Max Size of Red Dragons
- Thread starter pbj88
- Start date
All of the growth deals with the flowerhorn's genetics and the conditions they are kept in. The male pictured in my profile pic grew to a massive 11.0 inches in length and 2.5-3.0 inches thick. His parents were huge so he was too. A flowerhorns ultimate size is mostly determined by its genetics.
I bought mine at the local fish store and do not know what the parents were like. What can someone like me expect?
The best growth is seen by keeping very clean water and a healthy diet. SRD are not typically known for slow growth. Kamfas and King Kamfas are notoriously slower to grow and reach sexual maturity. Most SRDs hit sexual maturity at around 4-6 inches. The fastest overall growth will happen during the flower horns first year of life, Thats when you will actually see them growing quickly. Then when they are around 12-16 months old their growth slows down tremendously. My experience has been that at 24 months old most or all of their growth has occurred.
In my experience, the only way to truly know the age of a fish is to know the breeder. I haven't heard any scientific ways of looking at a fish and being able to determine its age, at least not with flowerhorns. Some species of fish go through physical changes at certain time periods that indicate the age of the fish, but none that I know of for flowerhorn. To see the best growth in a flower horn you can do 25-50% water changes every 7 days. Have really good mechanical and biological filtration. Keep a healthy and varied diet. I feed Grand Sumo for 2-3 days, then JBL Novo Flowermaxi for 2-3 days, then I cook crab or shrimp that I feed to them 1-2 times a week in addition to frozen bloodworm. I feed small portions 3-4 times a day. Small meals through the day is much healthier then bulk feeding them once or twice a day.