Fish Density

[Don McCammon]

My primary interest is in raising fish.  The vegetables are nice but I want to grow as many catfish as quickly as I can.  I have a net 500 gallon tank.  Can I stock it with as many as 200 catfish if I aerate the water?

[TCLynx]

We have heard of it, I don't think he has tried it.  Never seems to have needed anything special really, it's so mild anyway.

[David Hart]

Thanks TC...

I'm with you, they are pretty mild to start with.

[George]

Whiting is a good fish and we eat them whenever I fish for them.  I grew up eating catfish from rivers.  From the wild they can vary a lot depending on variety and water origin, all the way from very good to poor.  Channel catfish are one of the best.  Mild may be ok and again it gives me more to ponder as I move toward stocking.   Catfish have a rather distinct texture, different from most fish.

Has anyone mixed bluegill with catfish?  Bluegill are a forage fish in the wild so offhand that seems like a bad idea in a tank.  Maybe if well fed they may co-exist or possibly if you stage the stocking, bluegill first and then catfish months later, it might work out.  It would cost only 30 cents per bluegill to try it.  If nothing else they'd be well fed catfish.

David Hart said:

George when cats are raised on commercial feed, they have more of a mild taste then wild.

 If she only likes something really mild, like 'whiting'...they will still be 'a little' stonger then that.

Hope she likes them....

[TCLynx]

I've heard that bluegill can actually become fairly aggressive in tank culture but I haven't seen it myself.  I've not actually put catfish and bluegill in together myself but I know of people who have.  If you are feeding them, the catfish get lazy I've had escaped (they escaped the cage) tilapia fry/fingerlings survive in a tank of big catfish since the big guys were too well fed to bother trying to chase the little fish.

[Harold Sukhbir]

Hi Don,

The general concern of increasing fish density is overstepping the boundaries of the established media to fish ratios. If you'd like to have more fish than the recommended ratios allow, you can calculate/supplement the level of oxygen necessary to keep the DO levels at or above the 4-5ppm minimum and provide remote solids filtration/removal so as not to overwhelm the now reduced media bed filtration capacity. If  for any reason your ammonia levels get out of hand at any time, you can always do a water exchange providing you store prepared stock water without adversely affecting nutrients availability.

It is possible to circumvent the AP ratios in this way but for me its such a huge waste of valuable resources unless we intend to utilize this as fertilizer for some other type of remote agriculture.