Wels catfish
- Thread starter follen
- Start date
any pics i would love to see and my dads friend bought a farm with a lake on it and drained to get all the fish out as he changed it to a match fishing lake and pulled out several juvis and several large cats all have been rehomed into a local lake "manour house farm in wormely, hertfordshire." and we managed to get one.
what catfish can i have in a my dads coldwater koi pond, that wont eat his bloody expensive koi.
The wels Silurus glanis is a very fast growing fish. Even if you don´t feed it very often, I suppose it will outgrow a pond of this dimensions within a short time. They can reach a length of more than a metre within a few years, and even if their growth rates slows down, it could be that it will reach a length of around 1,5m (okay, in GB it will hardly ever grow larger). I think such a fish should live in a pond with at least 20m². I have already seen wels catfish of well over one metre in big aquariums, but this was much too less room for them. I have also played with the idea to take a wels in a pond, but I don´t have the space for a pond which would be big enough for an adult specimen.
The pond itself is a much lesser problem. Silurus glanis is very tolerant towards low oxygen levels and dirt in the water, so you don´t need a super clear koi pond for them. They love it to hide in shelters like sunken trees or old boats. I once read an article in a fishing magazine in which they wrote about weighted rain barrels as concealment for the wels catfish. They have also a big advantage towards many other predatory fish, because they need no life prey, but also eat dead fish, pellets and even slaughterhouse waste and meat.
The pond itself is a much lesser problem. Silurus glanis is very tolerant towards low oxygen levels and dirt in the water, so you don´t need a super clear koi pond for them. They love it to hide in shelters like sunken trees or old boats. I once read an article in a fishing magazine in which they wrote about weighted rain barrels as concealment for the wels catfish. They have also a big advantage towards many other predatory fish, because they need no life prey, but also eat dead fish, pellets and even slaughterhouse waste and meat.
