Fish growth

[rcreations]

Has anyone ever done a study or published something on fish growth rate? I find it very interesting. Like take my clown and niger triggers. When I bought my clown, it was less than half the size of the niger. Now just months later, it's grown bigger than the niger, yet I feed both the same food, they both eat like pigs, neither one is sick. So what makes the clown grow so incredibly fast?

 

[t316]

I have been thinking about this recently, but in my case, wondering why my fish don't appear to be growing. My tangs for instance are very healthy, quite chubby actually, but don't appear to me to have grown in two years. I was thinking maybe it's just me since I see them everyday...

 

[noah's nemo]

Here is my shrug too

I have noticed that my humu (which i thought were slow growers)is catching my tang ,while my tang looks no bigger.

 

[crypt keeper]

I think the larger the fish the faster thr growth rate. CT get larger than Nigers. Maybe it has to do with sexual maturity as well. I do know my Bicolor Ang grows slow while my Emp is a weed

 

[flower]

My obsevations and I even read something very simular once..but I don't remeber where.
I had two tinfoil barbs (freshwater fish) both were very young and very tiny, and exactly the same size. One was so much more aggressive when it came to food and got most of it. I even tossed stunned flies into the tank..he got it every time. The other got enough to stay alive...the aggressive one got huge real fast the other grew very slow and never got very large. Only half the size of his brother. I kept these fish for about 4 or 5 years.
What I read just last year..I can't remember where... is that hobbyists feed their fish only enough to stay alive trying to keep over feeding and algae blooms at a minimum. The result is stunt growth during the most crucial period of their lives.
So my opinion for what it is worth is this: A clownfish does not require allot of food to be fed what it needs to grow...while the trigger would require far more nutrition to reach its full potential for growth requirement.
This may not be very scientific but it makes sense to me so I toss it out there.

 

[ericjn]

I think it may have something to do with the preditor prey ratio....Most preditory fish grow much quicker than non preditory. Triggers I believe are preditory fish and grow very quick, sharks, lions, and puffers all tend to grow very fast. Unlike clowns, tangs. To me it could just be the preditor prey ratio, also triggers tend to eat quicker and get much more food than others so maybe that plays into it. its just a guess lol

 

[crypt keeper]

I feed my tank 4 times a day. My fish all grow like weeds except the biColor.

 

[rcreations]

I wasn't talking about a clown fish, a clown TRIGGER.

I was saying my clown trigger grows really fast while the niger trigger grows slow, they both eat the same foods.

 

[flower]

Originally Posted by RCreations
http:///forum/post/3175701
I wasn't talking about a clown fish, a clown TRIGGER.

I was saying my clown trigger grows really fast while the niger trigger grows slow, they both eat the same foods.

LOL...None the less my theory stands...my tin foil barbs were the same size and same fish and were fed the same food, yet the more aggressive eater was the larger...so the more a fish eats the bigger and faster it will grow.

 

[aquaknight]

IME/IMO it almost exclusively involves the species of fish at hand. Nigers are pretty well know for their slower growth rates, to spite actually being one of the larger triggers when full size. Clown triggers, are pretty well know for growing very quickly.
You can find the same even in the same genus. Almost all species of Naso tangs, Lopezi, Vlamingii, Unicorns, etc, for pretty well know for their monster growth rates of several inches a year. Yet one of the species in the genus, the common name Naso (Lipstick) tang, has a relatively slow growth rate, with most people's just averaging around an inch a year.
I don't think nutrition would play that much a role, because we all feed differently. Granted, most of the stuff we feed is the same, the percentages are significantly different from person to person. I don't think many people feed scallops as commonly as myself, and I'm sure there are a lot of people who feed brine more then myself. Just an example, but the point remains clown trigger owners probably their fish vastly different diets, but they all grow very quickly.
One example would be my Florida West Coast tank. About 10 filefish, 2 Southern Puffers, 1 Burrfish. All were collected smaller then 1cm. All were housed in the same tank, so they were feed the same diet, mysis and cyclopeeze mostly. Yet the 3 puffers outpaced the filefish in growth rate. The two Southern Puffers were the hogs of the tank, but the shy Burrfish easily outgrew the Southerns, to spite having much less to eat then even the filefish.

 

[sean48183]

Flowers theory is sound. My lunar wrasse and my tomato clown and snowflake eel which are the more aggressive eaters have grown at a more rapid rate than my other fish which are tangs, dwarf angels, percula clowns etc
One other thing is that ocean dwelling fish get so much more food than tank raised fish. I have been keeping fish for 6 years now. My rusty angel is 6 years old, my sailfin tang is 5 and 1/2 years old. I believe my sailfin has maxed out in size. I bought him at around 3" and he is maybe 7" now. But has not grown in 2 years. I feed twice a day frozen and flake foods and one to two times a day sheets of nori so as you can see I am a heavy feeder. I have massive filtration to handle this heavy feeding load. But I still feel this is not enough food. I read in marine reef magazine a few years back that ocean dwelling fish eat almost all day long. the water column in the ocean is so plentiful in food like plankton, krill, little shrimp and what not that fish can eat at will. I don't think the algae that tangs and rabbitfish fish graze on our tanks is of the same make up as algae that grows in the ocean. If this was the case my hippo and sailfin should be exploding in size since the graze all day(My naso doesn't ever eat off the rocks). And certainly Big angels which graze primarily on sponge all day will never grow at the same rate. In my experience I believe that saltwater fish will only reach about half their ocean size. So if you buy a naso listed at 18" max size in the wild it will probably be more like around 9" at max. My sailfin is listed 14" max size and has topped out at around 7".

 

[rcreations]

My foxface which I've had the longest has pretty much maxed out at 7" which I believe is the size listed for it. So I guess some fish can get to full size in our little glass boxes. But generally I agree, most fish don't reach anywhere near ocean size in captivity..