Walking catfish at Fish Story

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thebiggerthebetter

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Dec 31, 2009
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Naples, FL, USA
Caught about a hundred of them from our temporary koi pond. Plopped ten of them in a 4500 gal following an intense potassium permanganate treatment to kill off external parasites:

 
Cool! Do you notice any problems with them trying to jump (not an uncommon problem when first introduced).?
 
No. They immediately fell in love with their new digs :D

However, piraiba has eaten two already (of the initial 11; can't be sure if live or already dead) and yesterday it got a third one, which to my sheer amazement somehow evaded being swallowed despite spending several hours in piraiba's mouth about half way in, head first. This morning that catfish is out and about, slightly banged up but to my second amazement not that bad at all and the piraiba's tummy is empty.
 
These are wild fish that colonized your pond?
Yup.

*******

Kuma kuma (piraiba), or simply Kuma as we call it, has eaten one more walking catfish yesterday (second one Kuma got in and swallowed tail first it seems - I am surprised). That's three cats eaten and one spit out of the original 11.

Tomorrow, I plan to try transferring Kuma to the other 4500 gal, in which it almost got eaten once about 1.5 years ago but miraculously survived, having had a lot of skin from its rear 1/4-1/3rd removed . It has put on another foot since then.

This makes me quite uneasy but Kuma's become a danger to many other tank mates, seemingly because the alpha Sperata aor and bowfin bother it too much, to the extent that it cannot feed on what I offer easily, hence, the taking down of the walking catfish tank mates.
 
Yup.

*******

Kuma kuma (piraiba), or simply Kuma as we call it, has eaten one more walking catfish yesterday (second one Kuma got in and swallowed tail first it seems - I am surprised). That's three cats eaten and one spit out of the original 11.

Tomorrow, I plan to try transferring Kuma to the other 4500 gal, in which it almost got eaten once about 1.5 years ago but miraculously survived, having had a lot of skin from its rear 1/4-1/3rd removed . It has put on another foot since then.

This makes me quite uneasy but Kuma's become a danger to many other tank mates, seemingly because the alpha Sperata aor and bowfin bother it too much, to the extent that it cannot feed on what I offer easily, hence, the taking down of the walking catfish tank mates.
Look forward to seeing that, hopefully it does better this time around
 
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Yup.

*******

Kuma kuma (piraiba), or simply Kuma as we call it, has eaten one more walking catfish yesterday (second one Kuma got in and swallowed tail first it seems - I am surprised). That's three cats eaten and one spit out of the original 11.

Tomorrow, I plan to try transferring Kuma to the other 4500 gal, in which it almost got eaten once about 1.5 years ago but miraculously survived, having had a lot of skin from its rear 1/4-1/3rd removed . It has put on another foot since then.

This makes me quite uneasy but Kuma's become a danger to many other tank mates, seemingly because the alpha Sperata aor and bowfin bother it too much, to the extent that it cannot feed on what I offer easily, hence, the taking down of the walking catfish tank mates.
Dang tail first? Sounds painful, hope he likes the other tank
 
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THE END.

After transferring the piraiba to the other 4500 gal, I think we lost one walking catfish to an unknown reason and ended up with 5 left. They have done fabulously. Actually reached and probably exceeded a bit 2 feet. I was surprised, thought they don't reach 2'. Got very thick too.

Then I had to kill them myself... as a consequence of our venture applying for licenses to exhibit prohibited and conditional fish species and the ensuing inspections by the Florida Wildlife Commission. (Will be covered in a separate thread. Please, don't ask any questions in this thread.)

Third column.

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