festae growth rate

[chrismaher1505]

hey guys just picked up 6 festae babys about 1inch just wodering what sort of growth rate i should be expecting to know if they are growing well and healthily.

any preference on food
type?
amount?
how many times a day?

obviously blood worm is a good place to start at the mo but what else.

and what sort of size should i expect them to need to be b4 the true red and yellows come out?

many thanks

 

[balton777]

.25"-.5" per month??? They grow slowly but are worth it. The true red on females comes out at around 4"+, and at 6"+ will start to green up really nicely around the cheeks.

Forget the bloodworms and other foods until you can get them eating a good high quality pellet as a staple. Then throw in other goodies for variety such as bloodworms, mysis shrimp, market shrimp, scallops, nightcrawlers etc. NO LIVE FEEDERS unless quarantined or home grown.

Festae are awesome fish. Congrats on your score.

 

[Fish on Fire]

They are really slow growers. To maximize their growth, isolate each fish in their own little 20 gallon tubs, do daily 50% water changes, feed 3 times a day, as much as they can eat in 5 minutes, keep the temp around 83 degrees.

However, if you are just going to try to raise them all together, as with any other cichlid, the least dominant fish will always grow the slowest. Just feed 3 times a day as much as they can eat in 5 minutes, depending on your tank size, do 1-2 50% water changes a week. If they are eating as well as they should and are pretty healthy, expect around .5" a month growth.

 

[Modest_Man]

Guess I'm the odd one out, but I bought my male at the end of last May at 2" and he's now 10-11". That's almost 1" a month.

Here's a photo from July 1st, 2007. A month and a couple days after I got him.

And from a couple days ago.

Note the pot in the two photos. Same pot.

 

[sbrady5pts]

my festae grew really slow!! you are lucky that yours grew so quickly

 

[DarthV]

My male hit 10" in 2 years. But that's including all the energy spent while spawning continuously with his female for more than half that time.

 

[mbunafishkeeper]

ive had mine for about 4 months and theyve grown about 1 "

 

[chrismaher1505]

he is awsome. mine are in a 5x2x2 grow out in the garage which sucks as it will mean ill struggle to devote as much time as i need to them and do silly amounts of water changes lol, guess ill just have to pull my socks up and put in the hours it will be worth it thoiugh i guess. lol

 

[labiatus55]

IME you can get them to grow pretty quickly with alot of time and energy, for an example, my brother and I grew out some from my pairs last spawn, his in a 55gal, only cichlid staple and barely a water change, its one year old and 3" , mine grew in a 180 with a few other less aggressive fish, cichlid gold, blood worms, krill and earthworms, 30% water change everyother day, it was about 8" when i sold it 3 months ago!

 

[polomax24]

Guess I'm the odd one out, but I bought my male at the end of last May at 2" and he's now 10-11". That's almost 1" a month.

Here's a photo from July 1st, 2007. A month and a couple days after I got him.

Dude, only females grow slow. All the males I have grew from 2 to 11" within the first year. My female is about three years old and stuck at 11".