I was wondering what affects a fishes growth rate as it pertains to tank size and filtration. Like if you put a fish in a 10 gal tank how come it will grow a certain size and not just outgrow the tank? any input will be appreciated 
Need some input
- Thread starter 90cat
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The saying that a fish will not outgrow it's tank is not true. Any big fish can outgrow a small tank. Their growth can be stunted by poor diet & poor water quality, but a fish has outgrown a tank long before he is bumping into the glass every time he turns around.
Thanks I was talking to a friend today and we were wondering about that. So its diet and water quality.
It's not just that. Thats like saying you can put a small child i a box and he will never outgrow that box. Along with that if you fed him poorly and bad living conditions it may affect the growth of the child. Say you put an oscar in a 20gallon. You feed him once a week and never changed his water. If he just happens to survive the harsh conditions he will outgrow that tank sooner or later. I hate the rumor of "fish grow to the tank size".
when people say fish grow to the size of the tank what they're really saying is the fish will grow to whatever size the tank will allow then die.example-a red tail cat(huge growth potential and a long natural life span)that is put in a ten gal will grow to the size of its tank ,then die, in this case reducing the fish's life to a few months,but it did "grow to the size of its tank"that being said anyone using this method of fish keeping is a piece of you know what
perhaps the limiting factor is bio filtration or water quality. It comes to a point where the big fish will out grow the bio capacity of the tank and then die long before it is actually to big to actually move in the tank. It could also do with stress maybe from being cramped. ----------------------------------When i was a kid i had a oscar and a pleco in a standard 20 for about 5 years. The oscar made it to about 10'' and the pleco was a little bigger. The water allways checked fine and i tested it weekly. i did only do WC's every 2-3 weeks. The O never got and disease like hith or anything that can be seen by the eye. But one day it died. i had the water checked by my LFS and they said there was nothing wrong with it. But I remember the nitrates being high around 60ppm. I think it had to do with stress from the tank being so small compared to the fish.