Can fish experience sudden explosive growth rates?

[Quokka]

Hello all,

I posted quite often about my catfish and I am happy to say they are all well.

However I also always loved neon tetras but never had luck keeping them alive...so I made the leap again!

Thankfully this time they are doing quite well! Brilliant color, eating everything (And anything!) and putting on weight!

In fact....

I just got them last week, and at that time they were so tiny and pale. But in the span of a mere week I can swear they got noticeably bigger! Not just the fat bellies; their length has definitely increased! It's as if a crayfish molted and got bigger!

Is this possible? Maybe they were experiencing minor stunting at the fish store but a large surge of nutrients (I feed heavily so all my juvenile catfish can get their share!) jolted their growth hormones back into order...?

In the past I had an accidental Boulengerochromis microlepis (Emperor cichlid) and that dude put on 1cm a week....but they get big so it makes sense. These neons are tiny!

[Bas Pels]

With cichlids I have seen similar things, in case they are slightly smaller than they should be, they grow faster, untill this is corrected. Then growing continues normally.

It is a feeling, not something I have prooven by taking measurements and so on.

But after they are cought, neon tetras will in most cases only be fed untill at the importers fascility - but I´m afraid not all importers fed their fishes. So yes, wild caught neons will, most likely, be somewhat stunted and might trey and correct this

[kvnbyl]

you said it, the large surge of high quality nutrients, condition that are orders of magnitude better ( no one tapping on the glass 200 times a day, so less stressed) just their natural response to excellent conditions

[bekateen]

Also, even under normal conditions, natural populations of fry experience growth rate stages, just like humans. E.g., humans have 2-3 growth spurts from birth to puberty.

Cheers, Eric

[Quokka]

With cichlids I have seen similar things, in case they are slightly smaller than they should be, they grow faster, untill this is corrected. Then growing continues normally.

It is a feeling, not something I have prooven by taking measurements and so on.

But after they are cought, neon tetras will in most cases only be fed untill at the importers fascility - but I´m afraid not all importers fed their fishes. So yes, wild caught neons will, most likely, be somewhat stunted and might trey and correct this

you said it, the large surge of high quality nutrients, condition that are orders of magnitude better ( no one tapping on the glass 200 times a day, so less stressed) just their natural response to excellent conditions

Also, even under normal conditions, natural populations of fry experience growth rate stages, just like humans. E.g., humans have 2-3 growth spurts from birth to puberty.

Cheers, Eric

Aha I see! It does make sense though. Thanks! I am getting more to increase their numbers; they sure don't school in my tank! Maybe they just feel that secure? Both my hastatus and my neons don't school...but they do hang out with each other!

Hopefully I can keep them into an old age without them succumbing to neon tetra disease!

[Bas Pels]

Neons are not the best schooling fishes.

[kvnbyl]

i have gotten them to school but it really only was when someone gave me about 100 of them and they were in a large tank, they only time they truly schooled was at feeding time and when they sensed a threat in a really big (long) 18 lb siamese cat who would get up on this hind legs and go nose to nose with them
can't say that i blamed them, he makes me nervous :)

[Quokka]

Neons are not the best schooling fishes.

i have gotten them to school but it really only was when someone gave me about 100 of them and they were in a large tank, they only time they truly schooled was at feeding time and when they sensed a threat in a really big (long) 18 lb siamese cat who would get up on this hind legs and go nose to nose with them
can't say that i blamed them, he makes me nervous

I agree....both my neons and Corydoras hastatus don't school....They could care less about what I was doing around them haha only very rarely they bunch together during big water changes...but then they resume their individualistic behavior.

If anything it seems my two kuhli loachs are the only ones who really stick together!