Magazine Information

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
benzjamin13

benzjamin13

Administrator
Staff member
Administrator
MFK Member
Sep 12, 2005
31,648
641
201
Los Angeles, CA
So I was going through some of my Mags, when I read a profile on the RTCs in AFM (Feb '08). The person doing the profile said that they can get up to 60" and will need a 200g for life. And I remember an article in TFH (Dec 06) in which the author discussed the "Fish will only grow as big as it's tank" theory. So I have to ask what you guys think considering everyone seems to be on the band wagon that fish like the RTC needs a 500g+ or fish will get bigger no matter what? And considering that these are national magazines, do you think they're feeding the public wrong information?
 
benzjamin13;1532826; said:
So I was going through some of my Mags, when I read a profile on the RTCs in AFM (Feb '08). The person doing the profile said that they can get up to 60" and will need a 200g for life. And I remember an article in TFH (Dec 06) in which the author discussed the "Fish will only grow as big as it's tank" theory. So I have to ask what you guys think considering everyone seems to be on the band wagon that fish like the RTC needs a 500g+ or fish will get bigger no matter what? And considering that these are national magazines, do you think they're feeding the public wrong information?
Click to expand...

AFI has wrong info, i have read there mag and they have a graph in there last mag about keeping fish in tanks and what is acceptable. according to a graph they had 1" fish can be kept in 10 gal tanks- which is acceptable and the graph went down a good bit more and at the end it said 24" fish 75gal+ tanks. WRONG find me a 75 with a wider than 18: fooprint and a 6'+ foot legnth. the point is that mags don't alway have the right answers, RTC's- HUGE- HUGE tanks.
 
It just seems to me that every book and every magazine has similar information, yet everyone seems to disagree with them. If those magazines and books are so wrong, how do they get published?
 
I'll play devils advocate here for a moment.

Few if any RTC's ever live long enough to reach thier full potential. They can also be housed in a lot smaller than ideal conditions for a LOT of years. I think these two things...more than anything else have helped this myth along.

RTC's CAN be very sedentary fish in a smaller aquarium but if you give them room to move they become a lot more active.

One last thing to concider is the fact that it wasn't very long ago that a 200 or 300 gallon tank was concidered the most massive available so naturally the monster fish of the era where automaticly recomended to be housed in the largest commercially available tanks.
 
Ive notice a lot of difference in opinion through out the years. It seems you will always run into that with this hobby lol
 
That's true...but I always find it interesting when some will tell someone that they need a 1000g for a fish like an RTC and comment on another thread that their tank (that's not a 1000g) looks great even though they just critized the last guy for having one.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom