27"Goliath
- Thread starter WU CHUN
- Start date
One thing I've noticed about his Goliath is the lack of any red in his bottom lobe, you would think a Goliath of this age would have a bright red flag by now.. chicx wanna enlighten me on this? Curious as he may be another version of h.Goliath as mentioned in your sticky? Mine is already a deep blood red the entire lobe and is only a pup in comparison.
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Those are some very nice fish. I suspect the 18 year old one is actually only an inch or two over 24" however based on the observation that more often than not tile squares are 12 inches across. I was familiar with both of those videos already and in my opinion, those fish represent the absolute extreme of what one could expect to see from a tank raised VATF, most won't get that big. I believe a TATF or BATF could probably regularly achieve these sizes, however.
Don't misunderstand me though, I do agree that these fish are often kept in much too small of a tank!
There's three genetically distinct haplogroups within Hydrocynus goliath. Think of them as races that are still unquestionably the same species. I'm exploring this presently with the intent of providing further detail to the community. I suspect that the answer to the black goliath lies in this line of research as well. More on this in the future; for the sake of brevity I'm not going to go into detail here, I'll broach this subject again once I'm confident in my answers. I'll say this much: the big GATF in this thread is consistent with my findings and is definitely a GATF.
Those are some very nice fish. I suspect the 18 year old one is actually only an inch or two over 24" however based on the observation that more often than not tile squares are 12 inches across. I was familiar with both of those videos already and in my opinion, those fish represent the absolute extreme of what one could expect to see from a tank raised VATF, most won't get that big. I believe a TATF or BATF could probably regularly achieve these sizes, however.
Don't misunderstand me though, I do agree that these fish are often kept in much too small of a tank!
Makes sense, I didn't even think to use the tile as a measuring device. So I assume it's safe to guess that it was being kept in a 240 (96x24x24) and was a hair over 24". Wow, I don't think I would feel anywhere comfortable enough even with my 360 with a ATF that size and it's a whole foot wider. I definitely wouldn't do anything other than Forskahlii in a tank my size, and even then the nature of the fish makes a tank my size seem like it would be a little on the small side.
To me it looked like a 300 tall; a 240 with an extra six inches of height.
I'm inclined to agree with you though. I do feel however with an absolute buttload of current that simulates big river rapids you can comfortably house an ATF in a long tank that's just twice the width of the length of the fish. This is however an extremely specialized setup that would probably preclude the possibility of tankmates.
If you want to keep an ATF in a more 'normal' aquarium setting with low to moderate current, you're going to need an incredibly large tank, 1000 gallons or larger.
Sean,
Also, if you're really curious about the three haplogroups and what it might mean to the hobby, wrap your brain around this crappy, flash saturated picture of my Max from last night.
Note the developing color on his head and tail.
Then, compare it to the picture of Douglas Dann's famous fish...
Very interesting.. Im curious as to if they can adapt and change color so well to their environment that over enough time maybe it can cause permenant effects? Or that there is just so many more sub-versions to each genus that we have not discovered or properly named. Im no biologist so i can't say but I can say I've definitely seen some large variences in gatf over the years that I've been in the business or even as a hobbyist. Interesting stuff indeed.
Also Max is looken pretty wicked man. keep it up it'll be good to compare his growth and appearance with King.
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Also Max is looken pretty wicked man. keep it up it'll be good to compare his growth and appearance with King.
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Very interesting indeed! I'm probably going to go into detail on this in the near future on this in a post.
Thanks for the kind words, King is one of my motivators in this hobby!
I read on another site he had a power outage and lost these fish.
This was a couple years ago
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This was a couple years ago
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I'm going to play the devil's advocate: many people come down harsh on people with tanks "too small" for the specie. Try to listen to my reasoning, I'm going to start with the salmonidae group for example first:
rainbow trouts caught in small streams stay small, about 6" and will mature around 10" and breed with adult sized eggs, they are the same species as the ones that go into the lakes and oceans and become steel heads, just with less eggs. In every sense they're just as healthy, just due to the less food and they are "dwarfed" they've actually been documented that they will breed with big fish that return from the lakes and ocean, as the "sneaky" males. The ones that go into the lakes and oceans reach nearly 30-40"
Tanganyika cichlids, of the Lamproglogeans are the same, some will actually purposely stay dwarfed to avoid competition with other larger males, but still be able to sneak and breed with larger females, undetected.
How about humans, in the United States, we are use to larger cars, larger homes with yards, larger portions of food, and typically we grow larger, but there are people who live all their lives in small apartments the size of our walk in closets, that can reach sexual maturity and grow healthy as well. Even if you were locked in a 10x10 room, it would not stunt your grow. How about if you kept a human in a 8x8 room, just enough to stand and turn, would that make you stunted? Probably not right?
Most fish kept in Japan, Hong Kong are all in smaller tanks due to the lack of land space. However they've bred more species than most people in the US have. In fact they've bred hydrocynus vittatus in a fish tank back in 1980s, it wasn't that big of a tank either.
rainbow trouts caught in small streams stay small, about 6" and will mature around 10" and breed with adult sized eggs, they are the same species as the ones that go into the lakes and oceans and become steel heads, just with less eggs. In every sense they're just as healthy, just due to the less food and they are "dwarfed" they've actually been documented that they will breed with big fish that return from the lakes and ocean, as the "sneaky" males. The ones that go into the lakes and oceans reach nearly 30-40"
Tanganyika cichlids, of the Lamproglogeans are the same, some will actually purposely stay dwarfed to avoid competition with other larger males, but still be able to sneak and breed with larger females, undetected.
How about humans, in the United States, we are use to larger cars, larger homes with yards, larger portions of food, and typically we grow larger, but there are people who live all their lives in small apartments the size of our walk in closets, that can reach sexual maturity and grow healthy as well. Even if you were locked in a 10x10 room, it would not stunt your grow. How about if you kept a human in a 8x8 room, just enough to stand and turn, would that make you stunted? Probably not right?
Most fish kept in Japan, Hong Kong are all in smaller tanks due to the lack of land space. However they've bred more species than most people in the US have. In fact they've bred hydrocynus vittatus in a fish tank back in 1980s, it wasn't that big of a tank either.
