Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

So I was recommended a way of feeding catfish by a friend of my dad who works for the FDA. She recommended freezing beef hearts and adding that to their diets. Supposedly it increases their girth (atleast that is what she said lol). I didnt get a chance to ask but was curious if anyone else is doing this and how often to feed them or how much to feed them. I was planning on throwing the beef hearts in a blender and then putting the paste into ice cube trays. Was wondering how many cubes should I throw in and how often. I have a little over 20 channel cat that are about 10-12 inches long inside a 275 gallon IBC. Thanks for any advice.

Also wanted to throw in I still intend to feed the pellets I have but am having trouble with them actually eating them. I generally throw in the recommended amount of feed (some sinking and some floating) but for some reason they just arent eating the floating pellets. I have had these fish for almost a year and they have only grown about 3-4 inches which is below the results of others I have read. So Im trying different methods to increase growth.

I haven't heard of anyone here feeding beef heart but that doesn't mean it won't work. Most people feed a commercial chow at least as part of the feed. I feed mine a fair amount of hard boiled egg because I have lots of spare eggs from my chickens and they seem to like them. I don't know how long you've had the feed but it may have gone bad or they may just prefer the other food you're giving them and don't want the chow any more. That's one of the dangers of feeding them other things .

One other reason the catfish might not be eating the floating pellets is the water temp. My climate is pretty cool and the catfish only come up for floating chow in the warmer summer months. I doubt they'd come up even for something better but they're a bit more aggressive. If your water temps low still (below 70 is my guess but I'm not certain of the exact temp where they start coming to the surface more) that's probably what's going on. You can try soaking the floating chow and then giving it a squeeze to make them sink and see if the fish will eat it without spitting it back out as well.

One thing about freezing the beef heart is that it might float. If it floats and you want it to sink you could mix the beef heart into some egg and cook like you would a custard or a poached egg and it would then sink. Might be more of a pain than it's worth. I've done something similar with eggs in the sous vide immersion heater since it's easy and I don't have to peel hard boiled eggs anymore (but the other ways would work just as well and be faster). You could mix just about anything you want into the egg . The light color of the egg makes it easier to tell when they eat it also so that's kind of nice.

That should give you some other things to try.

Never tried beef hearts, but have given the grissle and fat from beef and chicken bones.

I'm using the Aquamax 4000 pellets and my catfish never seemed to go after it also because it floats. I squeeze what is floating and just let them sink after a few hours. Right now tank water is stained and I can't see the cat fish. I could swear a few catfish died last year because they never looked up at the mass of food above them.