Request for Amazon River Info

[bigspizz]

Yea something that Ive wondered about too. The only thing that comes to mind is that in the wild fish are oppertunist feeders and eat erridically so most likely produce less waste at a time than those in our aquaria, Coupled with the high turn over of water(im sure someone will know how long it takes to turn over water from the top of the amazon to the bottom). Also In the wild I imagine that a single fish like a midas or O or JD may have a few thousand gallons of water as his terratory as opposed to say 100g in the home setting.

It is a river. It moves collects sediment breaks stuff down....Nature...uh balance. Top to bottom turnover is irrelevant in the wild. By the time the water at the top of the river gets to the bottom it is 48978945615 miles from where it started.

 

[Dread]

Also In the wild I imagine that a single fish like a midas or O or JD may have a few thousand gallons of water as his terratory as opposed to say 100g in the home setting.

I remember seeing a documentary (and I think some others may have aswell) that I forgot the name of, but the Amazon had flodded a great deal, and Discus were raising their fry. They chose a leaf on a submerged tree, some 30ft above the riverbed. The fry never got more than a couple inchs away from the parents, and the parent Discus actually just defended a couple inches, a foot tops, away from their chosen spawn site. The spawn site in itself is interesting, but the fact that the odd passing fish were few and far between, yet the Discus still chose just a small area to defend as it's territory. It could have been the camera around, but never was it showing signs of aggression towards the camera. They went about their business raising the fry. So I think in the wild, many fish actually take up very small areas insted of larger ones like we might first think.