Catfish in my bottom drain

[Riverbottom]

I have a bottom Drain and a skimmer teed going to my pump. the problem is I just got 150 3inch catfish in and they all hid in the 4 inch bottom drain, I just crack the valve to the bottom drain and use 90% skimmer but they still wont come out. I put in a 35 gal barrel in the bottom for cover but they still like the drain better.
do you catch any fish with your bottom drain? Don't want to grind up my fish:skull:

Riverbottom

 

[DrCase]

Catfish are bottom fish
and that is the bottom
if you ever get them out you need to cover it with some type of smaller than the fish screen,
But that will start another maintenance problem

 

[oldmarine]

If you can come up with a drain cover that is big or broad enough allow water to go in without sucking in and trapping the catfish, but not with a too small of a mess screen to the point where it would get clogged with stuff from the pond. That would work. I hope that made sense.

Happy ponding,

Rich

 

[Philanthropist]

This wouldn't have happened if you had gotten bass and bluegills. J/K

 

[DrDave]

It also wouldn't have happened if he was using submersible pumps. Scrap the BD if you want to keep catfish in there.

 

[Riverbottom]

I blew them out with air and closed that valve to the bd 90% and opened the skimer until the catfish double in size.

Riverbottom

 

[koikeepr]

that is a good temp fix. Catfish are very strong swimmers and if you don't see them getting caught up in your filter/pump you can assume they are strong enough to just hang at the bottom. Of course, that's not to say you won't have a weaker one slip through and get mashed. You could put a colander or something upside over your bd, too.