Thanks for the info George.
I'll pass this along to them.
Priss

"George" wrote in message
news:EEg0e.98870$Ze3.80086@attbi_s51...

"Priscilla McCullough" wrote in message
...
I was just wondering how cold catfish can take water?
A friend of mine lives in South Jersey and wanted to get a couple albino
catfish to put with his koi.
Can they tolerate S.Jersey's winters?
Priss

It just so happens that I have a large albino channel cat (over 30" -
about 10
lbs) living in my koi pond, which also has koi, goldfish, and shubukins.
They
get along fine, although I suspect if I had more than one catfish, this
would
not be the case. I got the shubukins, two goldfish and four koi at the
same
time that I got the catfish. They've been through two winters just fine.
Of
course, here it takes a really cold winter for the ponds and streams to
freeze
over. This winter I only had a very small amount of ice at the far end of
the
pond. I use a de-icer, which seems to work for my region.

Catfish generally go domant in winter and as long as your pond is deep
enough to
prevent it from freezing completely, and you keep a hole in the ice for
air
exchange, they should be ok. They usually stop eating when the water gets
about
50 degrees F. This is normal behavior. However, my sister lives on
Martha's
Vineyard, and she said that their pond (fortunately, no fish) froze
completely
this winter, so you should check to see what is the maximum frost line in
your
region and plan to build your pond at least 6" deeper, if not a foot or
more.
The frost line here in Kentucky is 22" down. My pond is 27" below ground,
and
18" above. It is in an high fence-enclosed patio area that is sheltered
from
strong winds.

I have three sets of goldfish. The first set I bought with the 4 koi and
2
shubukans about (a large female and a smaller, white and gold calico male)
three
years ago. The second set were bought as feeder goldfish for the catfish.
I
bought 12, but he only ate four, and then left the others alone. He
hasn't
eaten any since. I guess he didn't like the taste. He eats catfish
pellets
with zeal, and relishes peel and eat shrimp on occasion (when the price is
right). The third set (eight in all) of goldfish were born last year and
raised
in the pond. The catfish doesn't bother any of them, despite the fact
that he
is plenty large enough to do serious damage. In fact, when I feed the
fish, I
put koi sticks at one end of the pond, and catfish pellets in the other.
It
usually takes the catfish a few minutes to decide to come up and eat. In
the
mean time, the other fish will have finished eating their food and come to
the
other end to check out the catfish food. Then the catfish will come up and
gently nudge them out of the way. Since he is now much bigger, it will be
interesting to see how he responds to the others when the water gets up to
summer temps. So far there have been no major battles between the catfish
and
the other fish. In fact, he is so tame, I can feed him shrimp by hand.

Here is what he looked like early last fall. All the fish have grown
since this
was taken, but most especially the catfish and the orange metalic koi you
see in
the pictu

http://home.insightbb.com/~jryates/100_0612.JPG

Warning!!! Channel cats are generally aggressive, so your friend may not
have
the same fortune that I have had. If you raise them as fingerlings
together
with larger fish (which is what I did), they generally do well, and are
well
behaved. If you introduce a large catfish into a pond with other, much
smaller
fish, those small fish will likely disappear. Never put an adult wild
catfish
in your pond, unless you are planning on killing nearly everything in the
pond.
And since you live in New Jersey, I would difinitely make early plans for
the
winter. If the pond is deep enough, and you keep it aerated and an open
hole in
any ice that forms, they should be ok.