How big would my Iridecent Sharks get?

[CaTfiSh CoMRaD]

PLAIN AND SIMPLE SCIENTIFIC FACT: Fish are not like humans. A fish will grow based on its available space, type of diet, and ambient water temperature. This fact is one I have found to be true throughout all of the fishworld. Let this be known. A fish in an aquarium will grow proportional to its tank size, and obviously it cannot grow to the size of the tank. It would lose muscle mass if it was so big that it could not turn around easily or manuever in order to gain firm tissue. Other mysterious environmental factors play into the ballgame of fish in the wild. Unlock the truth, pull its chains out of the underworld of savage argument, and end this discussion - the fish will not grow very big my friend.

[Silurus]

S'funny, someone tried this "plain and simple" scientifict "fact" and it didn't work.
'Nuff said.

[coelacanth]

PLAIN AND SIMPLE SCIENTIFIC FACT: Fish are not like humans.

Wow! Thanks for that, I was a bit confused there. I was just about to publish a dissertation stating that they were. Do you lecture at a University on the subject?

A fish will grow based on its available space, type of diet, and ambient water temperature.

What you mean is that it is possible to stunt the growth of fish through ill-treatment, because some species are adaptable enough to be able to deal with quite extreme examples of selfishness and stupidity on the part of people, when it comes to being aware that with free choice comes responsibility.

This fact is one I have found to be true throughout all of the fishworld. Let this be known. A fish in an aquarium will grow proportional to its tank size, and obviously it cannot grow to the size of the tank.

Where did you publish the results of this study? I'd like to read the original paper.

Other mysterious environmental factors play into the ballgame of fish in the wild.

Is this another plain and simple scientific fact? Will we ever know the secrets of these mysterious environmental factors?

[muridae]

PLAIN AND SIMPLE SCIENTIFIC FACT: Fish are not like humans. A fish will grow based on its available space, type of diet, and ambient water temperature.

Actually, human growth rate is also based on environment and available food, among other things. If you take a human baby, raise it in a closet where it gets no sunlight or exercise, and feed it nothing but corn and applesauce, it will also be stunted and malformed. I hope that most of us wouldn't consider this a good way to cut down on things like housing costs (why buy a three bedroom when you can have a three closet?).

Seriously, keeping a fish in a tank that is too small may stunt its growth, but only because it's not receiving what it needs to thrive. So yeah, maybe it won't grow to its full potential, but doesn't that just bypass the whole point of keeping these animals altogether? I mean, we keep them because we admire the fish, right? Not because we admire some stunted, mistreated version of the fish that will tolerate crappy conditions throughout its shortened lifespan.

[coelacanth]

If you take a human baby, raise it in a closet where it gets no sunlight or exercise, and feed it nothing but corn and applesauce

you end up with George Bush?

Perhaps the manner in which we care for those non-human organisms that we have accepted responsibility for could serve as an indicator to our own self-worth and maturity?

[sidguppy]

ROFL!!!!!

uh oh
we should have bought him a couple o' burgers then, could have saved planet earth a truckload of trouble.....

just a burger and a bigger bedroom....

LOL!!!!


too bad most of you can't read Dutch (or I would copy and paste the URL). I got my bum flamed off on an other forum when I started on responsibility for one's own actions. It was someone who bred and sold hybrids, and I foolishly took it upon me to talk about responsible behaviour....looks like I started WWIII and joined Al Quaida at the same time to those people....

That was making money of her own mistakes with no scrupules whatsoever. If I started there on big animals in too small housings (it's a reptile forum, and compared to many -not all!!- reptile keepers in the Netherlands we're overly fussy and whiney here about our pets...) I would be impaled and burned at the stake.

[CaTfiSh CoMRaD]

Oops,

my last post forgot to say this. fish growth is indeed proportional to tank size, but the growth/tank size ratio is an exponential figure. A fish can grow to full size in an aquarium, but this usually requires enough food and an aquarium with a length long enough to give the fish space to grow muscles through different behavior. I didn't spend too much time looking at the first posts of this whole argument, so I don't know the details. All i know is that the fish in the pictures had exceptional conditions to grow this big. I'd have to say that I wouldn't mind having a big catfish like that in a tank to show to guests, as long as the conditions weren't inhumane for big guys like that.

By "mysterious environmental factors' I meant temperature, chemical, salinity, current, and sunlight changes that are beyond our sciences right now. Many of these changes have been thought to cause the release of growth hormones in many fish, growth defects in others.

Enough said, for sure.

Peace

Tim

[rfb]

As the originator of this subject I am amazed at the response that I have recieved on it and I thank you.I loved those three sharks but by the behavior that i was seeeing from them;such as the constant movement and when ever I came near the tank they would freak out I thought it would be best not only for them but for the rest of my fish that I found a new home for them and that new home was the fish store that seems to deal in the larger fish.they seem to be doing fine and the stress markings (or at least that is what I thought at the time) are now gone,this shows to me that they were stressed and that I did the right thing by them and my other fish that would get stresed by there freak attacks.So as they say buyer beware.I would not recommend them as a fish for anyone that has not won the lottery as that is about the amount of money a person should put into a tank if they want them to be comfortable and then maybe we could have the test of the small tank fish and the responses the fish give and the large fish and see which fish seem to prosper,my bet would be on the large tank.

[J.Bonham]

There is indeed some truth in the belief that fishes grow to the size of the tank. I remember reading a paper on fish growth, although this was reslated to cichlids (Mbuna in particular) that stated the fishes grew larger in the aquarium than in the wild because of more regular and better nutrition but only if the water quality was maintained at a very high level.
This was becasue the fish excreted an inhibiting chemical in their waste that stunted them if the proportion of this chemical was too high. I wish I could remember the source of that information because it seemed to me to be a fascinating line of research.
This precludes the fact that the lakes the Mbuna live in on the African continent behave more like seas and obviously in such a large volume of water these pollutants do not build up so ther had to be another explanation for the increased size in aquaria.This has to be down to competition predation and the fact that the meals are regular and of high quality food.
In Axelrod's time much of what we take for granted today was unavailable to him and many of the fishes we know, again cichlids, were unknown to him. I have also many of his books and find misapprehensions and inaccuracies in them relating to cross references with more modern icthiologist research. His quoted generalisation that fishes grow smaller in aquaria than in the wild may have been true with the equipment and foods that he had available.

[SorubimLima]

Hi, this is to just say that if a fish, say aarapaima gigas, which gets 15 feet, in a 4 foot aquarium, it will either 1. die from lack of food, 2. continue to grow until it bursts the tank or snaps its spinal cord, or 3. become stunted by lack of space. I am not totally sure on number 2, though so I might be wrong. And another thing, since nobody has really kept and recorded how long their 3' pangasius got, nobody knows its true longevity. For all we know it could live 50 years! I wouldn't doubt it for a giant like that. Just some thoughts, SorubimLima