Your Biggest Catfish Picks

[andywg]

I don't think most catfish are that prone to jumping out of tanks (though exceptions will exist). Though a lid is a good idea to try and prevent the msasive evaporation issues from heating thousands of gallons to 24C.

You don't really need a full pond for 2ft catfish. 200 gallons and upwards tanks should suffice (as CFC and Paul_MTS have). And RTC are a fantastic fish, just a shame they get past 3 feet and often up to 4 feet (have been known to pass 5 in the wild).

And as a final point, I doubt there's much chance of seing Woodie's large cats in ponds as I doubt they even exist.

 

[morgan]

I am probably looking too far into the future! Apparently they grow the fastest in their first year so when it goes into it's 300 litre tank (very soon, we are going to look at tanks on Saturday) that will probably be ok for a while. It doesn't look cramped in it's existing 96 litre tank and it certainly doesn't have stunted growth. But I would rather upgrade before it becomes an issue. I was hoping Woodie would come back so we could see the ponds as I find the idea interesting. Our next house will probably be our last house before the retirement home! so building a permanent indoor pond would be quite feasible.

 

[bunjiweb]

looks like they have gone off in a strop, oh well, if they have such a fragile personality i am not bothered if we ever get to see their fish room or not!

 

[woodie]

looks like they have gone off in a strop, oh well, if they have such a fragile personality i am not bothered if we ever get to see their fish room or not!

sorry i have been busy and havnt been able to get online till tonight

i am still waiting back for planning permission for the fish room but here's pictures of the tanks we have got to make the ponds with we have 4 there are 8ft by 4ft at the moment we have plants in them to make sure there are complety water tight and touch wood so far we only have one to re seal one and once the fish room is under construction there will be emptied and tided up a bit i will also be more than happy to put pictures of it construction of the fish room ... and will probaly be after advice as at the moment we cant decide what to insluate the room with any ideas???

i hope we can put this behind us i would still like to use this site and if anyone dosnt belive that i am really building a tropical fish room once its constructed i would be happy to recive visitors to see the rooms

 

[CFC]

The best insulation for fish rooms is Kingspan which is a foil backed expanded polyurathane sheet, its not cheap but will save you ££££s off your electricity bill in the long run. Avoid using polysterene sheets (apart from in the floor) as these can cause horrendous condensation problems. If you are building the fish room as an extension of your home then using a product such as Clover in the roof will improve your heat storage by around 80%. Your builder will know what these products are.

How do you plan on using the tanks for the ponds?

The best way to build an indoor pond is out of brick/blocks and then rendered and painted with a rubberised paint inside, you could go for a pond liner but with big pims i would be worried about them punturing the lining with their fins.

The tanks certainly look a good size, any chance of some bigger clearer shots ?

 

[woodie]

The best insulation for fish rooms is Kingspan which is a foil backed expanded polyurathane sheet, its not cheap but will save you ££££s off your electricity bill in the long run. Avoid using polysterene sheets (apart from in the floor) as these can cause horrendous condensation problems. If you are building the fish room as an extension of your home then using a product such as Clover in the roof will improve your heat storage by around 80%. Your builder will know what these products are.

How do you plan on using the tanks for the ponds?

The best way to build an indoor pond is out of brick/blocks and then rendered and painted with a rubberised paint inside, you could go for a pond liner but with big pims i would be worried about them punturing the lining with their fins.

The tanks certainly look a good size, any chance of some bigger clearer shots ?

mmmmm Kingspan is what we were thinking of using as most of the people we have talked to with fishrooms swear by it!

the fish room is going to be a totally seperate building we are palnning on building in a kitchen into it as well to provide a food peperationg are as i by my own beef heart and chop it up and freeze it for the catfish.

that tanks are going to rasied up to a on bricks with polysterne sheets underneth for added warmth and then we were *thinking* of cutting a whole on one side and putting a viewing window we saw one very similar at a Koi specialist in Bradford but what worrys us with that is making sure that the seal is water tight

we might still make make them out of breeze blocks as this will give us more scope for there size, i would love a viewing window in them i have seen a company on the net that makes the frames for viewing windows in Koi ponds called "richdon koi" but i need to research into them a abit more as i dont want to put them in and for them to leak

i will get some better pictures tomrw as its very cold foggy and dark here now there looking a bit tatty because there are stored outside at the moment

 

[morgan]

Glad you've decided to come back Woodie. I am not the only one who would like to see the catfish and their ponds.

 

[andywg]

I still don't think 8x4 feet is an adequate size for a full grown adult TSN. That will be a cell twice it's size in length and as wide as it is long. I wouldn't want to live in a box 12 feet by 6 feet...If you built a tank the size of all four together in a rectangular arrangement then it should hold all your big pims. But that's just my belief.

Viewing windows are easy. Make the hole x inches long and y inches tall. Buy a sheet of acrylic or glass that is x+4 by y+4 and you have two inches all the way around to stick onto (if you use the pre-fabs).

If using bricks you can by pre-fabbed frames to put into the brickwork and seal into. Look into Koi forums for consruction ideas.

The best way to seal the inside of a pond is fibre glass, though I was quoted £50/quare meter so it is definately not cheap...

 

[Miss Dib Dabs]

*ahem* All this talk of monster size catfish makes all my guys seem very small.
All the best with the tanks Clair. Definitely something I would like to do one day but isn't gonna happen in the forseeable future. Look forward to seeing the finished articles. Beautiful catfish too.
My biggest catfish has to be Angelicus (A synodontis angelicus). He's about 7 inches now. Grown a good inch or two in the past few months. Had to change his furniture in his tank as he was beginning to struggle to get in and out of his rock cave. So bought him a lovely sized cave perfect for him....and he totally ignores it! Instead he squeezes into a fake bamboo tube where the doras squeeze in with him. There's just no pleasing some fish.
Hugs,
P.

 

[woodie]

we do have two 16foot by 12foot by 4foot deep tanks but there need alot of work doing on them and were not sure if there will be repairable will get a photo of them when we go up to the farm as where storing them in a friends barn at the moment due to there size or not hence where we got the four 8foots , were quite lucky as we have a lot of friends that are Koi specialist so there sometimes get in tanks that are ideal for tropical ponds and give us a ring...

Miss Dib Dabs i have a BN thats the same i bought them all some nice big bits of bamboo for them to hide in but he still preferes to squeeze into the small bits

we did think about using pond liner like we have done with the koi but like CFS said we were also worried about there fins puncheringg holes into the liner but we were thinking of doubling the liner and going for the thickest we can get as this is a pond we built our selfs its 5m x 5m x 4ft the photo was taken when we first built it and it has changed alot since them, we now filter it with a kockney 5 bay filter what is also what we are thinking of using on the tropical ponds

 

[Soaup]

Very nice. I still dont quite understand how you plan on building the rooms. You have wooden frames and you plan on using pool liner inside the wooden frames? correct me if im wrong. im kinda intrested in this now myself.

 

[woodie]

Very nice. I still dont quite understand how you plan on building the rooms. You have wooden frames and you plan on using pool liner inside the wooden frames? correct me if im wrong. im kinda intrested in this now myself.

Hi Soaup

the room itself is going to be made out of brick and is several hundred square feet, then for the ponds are going to be in the corners with tanks along the the walls for smaller fish then i'm either going to use the ponds in the picture (blue tanks) or build new ones out of brick and render and just use the blue ones for emergency tanks or quarintine tanks

i just read about your albino channle catfish your one brave woman there are furious eaters and will grow very quickly we have them over here in fishing lakes and i do belive the biggest caught at the moment is 50lb + but in france and spain there have monsters growing well over the 200lb mark

 

[smithrc]

on the subject of kingspan

It is as good as you've heard

I've been working out in our fish shed in this cold weather - and with just 2 people in there and a strip light - the shed is warm enought to get rid of jackets and jumpers

Open the door again and its a different matter .... bbbrrr

we've had an electric heater on it there - i was expecting it to be onn and off at regular intervals ever few minutes... but its not the temp stays up for about 40 mins before the heater comes back on

roll on tanks

 

[Soaup]

Very nice. I still dont quite understand how you plan on building the rooms. You have wooden frames and you plan on using pool liner inside the wooden frames? correct me if im wrong. im kinda intrested in this now myself.

Hi Soaup

the room itself is going to be made out of brick and is several hundred square feet, then for the ponds are going to be in the corners with tanks along the the walls for smaller fish then i'm either going to use the ponds in the picture (blue tanks) or build new ones out of brick and render and just use the blue ones for emergency tanks or quarintine tanks

i just read about your albino channle catfish your one brave woman there are furious eaters and will grow very quickly we have them over here in fishing lakes and i do belive the biggest caught at the moment is 50lb + but in france and spain there have monsters growing well over the 200lb mark

Yes that is why i ask. I am intrested myself in doing something for my guy. Anyways dont be feel embarassed but not a woman.. lol its ok. Umm I thought the record here in the states was 26 lbs in the wild up in conn. I havent heard anything about 200 at all! Do you think you could pull me up a link or was this from word of mouth. Happy Thanksgiving!

 

[woodie]

it was on one of the fishing programmes my boyfriend watches this fish was over 6ft in lenght