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RTC or Red Tail Catfish at Fish Story Aquariuma and Rescue

Fishman Dave said:
Wow!!!

great to see how they all get on. You must feed well as all look well fed and I am surprised to see a few cats in there that could easily be dinner for some of the tank mates if they were not happy.
if only it was warmer here in the UK and didn't cost me a ridiculous figure per year just to keep the fishhouse tanks and 1500 gal pond warm - Oh to be even a little bit like you!
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Haha... you are too kind. I appreciate it. Yes, I am not easy with some of the smaller stock in there - leerii and TSN in particular. As soon as I have more tanks, I will have to reshuffle. The fish presently seen in there have been in there for a couple of years at least.
 
Yearly update.

Rodrigo of PredatoryFins has adopted 5 RTCs of ours last summer of 2019, so we left 4 - two biggest females and two biggest males. They have been doing well. The alpha female looks mighty close to 4', the other one is not far behind, while the males are around 3'.

5:50 to 9:30 minutes:




We also got a newly donated RTC at 2' about 3-4 months ago, which has blossomed and put on 6". Looks like a male:




Underwater footage, 13:00-14:00 minutes:

 
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celebrist said:
Who is tearing up the dorsal fins on those big RTCs?
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Only one has had a damaged dorsal, missing half of the second ray, for the last several years and it is the biggest female and our biggest RTC at almost 4'. It's her ID mark. It was likely damaged by one of the jaus in 2016-2017 but I didn't catch it.
 
RTC_KEEPER said:
How big is that aquarium, it looks huge!
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It's 4500 gal, 13'x13'x4.5'. It already is too small for the biggest RTCs in my humble opinion and observation.
 
It could be the first time I see our RTCs exhibiting some courtship. I might have not paid attention or forgot about prior sightings, IDK.

We have had a warm spell here in southern Florida, USA for a couple of weeks and the water wormed up from around 70F to around 80F... and the RTCs appear to believe 'tis the season, as they have become exceedingly restless and active (compared to their normal selves). They usually lay around and take an occasional swim against the current and the bubbles or a few laps around the tank, one RTC at a time usually. Swimming together like this and touching each other with their barbels and nudging at each other bellies is very much out of the norm for them, so I believe this is migration and courtship. Nothing spectacular but definitely something different for them. One male that participates little is young, about 2-3 years old and might not be sexually mature yet, so it is mostly the two 4 foot females and one 3 foot male, all are about 7 years old.

 
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