Midget/ mini marble motoros?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Just thought you guys on this thread might like this scientific study on stunted growth and dwarf populations in fish. one interesting point is that fish will sometimes mature at an earlier age when stunting has occured. any way have a good read and take it all in rather than jumping at certain points and making them fit your own theories. Something that a lot of people like to do with the pseudo-science that is often talked about on this site! hope you enjoy it.
http://user.iiasa.ac.at/~dieckman/reprints/YlikarjulaEtal1999.pdf
 
DB junkie said:
Your Marbles are gorgeous Mike!!!!

Seem to just keep getting better......
Click to expand...

Just wanted to show the perimeter spotting. Those are 8 months old, the male has really blackened up. This male came in wild caught with claspers around 8"

I feed mine 5 times a week on average mainly tilapia and pellets with the occasional shrimp and scallop. Need to get back into gel food

Tank is 200 gallons with 2 large canisters and a mag 18 booster. I have 4 rays around 10" and 5 black bar silver dollars around 5"

Run a drip systems with 80 gallons a day

pH stays around 7.5 and nitrates are between 5 ppm and 10 ppm which is what comes out of my tap. Hardness is 125 kh which according to my strips 50 or less is considered soft.
 
sam buckle said:
Just thought you guys on this thread might like this scientific study on stunted growth and dwarf populations in fish. one interesting point is that fish will sometimes mature at an earlier age when stunting has occured. any way have a good read and take it all in rather than jumping at certain points and making them fit your own theories. Something that a lot of people like to do with the pseudo-science that is often talked about on this site! hope you enjoy it.
http://user.iiasa.ac.at/~dieckman/reprints/YlikarjulaEtal1999.pdf
Click to expand...

Interesting read Sam, at least until it got to the algebraic equations and all that then it lost me till I got past it. :) I don't know whether Mini/Midget Marbles are truely existent or not, so I am on the fence about it. But I do know from first hand experience that my marble pair are 3+ years old, female/11" and male/12" matured respectively.
Now my three blackies raised in the same environment with the same marbles and more stocking are 1.5+ years old are the exact same sizes (starting as pups of 4-5") and NOT matured. Male isn't even close. The setup, water and feeding regimen never changed. Feeding once a day and more on weekends, so what does that say? Don't know, but find it interesting.
PH 8+
Hardness extremely Hard
Nitrates under 10
 
sam buckle said:
Just thought you guys on this thread might like this scientific study on stunted growth and dwarf populations in fish. one interesting point is that fish will sometimes mature at an earlier age when stunting has occured. any way have a good read and take it all in rather than jumping at certain points and making them fit your own theories. Something that a lot of people like to do with the pseudo-science that is often talked about on this site! hope you enjoy it.
http://user.iiasa.ac.at/~dieckman/reprints/YlikarjulaEtal1999.pdf
Click to expand...

Does this maybe say something about the enviroment they're being pulled from? Seems most of theses "midget" dsicussions have been started after hobbyists began buying imported rays that were being brought in with mature claspers at 6-7" and females coming in gravid at 8-9".

I think if we all discussed this kind of stuff more openly we mite all learn something, but instead it feels like it would be easier to not make waves in the pseudo-science pond here.
 
Yes, interesting article Sam, thanks for posting. I wonder if many of the mini marbles are wild caught from an area where stunting has occurred naturally, the offspring of these will show us a lot I expect.
 
i will say the mini are out there i think i have had 24 this summer go out the door and all are wild caught and none have gotten over 10" even thought i have had 25% of all marble end up mini this is from 4 diffrent collectors and from diffrent parts of the amazon i think the demand were putting on wild caught has been able to show us a genetic defect that is now demandable. think like saltwater clown fish with all the diffrent patterns that are now on the market or flightless fruit flies. the more of these fish that keep coming out of the wild the weirder things we will find as a group.
 
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