Unboxing Gulper Catfish
- Thread starter HarleyK
- Start date
This guy’s face looked funny and I examined him very carefully. Turns out he’s missing the center part of his lower jaw (the bones on the left and right sides are present). This appears to slightly hinder his ability to catch prey, his tummy is _not quite_ as full as the others’…but he seems to make do!
Howdy
Here’s an (almost) 8 months update on my seven tiny gulpers:
One of the gulpers died early on.
Another gulper, the one with the malformation of the jaw, is about 2.5’’ and lives solo in a 40 gal with and endless Endler colony. I don’t feed that gulper because it doesn’t accept dead fish. Rather, it’s a self-serve buffet. It’s not growing too well, but its tummy always looks full enough.
The other five are in a 75 gal with Enders. The smallest is 4’’ and rarely accepts dead fish. I assume it sustains on Endler. The other four are 5-8’’ and feast on a dozen silversides and sardines once a week.
A few takeaways:
1) Based on the painful learnings chronicled by
thebiggerthebetter
I have been injecting every (!) dead feeder with 0.1 ml VitaChem. It seems to serve those 4 who eat dead feeders well, they are big and strong and active.
2) I once let my guard down on water changes. At 100ppm nitrates one of the gulper lost its balance as if the swim bladder was affected. It took a month to recover.
3) They are truly not cannibals. The large gulpers eat fish that are much bigger than the smallest gulper in the tank.
Stay tuned for more updates as time goes on
HarleyK
Here’s an (almost) 8 months update on my seven tiny gulpers:
One of the gulpers died early on.
Another gulper, the one with the malformation of the jaw, is about 2.5’’ and lives solo in a 40 gal with and endless Endler colony. I don’t feed that gulper because it doesn’t accept dead fish. Rather, it’s a self-serve buffet. It’s not growing too well, but its tummy always looks full enough.
The other five are in a 75 gal with Enders. The smallest is 4’’ and rarely accepts dead fish. I assume it sustains on Endler. The other four are 5-8’’ and feast on a dozen silversides and sardines once a week.
A few takeaways:
1) Based on the painful learnings chronicled by
thebiggerthebetter
I have been injecting every (!) dead feeder with 0.1 ml VitaChem. It seems to serve those 4 who eat dead feeders well, they are big and strong and active.2) I once let my guard down on water changes. At 100ppm nitrates one of the gulper lost its balance as if the swim bladder was affected. It took a month to recover.
3) They are truly not cannibals. The large gulpers eat fish that are much bigger than the smallest gulper in the tank.
Stay tuned for more updates as time goes on
HarleyK
Last edited:
What about a 45 minute uninterrupted non narrrated feeding video with classical music playing slightly in the background?
