Hi guys, new MFK member here. Just wanted to see your thoughts.
I have a 9 inch Salton Catfish right now, and im thinking of making a new home for him and some other fish. Would a 2000 gallon tank be too big for him? Is it Bad if a fish has too much space?
FYI, with him i might put some other fish so he wont be alone, but all of them will be under 10inches. would they be too small?
Welcome to the MFK!
There is no such thing as too big a tank for any fish, I believe. Now details may matter, there may be exceptions, especially when training a baby fish to recognize new feeds that are foreign for it. This is better done in a smaller tank where the fish often bumps into the new feeds being offered. Examples involve yolk-sack arowana babies and baby tigrinus catfish.
Salton catfish aka false piraiba catfish or Brachyplatystoma capapretum are exceedingly timid fish and any bullying or harassment by tank mates can stop it from feeding well or even feeding at all. It panics and runs full speed away until it hits a wall or a cover. Eventually its snout turns down from many of such hits or it kills itself.
On the other hand, when very large, at 3' or bigger, it can prey on 10" tank mates easily, I imagine.
Here is a video of one of my two saltons at ~20" in 240 gal. Note the downturned snout:
Here is my thread on these fish:
https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/...apapretum-10-in-4500-gal.680760/#post-7656411
Alright thanks. I just heard somewhere that if the tank is too big its not good for the fish. Especially for arowana.
Details matter. I don't see any other reason except training babies to recognize new feed.
Don't these guys get to like 6-8 feet long? I wouldn't be worried about the tank being too big for a fish like that. As a small fish you might have challenges with him finding food in a tank that size. But once he's a monster he's gonna need the space.
These are false piraiba that appear not to exceed 4' in the wild.
Yeah they do but should i start him with a huge home or gradually move him to bigger homes over time as he grows?
There are very, very few people, I've heard of one or two MFKers, who start out baby or juvi fish in its forever tank, but there are definite advantages to it - less chance of damaging or sickening it or killing it during rehomings. Many rehomings in communities don't go as planned.
The reason people, myself included, do it stepwise with growout tanks is because we either don't have a forever tank for it ready, or if we do, there reside adult fish that would eat it.
Yeah thats what I'm doing right now. I just wanted to know if there will be any side effects of putting him in a large home. I was thinking of putting some stingrays, thinbars, widebars, and some peacock bass in it with him to make a community but wasnt sure if it'll be a good idea since they're all still small.
TBH, I don't know predatory they can be with smallish tank mates because mine has always been stressed in large tanks with many tank mates. I had to pull it out of 4500 gal due to bad bullying / test-tasting by tank mates. If I had to guess, I'd think it is not too bad and would only endanger the tank mates that it can very easily catch and swallow.
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Lastly, this is wrong section. This thread belongs in the Catfish section. I will ask a Mod to relocate it there.
