I think mine all look pretty good I have a salt and pepper substrate. I did throw some smaller orangy brown gravel in not to long ago too.
Yup you can have 1 that doesn't go with the normal. Most polys that eat normally will grow about 1" per month when young so you could see 12" in the first year. Now that also depends on the type of poly. Take my petsmart sen for example obviously cb, took 2 years to hit 6" ate like a champ. Pretty sure he had a tumor though, he only lived about 3 years and had a weird lump on his side. But the albino I have grew to about 6" in 8 months and then slowed down. Some take a bit of time to actually start to put on size. My teug took about 18 months to hit 18" which goes with the 1"/month but he spent about 5 months less then 4". At about 6 months he started to grow and really pack on size at about 1year growing over 2" in one month. The smaller ujs tend to hit a smaller slow down length so it will seem most hit 6" and then take forever to grow. Two of the big 3 seem to mostly get to 12-14" pretty quick and then slow teug and ornate. I'm not sure on weeksi growth and my teug above wasnt in the normal grow type through out their "normal growth time", but at the end according to the teug growth thread was still in the average at 1.5 years. Most ornates follow the "normal growth" rates. All all of that is saying is this you need to get a bigger tank asap, your ornate has the potential to be over a foot long in a year or less. Alot of words for a simple statement. But when you say its gonna get big you get people going oh ok then 8 months later, "I have to get rid of this its to big I don't have room".
unless the substrate is small pebbles and one eats a pebble and gets impacted.
I’m well aware. I was just giving my experience so the OP doesn’t get his hopes up. If you read through a lot of growth rate threads polys are pretty inconsistent in growth.
You really wont be able to tell for at least 6-8 months. Different ones mature at different rates to. I had my two male dels for a year before I could tell. I was sure they were female. Males have a broader anal fin used to cup the eggs while fertilizing. You will see them "flexing" this fin from time to time cupping and uncupping.
Not the quickest with food... got mine at about 5 to 6 inches... fed a variety of foods and has doubled in size in 5 months so yea 1 inch per month... more of a growth spur type fish than a constant grower tho... mines in a 210 gallon with other large fish.. I now feed him massive delight broken into peices and silver sides every other day
