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ok my parents just bought a house and i want a red tail catfish, they grow about 4 feet or even bigger. how big is the aqarium for a redtail?, filtration? and etc, i need help=P

I think it need's a minimum tank size of 4 times it's size.
Do you have a place to keep the Catfish?.


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There are 1000-gallon troughs and stock tanks for sale online - one of them might do it, but you'd need massive filtration, probably several dehumidifiers, heaters ... and the food budget alone would be frightening.

Last edited by LittleMousling at 05-Sep-2005 06:44

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I don't know... Even one thousand gallons seems a little small. I have read in TFH that red tail catfish can possibly reach six feet in length, so that's a lot of catfish that you'll have to find room for. I think that some kind of large indoor pond (if you had a room for it, or a big fish room to stick it in) would be cool, but there are plenty of logistical problems to get in the way. As said above, you'll have to worry about heating, filtration, the massive amounts of water needed, and all that food.

You'd best be serious about this catfish if you plan to buy it. This is another one of those fish that I don't like seeing in shops, because ninety-nine percent of the people who buy them can't take care of them properly.

---

And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

RTC aren't for home tanks. in the wild, people use party boats, to catch this fishes. best left for the aquarium.

Its been done a few times before...expect a 5'-6' fish....and anticipate dedicating at least 5000 gallons to it (and one heck of a filtation system)....should not cost you more than $25,000-$30,000.

i still to go with the idea of maybe an indoor/outdoor pond depending on ur country's climate and ur house requirements/preference. the RTC really is quite big for a normal home aquarium, and unless u wanna turn ur house into a "RTC-house attraction", i think the pond would be a better idea

P: Congrats on the house...kepe us updated in future on ur choices!

It's really unfortunate that these fish (beautiful as they are) are popular in the aquarium hobby. A lot of people buy them small (about 4 inches) and keep them for a few years in home aquariums up to 300 gallons ro more, but eventually they have a behemoth that has outgrown any reasonable sized tank. They are extremely long-lived fish under normal circumstances, which makes it even more tragic when they die from stunting in home aquaria. And the costs of feeding a carnivore like that get high very quickly (I've heard of people breeding green terrors or other prolific cichlids to give to large catfish like the red tail). Unless you have a 3000 gallon pond in a very warm climate year-round, I'd stick to visiting these fish at city aquariums.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

Oh dear. Red Tailed Catfish.

Red Tailed Catfishes are big enough to tow small rowing boats when fully grown. They are capable of reaching six feet ... a specimen close to that size was on sale at a food market on the banks of the Amazon, witnessed by one of the staff of Practical Fishkeeping magazine on a fish collection trip. You can safely describe this beast (as one poster has already done above) as a 'behemoth'. A large one will need (should you ever have need to do so for some reason) a small fork lift truck to help you lift it out of the water. I certainly would not try heaving a large one out of the water unaided.

You're looking at a home for this fish that stops being a conventional aquarium, and instead becomes a full-blown civil engineering project. Unless you are seriously dedicated to keeping one of these fishes in suitable conditions, and have a LOT of capital to splash out on the truly gargantuan quarters it will need, give the species a wide berth. You're looking at a 40 foot x 10 foot x 5 foot aquarium here... you're close on 60,000 litres at this point - around 12,500 gallons. If you happen to have an old disused B-52 aircraft hangar at the bottom of the garden to put this monster aquarium in, go ahead. Otherwise, I'd suggest you leave this beast alone.


Last edited by Calilasseia at 06-Sep-2005 10:40

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002