Unfortunatly most of the information about RTC's come from people who DON'T have them personally but rather read about them on line OR had one for a year or so then got rid of it.
Yes they grow fast...and yes some grow faster than others...however the reality of the situation is that finding one much over 3' to 3.5' long or so is next to impossible.
Yes a RTC IS a monster fish and requires a very large tank but they are also a far less active fish than say a big silver aro...prefuring to spend most of thier time laying around in a favorite spot no mater HOW much room they have.
If only a small fraction of these internet myth RTC's grew to adulthood you could go to almost ANY public aquarium and find TON's of those mythical 5 to 6 fool long RTC's but you can't....why IS that?
I notice that no one bothered to ask the poster what the footprint was on this 250 gallon tank...
A large square foot print breeder arangement would be perfectly fine to house a RTC for life.
People are always whining about the poor fish in too small of a tank but if you want the truth....NONE of us....and I do mean NONE...not even John...have tanks big enough to allow our fish the freedom to move around they enjoy in the wild so where do you draw the line?
You can't walk into ANY LFS without seeing a handful of RTC babies and Pacu's and TSN's.... VERY VERY few of these fish ever live long enough to outgrow the owners tanks...If they did we would be hip deep in giagantic fish...
Compared to whats sold they are almost non-existant as adults...
How many of you have ever kept a single fish alive for 18 years or more?...
I have...
What is keeping a fish healthy and well fed for 8 to 12 years in what is arguably too small of a tank compared to the HUGE numbers that never reach even close to that size.
In nature almost ALL of the fry that end up in the pet trade would have died or would have been consumed by one preditor or another in two weeks time. That's why fish have so many eggs in the first place. And yet someone wanting to keep a RTC as a pet for many years longer than it would, in all probability, have lived in nature is slammed as irresponsable.
