Group Comments about Catfish

[TCLynx]

My primary fish is Channel Catfish.  They are Native and cold hardy though they grow best in warm water.  They grow big and do need better aeration and water quality than is often provided to Tilapia but they are still rather easy fish.

transferred from Comment Wall.

[TCLynx]

Comment by Daniel E Murphy on September 23, 2010 at 7:50am
Got any finderlings? trying to get into catfish and catching them is slow going :D I don't mind compensating you :)

Comment by Michael Cosmo on September 23, 2010 at 7:55am
Not fair Ron. I have a DWC float bed now and I am building (with your labor) another DWC bed and a Gravel bed. TCLynx I would keep an eye on that cooler Ron is bringing as he he wants to get some catfish in his system. So you you might want to do a cooler check when he leaves. Of course vertical is better. Grow up - Growup - Grownup.

Comment by TCLynx on September 23, 2010 at 8:30am
By NOV/DEC very few of my fish will likely still be small enough for easy transport in small eskes.

Daniel, I'm sending you a private message

Comment by Ron Thompson on September 23, 2010 at 9:16am
Daniel, I need catfish too. Maybe we can team up to get enough that we can place an order through Florida Fish Farms. Let me know if you are interested.

Comment by Sahib Punjabi on September 23, 2010 at 9:54am
Hello friends...just for your info., I just purchased 100 channel catfish fingerlings for $30.00 from Florida Fish Farms. A friend drove to them last Saturday morning. Bit of a drive but they do bag them well for the hour and half plus drive back :-)

Comment by Daniel E Murphy on September 23, 2010 at 10:01am
Thanks for the info Sahib. Ron, I just might be interested. how many did you want? 50? I think I can fit 50 in 120 gallons.

Comment by Michael Cosmo on September 23, 2010 at 10:01am
Hmm. I am going to have to check out these Channel Cats and see if they are allies of those Alien Tilapia interlopers. I suspect they may be the high command as they seem to be grown to very large sizes and sometimes never harvested. What about the one that was trying to beam aboard your tank? Are you sure it was attempting to get out and not in. Good choice to feed it to the ducks. Who knows what it was going to teach the others.

Comment by TCLynx on September 23, 2010 at 10:02am
How much filtration do you have Daniel?
I have 11 in a 100 gallon tank and I don't think I would do more

Comment by TCLynx on September 23, 2010 at 10:03am
My 300 gallon system with only 300 gallons of flood and drain gravel beds is overloaded right now. Depending on how big you want to grow the catfish, I don't think I would recommend more than 30-60 in a 300 gallon system.

Comment by TCLynx on September 23, 2010 at 10:04am
Catfish are way different than tilapia.

Comment by Ron Thompson on September 23, 2010 at 10:08am
I have a 600 gallon system with 35 tilapia currently. I'm going with the low density model as it works just as well for the plants (ask my 8-foot Okra and 4 foot bell pepper plants) as high density and is less likely to have a crash killing all the fish. My water is highly oxygenated to reduce stress as well.

For cats, right know I'm only wanting to add 10-20 depending on size. I'm looking at the first batch as cold weather insurance, so larger than fingerling would be beneficial. But I'll take what I can get.

Comment by Sahib Punjabi on September 23, 2010 at 10:20am
Fingerlings were 3 to 4 inches each

Comment by TCLynx on September 23, 2010 at 10:27am
Most of my fish are now bigger than the larger fingerlings that Florida Fish Farms sells.

Good aeration is a good thing.

Comment by Daniel E Murphy on September 23, 2010 at 10:34am
80 gallons of grow bed with a 25 x 5 gallon bucket system downstream from the beds. There is alot of available surface area for bacteria in the bucket system so I imagine this does extend the cleaning power. i think its balanced anyway :)

Comment by TCLynx on September 23, 2010 at 10:53am
Daniel,
So are your grow beds and buckets media beds?
If so, That adds up to about 200 gallons of filtration and with a 120 gallon fish tank, that is not bad, close to a 2:1 system.
Now if I were to recommend a stocking level of fish for such a system, (assuming it is a media bed system) then I would probably say 25-28 fish if you are planning to harvest them at 1 pound each. Most people grow catfish out bigger than that though.

[George T]

I'm leaning toward catfish and one other species for my north Fla system, either bluegill or shellcracker. Catfish are rather easy to fillet and skin but the skinning technique is not what you would expect if you've never seen it done. I have a cooler full of fish outside and will try to post a photo later.

[TCLynx]

Yea, the cook skins ours before filleting though I've seen some videos of people who cut the fillets out without skinning first and they do it fast (granted you loose some meat if you do it that way.)

We actually took to skinning the tilapia too instead of scraping the scales off. Was much cleaner that way.

Of course it isn't really like skinning, more like pealing.

[George T]

No catfish on hand at the moment but the concept is the same with any fish. Fillet the fish with scales/skin on. Skin the fillet using sharp knife. This method can be used on all species, regardless of size and it's the fastest, easiest method I've seen. Try it, if you haven't already. It's like shaving, rather than peeling. Skin/scale side of the fillet goes down, cut down between the meat and skin, and just shove the knife down the length of the fillet, separating the filled from the skin/scales. No meat lost if you do it right but it may take a bit of practice.