Many of you have seen the pics of my "juvies". Truth be told they have been "juvies" for years.
My very first surviving pup came from a regular sized mother at around 18". The father however had been at the 10" mark the entire time I had him. The guy I got him from had him for years as well, in those years he had not seemed to grow either. I was even told he was small but it didn't matter cause what he lacked in size he made up for in aggression. The pup he fathered will be 2 years old next month. She is 7 inches across.
The CB pup I raised before my rays produced was roughly this size at 1 year and was around a foot at year 2. I have a male Marble pup here from my biggest female. His father was skightly bigger (around a foot) ray and this pup is almost the same size as the female, despite being almost 9 months younger, raised with the female on the same diet as well.
The dark male I have that looks like a Pearl showed up here at 7". 2 years later he is now 9" and the female he's been after is showing signs of movement. I also aquired a female prior to this male that arrived at 6 inches. It's been going on 2.5 years here. She has grown from 6 to 9 inches.
My most recently aquired female came in showing movement at 8.5 inches. She gave birth to what appeared to be a very fat and healthy lil 3.25" pup which I later ended up losing for unknown reasons.
All in all I believe to be in possesion of 5 Marbles that posess these "mini" Marble growthrates of about 1" a year on females, less on males.
I don't believe that diet could be cause for this as I've been raising "normal" Marbles side by side with the lil buggers. Have to constantly switch tankmates around because of the different growth rates.
All in all the smaller ones seem to me to be a bit more aggressive, often bullying, and biting rays that are much bigger, and is not limited to male female biting but rather the lil CB female biting any ray in her area. She is on her way to having to be housed with my big rays simply cause she has chewed up most of her tankmates, strangely only the larger ones, she's never touched the smaller CB lil male she's been raised with.
Will get pics up for you guys tonight. Kinda funny seeing them next to the much larger "normal" Marbles.
To me these growthrates seem a little slow to be considered "slow growers".