African Brown Knife growth rate

[Supalah17]

I currently have 2 African brown knives in a 20g grow out/quarantine tank.

Both are sitting at around 2.5-3” and so far fully healthy. They are going in a heavily planted 120g tank with a green severum and a green phantom pleco. The severum is 7” (just measured in net), the green phantom is in a different quarantine tank and is about 3.5-4”. Given the severums size, I want the knives to grow a bit more before adding them.

So does anyone have an idea how long it will take to get them 2.5-3” to around 5+”? The QT tank is a 20g high, planted, 50% weekly WC, 2 HOB rated for 20g each, fed 2x a day of a varied diet (shrimp pellets, blood worms, live black worms, brine shrimp, mysis shrimp, scratch made veggie flakes.)

 

[thefredpit]

Hendre is our african brown knife guru

 

[Hendre]

The feeding sounds good. On 4-6x a week rich pellet feeding and <10 nitrates I see little growth. In the wild the main parts of their diet are insects, crustaceans and algae/detritus. I'm also thinking that growth is highly variable based on locality and the feeding they got early in their life. All African knives are wild caught, and I see a definite difference in colour and size between my 3 batches from different shops. Hopefully with your diet they'll grow fast, fingers crossed.

 

[Supalah17]

The feeding sounds good. On 4-6x a week rich pellet feeding and <10 nitrates I see little growth. In the wild the main parts of their diet are insects, crustaceans and algae/detritus. I'm also thinking that growth is highly variable based on locality and the feeding they got early in their life. All African knives are wild caught, and I see a definite difference in colour and size between my 3 batches from different shops. Hopefully with your diet they'll grow fast, fingers crossed.

Thank you so much! Here’s hoping I won’t have to wait too long!