Growth rate problems. Help?

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R

Runitis

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Dec 4, 2011
1,884
2
68
Winnipeg,MB, Canada
I seem to be having growth rate problems can someone please try to identify, i'll be as descriptive as possible.

29g tank.
Aqueon 30g filter with sponge and biomax
150w heater tmp 84 degrees
Small sponge filter 20g pump (recently added mostly for added oxygen and a bit of bio filtration)
305 w/c a week

Tank mates 2 festaes, tiretrack eels 3 albino cory cats and an ornate bichir

First problems festaes not growing much. First one is the big male he is probably about ~3" maybe a bit smaller. Second is the other about 2". Now i have had these guys from fry about .25" and grown together and have had them since nov. So i have had them for 8 months and they have been in the 29g for about 4 months and put them in at about 1"-1.5" So in 8 months only 2-3" i know they are slow but that slow???? I use to feed them liquid baby fry food, then crushed flakes and frozen blood worms and the past 2 or 3 months onto chopped up NLS, xtreme big fella, omega one shrimp, frozen blood worms and frozen brine shrimp. The frozen food is mostly for the eel. I feed pellets then frozen. So can anyone identify such a slow growth rate? The small one is extremely small compared to big one and the big one is just starting to change colors on his body and little one has next to no colour anywhere.

Problem 2 my tire track eel. Only eats frozen. I got him in april and starved him for a week here and there to get him to eat pellets but doesn't. At the time it was my friends so all he bought him was frozen blood worms i feed like once a week to maybe get him on pellets like the store said they were feeding nothing. Slo finally 2 weeks ago i bought frozen brine shrimp for him and in the 3 months i have had him he maybe has grown an inch and no girth. Shouldn't the growth on a tt eel be fast and quite noticable. None of my fish grow noticablly neither does my proteus pike. Is frozen brine and blood worms enough?

Can any one i dentify i know its a long read but it's been bugging me for a while because i would thinking the festaes could get atleast 6" and big girth and width wise like my blue acara did before them in that size. So what is wrong why does it seem like nothing is growing? My blue acara went from 2" to 6-7" in 5 months and it was very noticable everytime a family member came down "wow he's growing fast" These fish no one notices :( I wasnt them to grow to a good size so they can grow in the 70g
 
Could be because of the tank size...

I understand its a growout, but IMO, the bigger the tank from the start the faster the growth rate. Festaes are slow growers anyway, but having them in a 29 with tankmates isn't ideal. Im not sure if it applies for all fish but I know cichlids release pheremones into the water when growing and if they aren't removed (water changes) then it can lead to slower growth across the species - or atleast so I read.

I don't think it is linked to dietry requirements as it sounds like you are supplying their needs. However, I would advise treating them for IPs, its possible that they could have gone unnoticed and they could be affecting growth. Epsom salt is a must for treating in my books, so give their food a soak or treat directly (there is a thread on here detailing it, give epsom salt a search).

Finally, if you have two males then it is possible that the larger, more dominant of the two is affecting the smaller of the twos growth. Also, as is the case with most, if not all cichlids, females will grow slower than males and therefore the smaller may simply be female.

I know you started with more than two, however, if you can A. get some more to spread aggression from the larger to the smaller then do, I know there are many vendors with them in stock at present. And B. get them into a larger tank possibly with some dithers, again to spread aggression and give them something to compete with.

Just my 0.2c hope it helps :)
 
Also, I missed the spot on the eel.

Again, could be pertaining to the tank size. Clean water is the best thing for sleedy growth. Combined with more space and less competition. So as I said, maybe a larger tank might help.

As for food, from what I understand, its fairly difficult to get them eating at all so I wouldn't complain about it only eating Frozen. However, frozen BS and BW has very little nutrition so you could add vitamins and such to the food, I know some are a presoak. There is also available (at least in the UK), non-frozen BW with added vits and mins. I think it may be tetra who manufacture it. This would be better than frozen IMO. Another thing to try would be garlic soaking the pellets, or even soaking the pellets in BW juice (the water used to defrost the cubes), just mix it all up and let the absorb the goodness!

Again, hope this helps :)
 
Live blackworms for the eel.. or mince up nightcrawlers ( messsy!) and there is such a thing as too warm. I would drop the temp down to 78 and see if it helps. but I would stop feeding the brine/bloodworms. they are just fillers... little nutriotion, and feed small amounts daily. everytime i walk past my grow outs food goes into the tank. some days that 3 times.. others it's 12... just a few bites.
 
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