justink Posted November 22, 2012 Report Share Posted November 22, 2012 hey everyone, I have a young redtail catfish about 5" long and he is not eating the pellets I put in the tank. The pellets are just regular sinking pellets for catfish. I have also tried blood worms as well but he will not take them. Instead he is just eating the algae cakes for my Pleco. Advie would be greatly appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
interpolantics Posted November 22, 2012 Report Share Posted November 22, 2012 Hey there, I have a 15" RTC. Mine is currently eating floating pellets as well as shrimp. I have also noticed that mine eats the algae cakes. Don't bother with blood worms.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomuhs Posted November 22, 2012 Report Share Posted November 22, 2012 (edited) Wow never thot i'd see the day when someone had problems feeding their RTC haha. Did you just pick him up? If so, allow him to settle in; keep up with water quality and he should be eating anything in no time. Edited November 22, 2012 by tomuhs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justink Posted November 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 23, 2012 Wow never thot i'd see the day when someone had problems feeding their RTC haha. Did you just pick him up? If so, allow him to settle in; keep up with water quality and he should be eating anything in no time. Yea he is still relatively new I bought him about two weeks ago. Everytime I feed him all he goes for is the cakes every time, I'll keep watching him to see if anything changes. Would the cakes be enough for him? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishclubgirl Posted November 23, 2012 Report Share Posted November 23, 2012 My tortoise shell cat eats diet cat food. Ooopsy, you're talking about fish..... :& Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngelFins Posted November 25, 2012 Report Share Posted November 25, 2012 hey everyone, I have a young redtail catfish about 5" long and he is not eating the pellets I put in the tank. The pellets are just regular sinking pellets for catfish. I have also tried blood worms as well but he will not take them. Instead he is just eating the algae cakes for my Pleco. Advie would be greatly appreciated. I would suggest to try Repashy Meat Pie. It is a high quality gel food and our catfish love it. The nice thing about this food is that it doesn't spoil quickly (it can stay in the tank uneaten for two days without any problem). For that reason, it is a good food for fish that likes to graze (eat only a little at once). The downside is that it requires extra work, the gel has to be made by mixing the powder with hot water and than kept in a fridge (2 weeks) or a freezer (up to one year) . If your family doesn't mind seeing fish food in the fridge, your fish should like it more than pellets, since it is more natural. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeebes Posted November 27, 2012 Report Share Posted November 27, 2012 I feed mine smelts but when I first got him I used a claw to feed him the cut up chunks... he gobbled them up. lol but I told you that already!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishnerd Posted November 27, 2012 Report Share Posted November 27, 2012 They're usually so voracious so my smart a$$ answer is to feed him anything he wants hahaha :rofl: I agree with feeding him shrimp tho or the smelts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fairdeal Posted January 1, 2013 Report Share Posted January 1, 2013 I had 4 red tails about 4" when I got them and found they would not eat anything that was small size. No frozen shrimp no bloodworms no pellets smaller than 2 mm. I fed them live earthworms from Canadian Tire and cut up smelts until they got bigger and could eat whole smelts and shrimps. I also only fed them every 2nd day when they were that size and then only every 3 days as they got to 6 or 7". My remaining one I feed only every 4 days and he is now about 22" after 2 years. He now gets a large herring or blue shad or 8 or 9 big shrimp as a treat.They will only be active if they are getting hungry otherwise they just lay around the bottom if fed every day. He also never took pellets again after he got to about 6" and all my other big cats just love them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polleni-puffer Posted January 28, 2013 Report Share Posted January 28, 2013 The only thing I feed my RTC/TSN hybrid is those nutrafin sinking shrimp pellets. He also eats koi pellets. I never really offered him any other options, I just added in some pellets right before I turned off the tank lights and he figured out what to do with them pretty quickly. He's grown from about 3-ish inches to roughly 6-8 inches over the past 9 months or so. I'm sure he could be bigger but I keep him in a coldwater tank and I'm sure that doesn't help anything...I also only feed every couple of days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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