TIGRINUM FOODS / FEEDING FREQUENCY

[Mentzer]

What are you tigrinum keepers feeding and how often?
I have a lovely 13.5" specimen in with my Asian Arowana and I have been feeding him a varied diet of earthworms, prawns and whitebait. Sometimes he shall take a small feed daily at lights out, on other occasions only every other day and once or twice nothing for 5/6 days. He is also quite fussy, changing between the three items I offer, sometimes he shall eagerley accept, other times ignore. I do not particularly want to go down the road of live feeder fish for the sake of disease introduction, first and foremost. I have years of experience with other big cats; Redtail up to 31.5", Hemibagrus wyckii to 20", Perrunichthys perruno to 24" but I must confess after years of wanting a Tigrinum I am finding it a rather underwhelming experience. Be interested to know your feeding protocols.

 

[redtailfool]

Hi Mentzer and welcome to mfk. Why would you say that theyre a bit underwhelming?
lack of activity perhaps?

 

[Mentzer]

Hi Redtailfool,
It's perhaps just the particular specimen I have, it seems a little skittish at times, then add the irregular feeding and going on and off various foods etc. Lack of activity, yes - but then again I have 14 years expericne keeping cats (mostly pimelodids) and obviously knew he was not going to be doing laps of the tank. He has plenty room and my water parameters are spot on all the time, it's just a bit of a disappointment after waiting so long to get one. It seems a little fragile to me, if that makes sense to you?

 

[necrocanis]

makes great sense. I have raised several up to 26", and currently have a tsn x rtc hybrid. What type of environment do you have set up for him? I like to use large rocks and large fake plants. They hide behind the rocks and plants. Also I try to provide enrichment for my fish. I will get some feeder fish, not goldfish or guppies. I get white suckers from the local river and I will qaurantine them for a week or two then feed them to my catfish. They like the change plus I get to see them hunt. If I put them in during the day they will hunt every last one down, and then I have to clean lots of tiny scales out of the water. After this they seem more active and less skittish. The rest of the time I feed cichlid pellets, prawn/shrimp, assorted chunks of fruit(this helps alot!), and every now and then beef heart or chicken heart! You might just need to change up things for him a little. They are a very interesting fish, but as with most catfish they tend to be very lazy during the day. I mostly feed mine after lights out and they go nuts for cichlid pellets on the top! Hope some of this helps!

 

[redtailfool]

Hi Redtailfool,
It's perhaps just the particular specimen I have, it seems a little skittish at times, then add the irregular feeding and going on and off various foods etc. Lack of activity, yes - but then again I have 14 years expericne keeping cats (mostly pimelodids) and obviously knew he was not going to be doing laps of the tank. He has plenty room and my water parameters are spot on all the time, it's just a bit of a disappointment after waiting so long to get one. It seems a little fragile to me, if that makes sense to you?

It does make sense . Ive kept several too over the years and some of them are skittish at times. some are just rocks with stripes. My current one ( about 10 -11 inches ) is very activecompared to my past tigs. How irregular is its feeding?

But you know pims natural feeding habits are like that too.. are you doing daily feeding?
weekly?

You also mentioned something about waiting to have one for some time. Expectations set
a bit too high perhaps? Im guilty of that a lot of times.

 

[Mentzer]

It does make sense . Ive kept several too over the years and some of them are skittish at times. some are just rocks with stripes. My current one ( about 10 -11 inches ) is very activecompared to my past tigs. How irregular is its feeding?

But you know pims natural feeding habits are like that too.. are you doing daily feeding?
weekly?

You also mentioned something about waiting to have one for some time. Expectations set
a bit too high perhaps? Im guilty of that a lot of times.

Sometimes daily at lights out, other times eating every second day, on a few occasions it has went 5/6 days. It does not help as well to have the asian arowana as a tankmate, two extremes of activity, it's doing cartwheels all day! Yes, you could be right about expectation levels after waiting so long for a nice one to become available. I think it's the skittishness that's the most irritating thing. The 3 huge big cats I have had previously; RTC; Wyckii and Perruno were not skittish at all. I have not kept regular TS, Psuedoplatystoma fasciatum, one for it's eventual size (TRC all over again) but to be honest mainly because of all the data I've read over the years about their skittish behaviour. Twice when doing maintenance it's thrashed about the tank, at 13.5" that's one thing, but when it goes with the Arowana to it's next tank (1100 litres v. 520 litres now)next month and grows I would not want a 20/22" fish thrashing around with the concomitant bodyweight that goes with the length, even with 12mm glass. If the Tigrinum runs the TS close in this regard then I would consider selling it. I shall be interested to see how many owners feed theirs feeder fish from time to time.

 

[Tigrinus]

makes great sense. I have raised several up to 26", and currently have a tsn x rtc hybrid.

You might be confused or maybe I am, but I think he is talking about a Brachyplatystoma tigrinum (Tigrinus) and not P. tigrinum(TSN). Unless you have raised several tigs up to 26"!!??!

As for the main post. Tigs are just not as active as some of the other big cats. My tigrinus never thrashed around during water changes or anything like that. I could even touch them and they would not do anything (MOST OF THE TIME). I suppose not all of them are the same.

I never fed my tigs feeders. Blackworms when they were babies(3-5") and a diet of peeled raw market shrimp once every other night when they got bigger (6"+). One of them I fed thawed silversides, crab, and thawed sand eels too.

 

[necrocanis]

my bad, still was a little groggy working night shifts. I will raise them in the future to 26" though! hehehe

 

[DiXoN]

mine eats anything i put in the tank but mainly its whitebait, prawns and pellets.
it would eat every day if i let it but it gets fed every other day.