Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Is this possible? I picked up some channel cats 14"-18" long and they will not touch any food on the water surface which is quite annoying since my SLO takes care of everything on the bottom very nicely (like it's supposed to . The cats are eating nightcrawlers like crazy but that is an expensive diet since my worm bin is only getting started. Is there a way to train them to eat from the surface? My tank is a bit over 1000L.

Thanks in advance for any input you may have! John

I started them out with sinking feed... with the pump off so the slo wouldnt suck the food out....

then I started mixing a little sinking with floating.... they soon started eating on the surface

JT

I've never tried it in a tank but I've been very successful over the years getting them to top feed in a pond. As said before, mix some sinking and floating food and before you know it they'll be feeding on the top.

I have my cats in with other fish and I only use floating feed. It took them about a week to figure it out. I guess by then they were hungry enough to give it a go, and have never looked back.

That's great, sounds like a good plan. On the Purina website, AquaMax™ Grower 400 is listed as sink/float. Is this just basically a slow-sinking food? Would that be a good option or should I get one of the sinking versions which are all labeled for fry?

TCLynx has used Aquamax 4000 for channel catfish if that's what you're growing. That's also listed on the Purina site under their recommendations for Channel Catfish.

Thanks but I believe that's a float food correct?

So I dropped in a handful of really high quality (read: expensive) cat food that sank right away and the catfish scooped it up without hesitation. Plus, the food is heavy enough to where my SLO doesn't suck it up right away. I guess this means I should order one of the sinking Aquamax products...

Sorry, I missed your post about this... hopefully you've got this figured out but if not ...

The 4000 version is a floating pellet. The 400 is a mix of floating and sinking which is what people would use to feed train them to take pellets on the surface. Personally I would only buy the 4000 since you'll never use the other bag up.

This is what Purina recommends for Catfish
http://aquamax.purinamills.com/catfish_chart.html

Here is the product list that tells you whether they sink or float
http://aquamax.purinamills.com/aquamaxproductlist.pdf

Looks to me like they progress to all floating as the fish get bigger so that's what I would go with. You can always throw a little sinking food in till they catch on.

My cats feed at the surface no problems but probably only because they had to compete with big silvers just to get a feed
Now they hoover the surface sucking in everything in their path

Just watched a podcast from the University of Mississippi about farming Channel Cats and the growers all use floating feed apparently.

Main reason is that it's the only chance they get to see how the fish are looking and behaving.