Growth slowing down

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mopani

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Oct 18, 2012
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Past month been, not board with my fish but so busy, I've just been doing the due( feeding, wc) past couple days I have been spending time in fish room and I noticed there growth has slowed. All the mentioned are in different tanks, my 75 has my jack and brown knife in it, knife has hit 6 in and jack maybe 6 1/2 and have deemed to stop. My big community, all my blood parrots are between 4-6 in and both my sevs are almost 7 in. My Jag has hit 9 and seemed to stop. Same routine and good care. Do fish hit a slump in growth midway ??


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I'm assuming regular WC, good quality params and a low or moderately low stress environment.

I'm assuming that you have the temps at least 80-82 and that the fish are eating pretty much everything you give them. Lower temps inhibit feeding. And undesirable food or stress will reduce feeding or inhibit growth hormones within the fish.


You should examine how much you are feeding (in dry weight) compared to the weight of your fish. You can calculate the weight of your fish using on-line fish type/ length-girth calculators. Imo, you should be feeding fish that are well-past fry stage but not full grown adults in the range of 3-4%+ of body weight in amount of dry weight food per day on average. (Some carnivorous species can eat more at one sitting, but that can be spread out to be one meal of 10-15% every 3-4 days, for instance.) Please note that 1 oz of shrimp is much less than 1 oz of dry pellets in dry weight as the former is around 65% water while the latter is around 10%.

If you are feeding that much (3-4%+) and they aren't growing (and the water quality is good) then the food may have vitamin deficiencies.


Now there are stages where fish growth does seem to slow down. Food conversion rates for fish are not constant from birth to mature size. Of course fish grow fastest when younger, so it's natural that 'speed' of growth will slow down. But actually not growing at all is not a 'normal' behavior for most tropical fish until fully mature. Even then, people suggest that mature fish continue to grow all the time, so that's something too.

Having said that, I'd still be concerned if the actual food amount was too low or was deficient.
 
Yes to all from top post, never thought about measuring food intake and weight as you said. I just feed them 3 times a day in small amounts. Big community gets colbalt and omega one flake mixture as well the sevs and parrots get hikiri cichlid and nls pellets. After reading around I feel the jag an dempsey maybe have reached a small Plato(sp?) I pulled ruler out and feed them, the brown knife always comes toward glass. I measured the best I could and he is a little over 7 in. Not to worried as care sheets say 8in ad max. Though worried s tad about parrots, they haven't grew much in a while


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http://fish.mongabay.com/food.htm

Deficiencies in vitamins A, B1, B2 or B6 could hamper growth if fish are receiving plenty of food.


http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0144860988900064
http://www.atlantech.ca/public/articles/Water Quality.PDF

Inadequate water changes can lead to growth suppression. You already addressed this, just adding the links.


And, although I can't find the link, iirc, high stress conditions will cause inhibition of growth hormones as well by virtue of the fish using more energy towards aggression, hiding or avoidance and less towards growth. Again, you already have this under control.
 
Thanks, for links, and yea nothing I can see is wrong. A little mouth flaring once they lay eggs. No males and parrots are sterile. As soon as I see the aggression rise I search for the eggs and clean them out with a WC. Let me study though s links some


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1. fish slow their growth as they grow past certain sizes and age.

2. What's the hurry? Overfeeding and power feeding taken to extreme levels can cause fatty livers and other complication due to water quality issues and such.
 
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