Growth stalling in cichlids?

[Americancichlids]

I wanted to know if this is common or something, amongst most species of cichlid. My male motaguense has grown quite fast from <1 inch in august to 6.5-7 ish inches now. But for the past couple months he has seemed to stop growing. Nothing has changed in his environment. Is this common?

 

[pops]

allot of sa/ca cichlid grow like gang busters there first 7 or 8 months, (this is counting from fry) after that they slow down, and start getting thicker, not just longer.

 

[duanes]

Do you still maintain the same water change routine used when it was small?
I have found that as cichlids grow, water changes should be increased.
Obviously, as cichlids grow they put out more waste, and pheromones bringing nitrates higher, and maybe producing pheromones or hormones which can slow growth, so if you have maintained (say) 1x 50% water change per week, it may be time (now that the mota is larger and putting out exponentially more waste) to up to to 2x 50% changes per week (as an example).

 

[Jonnyakawombell]

My male Dovii went from like 2-3" to around 12"-13" in his first year he's now around 3 years old and is about 17", so I'd say yeah this definatly happens, like pops has said already they begin expending there grown on width and girth rather then just length, when my guy was about 12" he's wasn't very thick at all, I'd say he's around 3"-4" thick now so I'd say that's were most of his growth has gone over the past 2 years rather then length, your fellas just probably starting to fill out.

 

[Ihsnshaik]

Yeah same thing happened to my Midas she was huge thought was a male and then just stopped growing much. Now she is much thicker and taller but isn't growing long as much. She is morphing colors again though. She's mature she breeds with a fader Flowerhorn. She is probably 1 year max from eggs and at 8-9" which is normal for a female I believe

 

[o5b0rn3b]

I've seen documentation of fish growth that showed 11" of growth in length the first year with a mass in the 800g range. The second year this same fish was only 12" but put on more weight than the first year, weighing 1700g.

So growth doesn't slow one bit, it's just where they're growing that changes.

 

[dan518]

^1 agree did a thread on a trimac saying the same awhile back from 11 to 13 inch the fish doubled in weight