How to feed "carnivorous" catfish?

[Josh]

Hi, I wanted to know if anyone could give me advice on how to feed my two eclipse/sun catfish. I've had plecos and other catfish before and have kept them without problem but these eclipse catfish don't eat any of the algae wafers or anything that the other cats do. I bought some sinking shrimp pellets but before they hit the gravel they're picked off by my spanner barbs. By the time the barbs pick them off I don't want to add any more for fear of overfeeding them. Obviously I can put flake food in and have some of it reach the bottom fine but how do I make sure that these catfish can get any specialized food like this without overfeeding with these pellets? Any advise would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

[newt0524]

hey

your local LFS should have frozen foods like bloodworm, beef heart, brine shrimp, squid, etc. your catfish will for sure go for these. live worms from a bait shop as well.

beware of the protien content though. if you want them to grow fast, feed high protien, if you want to slow them down a little, feed low protien. the content will be written on the package. beef heart and squid are high / bloodworms and shrimp are fairly low.

newt

[minabird]

Josh-

If your catfish are nocturnal, try feeding them at nite afte you've turned off the aquarium lights. Or if they aren't, turn off the aquarium lights and drop the pellets in and turn them back on again. Hopefully, your barbs won't see the pellets in the dark and some of them will make it to the bottom of the tank. Another option would be to lure your barbs with food to one side of the tank and drop the pellets on the other side while they're distracted.

[Drumachine09]

Or get a large turkey baster and point-and-shoot feed them.

[Severus]

I would recommend some sort of direct feeding method where you can forcefully put food on the bottom or right in front of them.. Depending what your feeding a turkey baster or tube of some sort should work.

[jeffs99dime]

yes. point feeding would be the best way

[silvercat486]

hmm, i have one, and he'll eat algae wafers...

[annageckos]

SilverCat, this post is like, 3 years old. But you should be feeding you cat more than just algea wafers, they are carnivors and need meat.