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I have asked this before but having tried the zucchini and shrimp,yams and anything else I still seem to have small babies after a period of time that I think they should be bigger.I have several generations of these guys and every one seem to be sloww to grow.I am open to suggestions as to what to do with this maybe something new.One thing i have yet to find is the spirulina paste,I am at the point to try baby brine shrimp but that would be foolhearty would it not.One other question that I have about this is this.If you leave the babies in the tank with the parents do you think that is bad on two possible fronts.1)do they have to compete to strongly with the parents.2)do you think that it might put the parents off doing the bristlenose rumba.

How small after how long ?

Mine get to about an inch after around 6 - 7 weeks at which point my LFS is happy to take them.

Depending on which tank they end up in (they migrate about my plumbing all the time) they get a diet of JBL Pleco chips, and or JBL bottom feeder pellets (in the cory tanks) with natural algae and very occasonal feed of blood worms if they end up in a cory tank. They get zuchinni about once a week (unless they are in a cory tank)

well I am not to sure how many months they are but they are from one to one and a half inches long.I have been feeding them well but two things have come to mind and tose are they are in a small gow out tank(10 gallon)and there is no driftwood or whatever the tech name is.For example right now there is 2 leafs of romaine and two pieces of zucchini in the tank along with several tabs of spirulina.I am not sure why they are so small with such an abundace of food.Their bellies seem full enough from as close an exam as I can give,the h2o gets changed a minimum of twice a week.

Mine are in a 50 USG tank and took 3 months to get to 1.25-1.5 inches long. I've also talked to another breeder who gets his fish to 1 inch in 2 months. You're probably seeing a normal growth rate.

What's the nitrate level in your tank? How often do you change water?

If you got 50 fish of 1" in a 10g tank, you've got quite a lot more than what would be the norm - even half that would be severely overstocked. Changing lots of water every day may be able to overcome the growth-rate, but I'd say getting a 20-40g tank is a much easier option [aside from the financial and space issues that may prevent this entirely].

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Mats

These are all the same batch. I may be a bit out with the timings. The cucumber and spoon, provide a rough scale, but I just went and measured one on the glass at 32mm. But I know they're not all the same. As to how this tallies out with results from others...

3 weeks.

8 weeks.

10 weeks.