A rescue? NOOOO........!

[jjohnwm]

Jeez a 4 ft freeze is crazy. I don’t mind cold but that seems a bit much. Was 4 feet the frost line? How deep would you have had to go for it not to freeze all the way down?

jjohnwm do you reckon when my pond is done I should give one a whirl? They seem kinda cool but I js don’t want it to outgrow my pond.

Four or five feet of ice is just another typical winter for us as well. People drive their trucks out onto the ice...towing house trailers!...for four months each winter.

Lol, I'm the last guy to ask about these fish. I'd never even seen one "on the hoof" until these two showed up in the net a couple weeks ago. But if they get even close to their potential size in your pond, it would still eventually be way too small for one, IMHO. Aside from size, the gaudy-looking pattern is ideal for camouflage when viewed from above. You'd rarely even see the thing.

I must admit, though, that seeing a big pointy dorsal fin sticking a foot or so out of the water in a backyard pond would have a certain cool factor...

 

[Americancichlidsaredabest]

Yeah them getting to big would be my biggest concern. I’ve seen a lot of conflicting info on it tho like some sites say 2 feet full grown while others are closer to 5 I’ve heard. Anybody have any confirmed adult sizes?

 

[jjohnwm]

I've never worried too much about the "maximum" sizes listed for various fish. Those exceptional specimens are very old; growth slows down to a crawl at a certain point but never really stops completely, so any individual fish that beats the odds and lives to a ripe old age will attain unusually large size. You are very unlikely to ever see or come across a specimen that's near that maximum; it's a bit like making sure all the doors in your home are 8-feet tall to accommodate that tiny fraction of humanity that grows to be 7'6" tall.

But this species doesn't need to be old to be pretty big. There are any number of pictures easily found on the internet of specimens that are far, far larger than merely 2 feet. They aren't exceptional, they're simply the norm.

I've never subscribed to the commonly quoted ideas that a tank or pond needs to be X-times the size of the fish in length and Y-times that size in width. When we get to the point where we start to take measurements to make sure the fish can turn around in its enclosure, where it spends its entire life...well, IMHO, that's not only cruel and improper care, but...what pleasure can there be in seeing something forced to live like that?

 

[kendragon]

I have personal experience of raising them from a few inches to 24".

Things to consider are my location and environment.
I'm in Southern California where the climate is very mild. Also, I keep them in outside ponds with lots of algae.

This hobby to me is still relatively young which leaves a lot of opportunity for people to give it a go and show what they can do. If there's a will, there's a way. Make fish keeping great again.