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Catfish Deaths

I had about 100 cats and 25 goldfish in a 1000 gallon pool.

This winter I have lost about 20 catfish of all sizes, over several months. My water temp got down to the high 40 degrees at times. They all looked healthy but rather thin.

The goldfish however are like little fat cows in the tank.

In the beginning I would remove all uneaten food from the tank as I have read. Now I leave the food for a while and it seems to go away. This seemed to stop the deaths.

Question:

the gold fish all look like they are ready to bust, could they be eating all food?

Is this a bad mix of fish?

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jim Fisk on March 29, 2013 at 10:52am

Hey Dan. Welcome to my catfish world. Started with about 40 last Summer and I believe I have 2 left in there. My Trout on the other hand have been almost bulletproof. Just say'n you're not alone. Could be the cold, not sure. My system never got below 49F thanks to my wood stove ss water coil.

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on March 29, 2013 at 7:38pm

Catfish can survive cold, however if you have small catfish fingerlings and extended periods of cold, they can starve to death since catfish don't generally eat very much once the temperatures are below about 55 F. I once got a batch of catfish fingerlings in late fall and then we had a really cold winter, the water was down at 32 F when I decided I needed to pull them out of that tank and move them into a heated tank (Dang that was a cold job with only a small hand net.) I lost about 50% of that batch of fingerlings (they were really tiny things to start with, like 2-3".) My big catfish survive cold water fine, they just don't eat much.

Goldfish are a bit more comfortable with cool water and yes they can be little piggies can't they.