These catfish are growing fast!!

[MDFishTanks]

http://www.planetcatfish.com/common/species.php?species_id=52 : Ameiurus nebulosus (brown) is similar to Ameiurus melas (back) but has 5-8 large saw like teeth on rear of pectoral spine.

The colors are too variable to distinguish blacks, browns, and yellows. Perhaps when you have 60 of them side by side, all from the same body of water, you can spot the difference, MDFishTanks?

From what I can tell, the black bullheads have full black/gray barbels and the browns barbels start lighter, almost white and fade in to a darker color. When I look at them all swimming they are many colors - med brown, black, silver, slate gray, some have blotches, etc.

Same with the tilapia - one day they are almost white and the next they are sky blue and if I take them out of the water they turn to a really dark gray/chromatic silver color.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

From what I can tell, the black bullheads have full black/gray barbels and the browns barbels start lighter, almost white and fade in to a darker color...

As in lighter at the tip or lighter at the base?

When I look at them all swimming they are many colors - med brown, black, silver, slate gray, some have blotches, etc.

Wow! That's a lot of variability within a large batch that came from the same wild pond and now resides in the same home pond. I wonder if the sex and the age also matter. Mood and hierarchy certainly matter.

Is there a pecking order and the enforcement thereof? Does anyone define and defend their territory?

 

[MDFishTanks]

As in lighter at the tip or lighter at the base?

Wow! That's a lot of variability within a large batch that came from the same wild pond and now resides in the same home pond. I wonder if the sex and the age also matter. Mood and hierarchy certainly matter.

Is there a pecking order and the enforcement thereof? Does anyone define and defend their territory?

Lighter at the base right under the mouth.

They all looked very similar when I first had them but as they grow they are changing.

The cats usually stay in one large group swimming around with each other, the tilapia are usually together with the larger golfdish, the sunfish and bluegill stay to themselves and the smaller goldfish hang with the catfish most of the time for some reason.

They all have their own little areas they stay in but they will all swim around with each other sometimes and then separate.

 

[MDFishTanks]

I was cutting up some strawberries this morning and I had a lot of extra blueberries. I figured why not go see if the cats will like them. I threw in a few blueberries a couple sank and the rest floated. Sure enough the catfish loved them. I threw in some more and they all started coming to the top and going crazy for them, I then gave them their pellets.

 

[BigFinn]

Oh that's cool.


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