Re: [RML] sizes for rainbowfishes
Gary Lange (rainbowfish4u2 at yahoo.com)
Tue, 6 Dec 2005 14:48:12 -0800 (PST)
A cichlid/catfish female friend of mine, Ginny Eckstein would pull out a dollar (US) bill and say, "Boys, in case you've forgotten, this is a real six inches". So many of the boys were always overestimating the sizes of their "fish" when they got into a pissing match. Funny thing, she was often right and they were overestimating! Many hobbyists have trouble estimating size. Yes, I kind of doubt the 4 inch praecox too, although I have seen boesemani approaching 6 inches. I think we do have to remember that fish continue to grow throughout their lifetime. When you get a fish that will live to 7+ years you have the opportunity to see something much larger than it might be ever found in the wild. Thinking back thru the ANGFA journals and personal comments from ANGFA members I only remember them talking about M.s. inornata that were pushing 7 inches in one location. I also remember M. vanheureni supposedly being the largest wild rainbow recorded. The home of the rainbow lists
20 cm or pushing 8 inches for that species. Since that fish was never brought back to Europe, Oz or the states I'm guessing that is a wild caught size. Kind of curious how large that fish would get if it was in an aquarium for several years.
A couple of comments on other comments made here.
I don't think pushing rainbowfish for their maximum size is necessarily a good thing. Feeding a fish 2-3x a day for maximum growth can be done but I don't think they are getting that much food in the wild. USA, Germany and now I hear Oz human populations are getting grossly overweight. I think we are now trying to do it to our pets. You don't see these really tall "wide" rainbowfish in nature. Look at the photos of wild caught fish in Allen's descriptions. They aren't fat. Most every big/overly big rainbow I've seen looks bad. I saw some "big" incisus in Lake Sentani at perhaps 3.5 inches. Really didn't see any that looked like these gross pushing 6 inch fish that you often see in the petshops. Most I've seen, especially trifasciata tend to lose their colors once they get that large. So making the biggest rainbowfish you can is not really a good thing to strive for. Maybe we should keep really big powerheads in our large tanks so they can get some exercise.
Color and small rainbowfish. I collected quite colorful duboulayi just outside of Brisbane that were only 1.5 inches. The 2 & 2.5 inch fish had even more color but they were certainly nicer than the "typical" fish that we see in the petstore. What we find is that many of these wholesalers feed their fish the absolute cheapest garbage that they can shove into their fish. Feed them trout chow/White Castle/McDonald's all of the time and you're not going to get optimal colors. People like Kent Webster apply Astaxanthin "Nature Rose" to their fishfood so that some of the natural color enhancers that are in live foods are now available to their fish. He also feeds a lot of live foods but since he is running a rainbowfish hatchery there is a limited supply. His 1.5 inch boesemani are very nicely colored as well as other specimens that show a lot of red or orange. Astaxanthin works to accent red and orange colors. His fish aren't stunted. So I totally disagree with the small,
bright colored fish are stunted theory. Remember, petstore people aren't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Actually many of them are really spoons. They take that nice red rainbowfish and put them over white or very light colored gravel. If they used a nice dark gravel and a small group of plants they'd get a much better show out of their rainbowfish.
Pushing fry to grow. I do believe in pushing fry to grow as fast as you can to about 1.5 inches and then backing off on the food. It's been said before on the list but for those that are new I'll repeat mine and others observations. After hatching, if you raise your temps to 82-88 degrees F you'll get faster growth. If you keep them growing fast they'll keep growing. If you drop the temperature during this time, ie slow down their growth they'll slow down and never regain that same growth speed again. I think that's what we really see when we look at our slowest grower, the boesemani. Once your fry hatch, try pushing the temps on them. Don't forget with higher temps you have more water changes, and more feedings and more food to add to their tanks. There was an article in ANGFA maybe 8 years ago where someone claimed that they raised a trifasciata to something like 2 inches in 12 weeks. It might have been that size even in a shorter window. I kind of doubted it so I put
it to the test. I used something like Coen River or Pappin creek trifasciata for the test. In 88 F degree water they were very close to 2 inches in I think 10 weeks. The experiment had a bad end though as I forgot to add the dechlor when I did the water change on them. Came back to a big bowl of "fish soup". For me it is easier to raise them cooler and slower but if you want really fast raise the temperature on them.
parin_iceyfist <parin_iceyfist at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
--- In r_m_l at yahoogroups.com, "hank voss" <aatetras at y...> wrote:
> Hi. Just getting caught up on the threads have been in fla.My
> praecox usually get to 3-4 in.the boes.5-6 in.ive sen larger but
Sorry, but what? M. praecox of 4 inches in size? That's more than
10cm's! That is flipping huge! :O
I've never seen one larger than 8 cms (3 inch), and even that one was
larger than the rest. And boes of 6 inch (15cm)? I've only seen
trifasciatas of that size. Largest boesemani I've seen was about 5,5
inches but usually I see them at 4,5 to 5 inch.
Looks like there's a lot of stunted growth in commercially bred fish
in Belgium then!
Regards
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