So...You want to get a gulper catfish...

[Kolton13]

ok, even with having mine 2 months he's been eating well and the only reason I helped him with a net is to help him become a predator if I do end up feeding feeders when my family is around. I don't want him getting dependent on me either. I tried pellets and im trying the shrimp today no pellets though he refuses.

 

[kendragon]

Your gulper looks well taken care of. I would rather see your experience and method of keeping them than re-hashing someone else's video.
I would suggest that to be your goal for this thread and not a care guide. Show progress and failures. This will take time and will be over the coarse of weeks, months, years......too many flash in the pan keepers.

 

[Kolton13]

Thanks! ok, I will do that next time.

 

[jjohnwm]

Okay, bearing in mind that I don't have one of these fish...catfish in general are largely scent feeders. If he takes shrimp, and I will bet that he does without too much coaxing, then get him accustomed to them so that he eats without hesitation. Then use a piece of shrimp to scent some pellets before offering them to the fish. You'll have to experiment with how long a particular brand of pellet lasts underwater before it begins to fall apart.

You can even put some shrimp into a blender, puree them, add some pellets and then use unflavoured gelatin to make your own solid food mix. After it sets up you can cut it into appropriate-sized portions, then individually wrap and freeze them for future use.

And, seriously, forget the feeder goldfish. If you want to show off the fish to family or friends, you can use frozen silversides, which are whole small fish available frozen as food for large fish and turtles. Way less risk of disease; you can "gut-load" them by slicing them open and stuffing pellets inside. Feeding live goldfish is like playing Russian Roulette, but with a cartridge in most of the chambers; very risky, bound to go bad sooner or later...and it achieves exactly nothing.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Hey Kolton! Please don't get discouraged. All these are only advices. Do your own thing as you see fit.

I agree with Kendragon but still maintain that an in depth analysis of the threads and experiences and the data and care sheets of others versus yours is a cool thing to do. I have never seen anyone do it. It'd be pretty novel and learning-rich I think. The rehashing of an old video is still better than an empty "look at my thread" bump, my point was anyway, not in lieu of your own thing, perhaps Ken hasn't caught on that.

I get JJ's angle too albeit I think his words can be thought of as disheartening. In half of his points I respectfully disagree, some more, some less. If you want to keep feeding your gulper feeders, you most certainly can but do document your endeavour with this. Once again, no one does this. No one has shown a demise of their gulper by feeding it live feeders, regularly, vividly, with visuals, with dedication that you are capable of showing your experience, and who knows, maybe you will show success (albeit like JJ I thoroughly doubt a long term success). The most we get one or two posts in a thread, to which an OP never returns.

Our greatly respected peer Yellowcat raised plenty of show specimen for many years on goldfish feeders, for one example. Not everything is as clear cut as one could gather from JJ's posts but I am not here to change people's minds, only to speak mine, and JJ's done exactly that.

Let it be known, for the thousandth time, that I am against live fish feeding but as just shown I know facts to the opposite and I am unsure why there was a success there and I am open minded enough and I am all for learning and sharing it with everyone, let it be positive or negative, but free learning. We seem to underestimate freedom. We learn from negative experience, ours and that of others, sometimes far better than from positive.

It's your job to critically digest the input from others and use it or not use it to your advantage, because afterall we all aim to help, and to the advantage of your thread.

So far I like it, Kolton! This is turning out no ordinary and no same old boring thread about gulper care for sure. Keep it up, please, as you will and choose. Don't get dismayed or down. We are all in the same boat, whether we think so or not.

 

[Fishman Dave]

Kolton, a good start.
feeders are banned in the UK, for good reason, therefore some of your audience
would be really interested to see how you managed to get it to take dead food just as enthusiastically. How about trained to hand feed, now that would be way cooler than live goldfish for a gulper cat. More like feeling100 rather than holding the fish and almost ramming the food down its throat like some vids.

 

[Kolton13]

I’m going to try and feed it pellet stuffed shrimp tomorrow, couldn’t do it when I said I was going to

 

[beau1990]

I'm gonna follow this one curious to see what you can do kolton you got this bud

 

[Kolton13]

Thanks! I’m gonna add some stories shortly!

 

[Kolton13]

I just fed my gulper a piece of shrimp stuffed with 2 carnivore pellets, don’t have it on tape because I couldn’t find my phone? luckily I just found it