Weird behavior and tank size question.

[lolpard]

I have a two year old bullhead. He is about 9 inches long. I have been feeding him feeder goldfish and some shrimp pellets if he seems interested.

Anyhoo I bought 10 feeders. There was also one 6 inch gold fish in there who was supposed to be a feeder. I woke up the next day to a tank full of dead fish. So far I think he may have eaten one or two the rest are just dead.

Has anybody else run into this?

My fish is in a 20 long. He can lay on the short side without touching. The length is over three times his body length.

I have a 55 gallon but I am on the third floor. I doubt that we are rated to have waterbeds so I am not sure if it would be a good idea to set it up here....what do you think?

 

[FishDogg]

I had my 135 gallon and 150 gallon (until it cracked along the side diagonally) on third floor apartment, even with inspections my property managers didn't say anything to my wife or myself. About it. I don't think a 55 gallon will be a problem. 1 gallon of water is about 8.3 lbs. I would say 800 lbs shouldn't be a problem.

I would try and get him in the larger tank as soon as you can. What filtration do you have? With HOBs you want the water to move 10x the volume (ex. 55 gallon, you want the water to filter 550 gph). Canisters 5x, sumps 3-5x, Canister and HOB combo 7.5x.

How are your Nitrites, Nitrates and ammonia lvls?

 

[FishDogg]

Also, try and stay away from feeders as there is no nutritional value to them. More often than not they introduce parasites to your tank.

Try more hearty foods, frozen krill, bloodworms, beefheart, Hikari products are great.

 

[lolpard]

Any ideas on getting him to eat the dry/ frozen stuff? Sometimes he will eat shrimp pellets and sometimes he won't even though he practically grew up on them.

How about earthworms?

 

[lolpard]

It is pretty apparent that the cat killed the other fish. They were missing scales and looked rather mangled. Can not be positive. Just did a 50% water change lately, and now I need to do another. I am pretty sure with all of the dead ones that the numbers are all screwed up.

Tried to start the change and had a funniest videos moment. I had to move the cat to take off the cover and guess what happened...........She jumped back out and landed on part of the glass cover (sheet of wood goes over that....) and now I need to fish her out from under the bed and make sure that she did not get cut...sigh.

 

[Egon]

Also, try and stay away from feeders as there is no nutritional value to them. More often than not they introduce parasites to your tank.

Try more hearty foods, frozen krill, bloodworms, beefheart, Hikari products are great.

I need some clarification on this statement? So a feeder fish has no nutritional value? Like feeding plastic or something that won’t digest? Why can't they make that kind of thing for me? Like a "no nutritional value pizza???? Crap, I would lose weight eating pizza.

Also the parasite thing: Would you say 6 out of 10 times you put feeders in, the fish get parasites? 5 out of 10 would be half the time but your saying "more often than not" so 6 or maybe even 7 times out of 10 feeder fish are putting parasites in the tank. Well the OP's bullhead has parasites for sure and it's about to starve to death! lol

 

[lolpard]

He is quite beautiful considering he is about to starve to death LOL. Very muscular and not too fat. I have actually seen obese bullheads, his siblings or spawn mates or whatever you call them that still live in a tackle shop in Big Bear. They are WAY overfed but the big ones leave the little ones alone. I guess they have plenty of live bait on hand.

 

[Tom Pecanic]

Bullheads rock!! We just caught and released probably a state record here just the other night on chicken liver... Shrewd dude was 12-14" and mint... We did the right thing in the end... Quick unhook and see yaaaaaa!! Try everything under the sun til ya find what works...

 

[FishDogg]

Any ideas on getting him to eat the dry/ frozen stuff? Sometimes he will eat shrimp pellets and sometimes he won't even though he practically grew up on them.

How about earthworms?

If your bullhead is anything like my red tail he'll love earthworms. That is what I use to catch my bullheads. The cat will pick up the smell of the blood worms. Probably let him go a few days without eating anything he'll take to pellets. Or just feed them to him. See what he does.

 

[Juxtaroberto]

I need some clarification on this statement? So a feeder fish has no nutritional value? Like feeding plastic or something that won’t digest? Why can't they make that kind of thing for me? Like a "no nutritional value pizza???? Crap, I would lose weight eating pizza.

I don't think so. It's like empty calories. You wouldn't lose any weight, because you're intaking food, but said food has very little nutrition (vitamins and minerals). You can still digest it (the way fish can still digest goldfish), but you're not getting any bang for your buck. You'd end up both fat and anemic, with scurvy, rickets, marasmus, kwashiorkor, etc.