how big should a jag be at this age

[JRT8783]

I have approx 2.5 year old male and he's 13.5".

Got a pic? What size tank and tankmates? Does he still appear to be growing? To have the same growth rate as your male, mine will have to add on about 4" in the next 12 months. With growth slowing down considerably, I'd be happy with that.

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[cich78]

If it's truly a year old, from the day it hatched, if it reaches 8" that's pretty fast. It takes quite a while to go from fry to 2" where the growth really starts to speed up. I'd love to see any species of cichlid go from an egg to 12" in any average sized aquarium.


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Totally agree...
Here is 1 of 8 jag fry I have that hatched Nov 23...about 3/4 of an inch as of today... From that to a foot in a year would be one helluva growth....

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[cich78]

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[Jc1119]

Growth can have a lot to do with water changes.
If you change 25% once per week, it's not going to grow as fast as someone who does 50% twice per week, and if you change 50% every other day, it can grow even faster.
There are some breeders that in order to promote growth will change 80%-90% per day.

This.....seeing it happen with festae fry in a control group. Same parents, spawn, food and water supply. Only difference is amount changed daily. Group receiving daily changes are outgrowing those seeing weekly changes by quite a bit.

Besides that, genetics will have a role too.

 

[JRT8783]

Totally agree...
Here is 1 of 8 jag fry I have that hatched Nov 23...about 3/4 of an inch as of today... From that to a foot in a year would be one helluva growth....

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Agreed... I'd say my male averaged a solid inch or inch and a half per month til around 6", now I'd say it's closer to a quarter or half inch since then. Do u own the parents of your jag fry or did u get them from someone else? And do u have pics of the parents?

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[JRT8783]

This.....seeing it happen with festae fry in a control group. Same parents, spawn, food and water supply. Only difference is amount changed daily. Group receiving daily changes are outgrowing those seeing weekly changes by quite a bit.

Besides that, genetics will have a role too.

Like in humans, I'd say genetics play the biggest role... followed by food/nutrition then water quality/tank size. Not to say that someone with ammonia through the roof and 40ppm in nitrates is gonna get the same growth as someone with no ammonia and 5ppm nitrates, but when you're changing so much water you'd think u can only make the water quality so good until it's almost pointless. I never have ammonia and my nitrates stay between 5-10ppm 24/7 but I "only" change 30-40% twice a week and I don't "power feed" my jag by dumping 30 pellets in his tank at once and watch him get to the size of a bowling ball. I just think a lot of people greatly over-exaggerate the growth rates of their fish and grossly overfeed. Those people may get an extra eighth or quarter of an inch in growth per month but their fish will probably pay for it in the long run also.

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[cich78]

Agreed... I'd say my male averaged a solid inch or inch and a half per month til around 6", now I'd say it's closer to a quarter or half inch since then. Do u own the parents of your jag fry or did u get them from someone else? And do u have pics of the parents?

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I own the parents...
Male I bought Nov 2012 at about 4 1/2 inch now about 11 inch...female I bought Aug 2012 at about 2 inch now about 8 inches...had good but not the fastest growth for the male up to 7 inches and 6 for the female... Been slow and steady since... I thought that maybe they'd be better by now though...The female has laid eggs numerous times and spawned with this male twice...I will be looking to see what type of of growth I can get from the fry...i plan on growing out a male from that gtoup....
.

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[trace]

Like in humans, I'd say genetics play the biggest role... followed by food/nutrition then water quality/tank size. Not to say that someone with ammonia through the roof and 40ppm in nitrates is gonna get the same growth as someone with no ammonia and 5ppm nitrates, but when you're changing so much water you'd think u can only make the water quality so good until it's almost pointless. I never have ammonia and my nitrates stay between 5-10ppm 24/7 but I "only" change 30-40% twice a week and I don't "power feed" my jag by dumping 30 pellets in his tank at once and watch him get to the size of a bowling ball. I just think a lot of people greatly over-exaggerate the growth rates of their fish and grossly overfeed. Those people may get an extra eighth or quarter of an inch in growth per month but their fish will probably pay for it in the long run also.

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This is true to a point. However, there are other things that need to be rid of to ensure optimum growth that can't be measured, such as hormones. Especially in fry/grow out tanks. Young fish create a lot of hormones, some of which are growth inhibitors.


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[JRT8783]

I own the parents...
Male I bought Nov 2012 at about 4 1/2 inch now about 11 inch...female I bought Aug 2012 at about 2 inch now about 8 inches...had good but not the fastest growth for the male up to 7 inches and 6 for the female... Been slow and steady since... I thought that maybe they'd be better by now though...The female has laid eggs numerous times and spawned with this male twice...I will be looking to see what type of of growth I can get from the fry...i plan on growing out a male from that gtoup....

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The parents look good, guessing the male started beating up on the female? Or did u put the divider up just in case... U should start a new thread and update it every 2-4 weeks with pics and growth rate info of the fry. Curious to see how long from the day they hatched it takes them to get to about 2" and then just to see at what point the growth seems to speed up and slow down. I'm hoping by this summer I can have a 5-6" female for my male, may end up having to just grow some out though since I've had no luck finding an adult female

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[cich78]

The parents look good, guessing the male started beating up on the female? Or did u put the divider up just in case... U should start a new thread and update it every 2-4 weeks with pics and growth rate info of the fry. Curious to see how long from the day they hatched it takes them to get to about 2" and then just to see at what point the growth seems to speed up and slow down. I'm hoping by this summer I can have a 5-6" female for my male, may end up having to just grow some out though since I've had no luck finding an adult female

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Thanks....
It was actually the female that was beating up on the male... She was aggressive as they cohabitated prior to spawning giving the male some split fins ...after the fry became free swimming she was really tearing into him and scraped the skin off his snout ..I didn't want any permanent damage so I divided them... The first time they spawned last year though it was the other way around.... I don't keep the pair together all the time... the 75gallon the fry are in now was really for the female..at this point my female jag will spawn with other male fish (produced fry with a Texas cichlid ),, but won't put up with them for long after...I do think I will update the fry to document the growth rate..I typically do a 50 percent water change once a week on all my tanks in general but I'm going to shoot for two for them and see how it works out...They are just very hard to take good pics of.... By the way your male Jag looks fantastic..Great pattern and body structure on him.....
I don't know if all this qualifies as a derail so I just want to say Jagsandpits your fish seems like it's growing at an appropriate rate...I think 8 inches and above is about right....I think for sure your jag will be over a foot just will take more than a year....

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