Cool Channel Cat Info

[warmouth]

Nice looking albino.

 

[warmouth]

in your original statement you said "compared to many schooling aquarium fish channel cats are quite sedentary".

Comparing aquarium fish like tetras or barbs to channel catfish is apples to oranges sir. Channel catfish compared to bullhead, blue, white, flathead, or any other catfish species can be considered very active. though they are catfish and can be considered slow when compared to schooling or other fish.

And how can you force a fish to grow to its maximum size? you feed it, it eats. You cannot force food down its gullet and pull on it to stretch it out. A fish is going to grow regardless of food or water quality. It may take longer if one or both of those is not ideal. Eventually the fish will reach it's maximum size. If space is limited the fish will not grow to its full potential. Resulted in a stunted fish. Id call that bad fishkeeping.

Thank you I think your post stated my opinion much clearer than I could have, I definately agree!

 

[Moontanman]

Warmouth, you are correct the pet shop channels cats are similar enough to the wild caught ones they will grow to be 3 or 4 feet or so too. I checked with experts more knowledgeable than me and while there is some differences between the aquacultered channel cats and wild caught one size is not where the differences lie. For some reason wild caught fish do seem to be much prettier than aquacultered channel cats. Sorry i took so long to get back to you. How should I eat my crow, hot sauce, lol?

None the less I still do not think that a fish has to attain the same maximum size as the record wild fish to be a healthy "happy" fish. Even in the wild many fish never reach even a large fraction of their maximum size due to environmental conditions. Something as small as lighting can affect the size of captive fishes. If your fish is 1/3 or in some cases even 1/4 the maximum recorded size it is still a healthy well cared for fish.