Sounds good Shorty but IMHO you don't need to feed these fish as much as you are, and you could get the same growth rates and get by with less water changes.
Keep in mind that's just my opinion and I'm not trying to be a know it all. You obviously have experience with the species which I don't.
Fish like people will consume more than they need and the excess gets pooped out to increase ammonia levels, which get changed to nitrites and then nitrates. You can only increase growth so much by feeding more.
The fact that you are doing close to 20 percent water changes ever two days, and still have high nitrates tells me you are overfeeding. Your nitrates should drop quite a bit with those kinds of water changes so often.
At about 0.3 lbs a piece with five 8 inch redears for a total of 1.5 lbs. of fish that's only about 0.03 lbs. per gallon in a 55 gallon tank, but like I said that's a lot of feeding.
Did you know they probably only need about 1 to 3 percent of their body weight a day for growth? Granted the fatheads have a lot of water weight but...
1.5 lbs (24 oz) at 3 percent is only about 0.72 oz per day minus the water.
Just saying and I don't claim to be some kind of authority just some experience with fish in small scale recirculating systems with excellent growth rates.
Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 02/27/14 09:12 PM.
