Re: small fish

[Randy or Deb Carey <carey@spacestar.net>]

I certainly have this problem from time to time.  (I never sell these unless at a
big discount and I inform the buyer.)

I have wondered about the causes:  small tank, too infrequent water changes,
under-estimating the amount of food to feed, hormones from adult fish.

>From what I'm hearing from you guys is that you are giving ample space (60 and
125 gallon tanks!).  Were the young fish always in the large tanks, or did you
transfer them after 3, 4 months (once their growth had already slowed)?  I'm
assuming that if once the young fish have not had optimal growing conditions in
their first few months, they will never be able to make up that missed growth.

As for feeding, I realized that if I need one squirt of bbs when they are at a
certain size, they may need 8 times that once they double in size (double in
length, width, and height... or two cubed).  So I've wondered if some of our
problems stem from underestimating how much food to feed a clutch of 40 to 80
fry.  Or, as Kathy's comments points out, the young fish are too shy or
non-aggressive to eat to their fill.

As for hormones, this is just a wild guess.  I think fry tend to grow faster if I
leave them with their mom.  Does she provide some hormone of other benefit to her
fry?  Conversely, I've seen young kept in the tank with Dad and not grow as much
as they should.  Could he be giving off a hormone that stunts the growth of
future competitors?  If so, it would only be potent enough if the number of adult
fish saturated the given amount of stagnant water.  This is just a guess.

In short, I, too, have had broods that never seem to grow out to their parent's
size.  Someday, someone should experiment.  He/She could split up a brood, place
them in three or four different tanks, and subject each tank to different
forces:  higher fish density, higher food availability, one group kept with Mom,
etc.  Then measure the growth in each tank after 3 or 4 months. Think of what we
all might learn from such an experiment!

--Randy


> On Fri, 18 Sep 1998, Mike Jacobs wrote:
>
> > Eric Olsen said:
> >
> > >We've spawned borellii, but
> > >the fry are still tiny even after almost a year.
> >
> > ..........I experienced the same thing that Eric
> > did with the borellii.....SMALL babies after a year.  Folks these aren't
> > in a 10 gallon.  They are in a 125 gallon and get feed 2-3 times a day
> > with live bbs and live black wor[m]s.  Two of the batches grew just fine
> > and were quite the studs.....<snip>
> >
> > Mike



> kathy@thekrib.com wrote:
>
> Mike,
>
> Ours were in a 60 with other apisto fry I was raising.  They tend to be
> shyer and more fragile than the others.  I was wondering if to effectively
> raise these guys I would have to dedicate a tank only to them, they don't
> seem like a very competative apisto.
>
> <snip>
>
> Kathy
>




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