,000 gallons per hour.

Obviously, if you don't go with concrete, there are homemade sumps, filters in the big plastic 55 gallon barrels... the list goes on and on. I think you'll find what you need over there, even if it does take a couple of days to get through. Also try the indoor pond section -- it's probably more concentrated on what you need to know, although the DIY in general is going to give you construction and filter ideas.

Here are the slideshows my husband made about the construction of our pond, as well as some updated photos -- I'll just cut and paste the links:

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=266564

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=273384

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=269111

And I think they're even in chronological order!
 
Did some more looking since i just got home. It seems like he's more bloated than this morning and it looks like theres a red spot on the side of his head, with a worm on/in it. I'm trying to take a pic, ill post it up.
 
The worm is most likely a parasite. What color is it? Pics would help, but the "worm" you're going to see more often on Goldfish and other pond fish is anchor worm. It will look like a little black worm with a forked tail. Aren't you glad you're going to stop feeding goldfish?

The bloat is most likely not caused by this particular parasite.
 
here are the pics, they are off of my phone and suck but it's all i can do. I'm on my way to the lfs now for something to get rid of it. I won't be able to check here for a while so if anyone has thoughts soon, my cell # is 847-863-2211 my name is chris, call or text, i just want it sorted out. Thanks
-you can see the worm or whatever here, you just can't see the red spot or sore that's there. All these worms (you cant really see in the pics) are whitish clear with small black tips on their ends.

SSPX0002.jpg

bloat i think
SSPX0001.jpg

worms on the lid, same deal in color and what not, just not very clear.
SSPX0003.jpg
 
At this point, I am out of the realm of my not-very-extensive knowledge of fish diseases. I don't believe they are anchorworms. I dealt with that during my fancy-goldfish keeping days, and they were always black. Other than that, I don't know what parasite this is.
 
Im out of ideas, i added epsom salt for the bloating last night, seemed to work on the red tail, but not on the tsn as far as i can tell. The worm i grabbed with tweezers but couldn't get it to come out. the fish was in the tank and didn't want to have him freak out and get stabbed.

I'm wondering if cyropro or anchor's away is what i need? is an anchor worm the same thing as a hookworm just with a different name?
 
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