Re: stunted growth

["Phil Eaton" <peaton@hotmail.com>]

Hi guys,

I can't explain why this is effective, I just took the advice of 
someone smarter than me and it worked...  I was told once by an "old 
timer" in the hobby that regardless of the size of the tank (under 
1000 gallons), water changes need to happen at least 50% every day, or 
every other day to get good growth rates.  

His explaination for this as he put it was due to "hormone release" of 
the fry as they got to the "scattering" phase of development.  He 
speculated that the natural release of hormones in the small fish 
caused them to "disperse" naturally in the wild once they got to a 
certain size.  If they didn't or weren't allowed to disperse, the 
overabundance of "hormones" in the tank would stunt the growth of the 
fry, and possibly cause what he referred to as "geeking" which was the 
appearance of a perfectly normal fish becoming deformed potentially 
causing death.

Having raised Hemichromis Lifilli for aboout 2 years, and the parents 
being as prolific as they were, I had the opportunity to see the 
behavior and effects of what he told me come true.  

Bottom line: Good water changes every day, or every other day produced 
excellent growth results, and re-sellable healthy fish in the shortest 
amount of time.  I did not to interbreed the parents and the siblings, 
and could get over 100 saleable fish from each spawn. They were raised 
in as small as 5 gallon tanks up to 30's.  

Again, I have no scientific background or evidence of what he told me, 
it only "appeared" that all he said was true.

I hope someone out there really knows!  I am definately open to hear 
more on this.

Phil 

----Original Message Follows----
From: "Cory and Susanne Williamson" <webwill@infinet.net>

I have three 5 gal tanks with 1-cm long fry in them and they still 
seem to
be growing well- I do up to 30-50% water changes every second day.  
The fry
are about a two and a half months old now- If you have the space and 
don't
have time for tons of water changes- then I would go for a bigger tank 
(or
reduced #'s of fry)- I have sucessfully raised over a hundred bettas 
in a 25
gallon tank, but the daily water changes just about drove me nuts- 
Basically
what I am trying to say is that there are no hard and fast rules for 
fish
densities other that they need to have a constant supply of clean 
water- so
as the fish biomass goes up, either water changes must increase in 
volume
and frequency or the water volume must get larger. Of course you can
complicate the system by adding elements that will used up the fish 
wastes
(ex plants to use up nitrate or carbon to use up other organic wastes 
etc.)

Hope this helps.

Cory Williamson
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Evans <pm_evans@yahoo.com>

snip
>
>The fry are growing quickly.  They have been free
>swimming for about 10 days and the already have
>visible vertical bars.  How big do you think they
>will get before being badly stunted from being in
>a 20 gallon tank?

>Paul Evans
>


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