Short Bodied Flowerhorn?

[Troy1x]

I have been visiting this forum for quite sometime, ever since by daughter won a goldfish at a fair 2 years ago its been a new hobby/obsession of mine more than my daughters. I dove in deeper into this hobby and decided to finally get a fish of my own. I bought a flowerhorn at the LFS in March but for some reason he has never really grown. Before I even bought him, I made sure I was able to test and control my water parameters to a tee. My city water currently comes out of the tap at 8.2ph and 20ppm Nitrates, so I knew I was in for a struggle. I had a spare 29 gallon tall from the previous goldfish tank. So I pre-cycled the media I was going to use in the new tank for months, I decided to move the media into the new tank and purchase my flowerhorn. He has been healthy and active ever since March but he was not growing and he is always hungry. After noticing his lack of growth, I decided to buy a inline filter to remove some of the Nitrates because that was always a consent battle for me. I was able to lower the Nitrates to 5ppm and he was still acting the same. He was 5 inches when I got him but he is maybe 6 inches now. The last thing I could think of is that he might be a short bodied flower horn which explains somethings regarding expected growth rate.


Thanks,
Troy

 

[Troy1x]

1 more pic

 

[AnthonyFish20]

Looks more like a trimac or a flowerhorn with lots of trimac genes.
How long have you had him? Water change schedule?

 

[Troy1x]

I have had him for 6 months, currently the water change scheldule is once a week at 50%. Which keeps his nitrates below 20ppm.

Thanks,
Troy

 

[AnthonyFish20]

I have had him for 6 months, currently the water change scheldule is once a week at 50%. Which keeps his nitrates below 20ppm.

Thanks,
Troy

Thats good he could be in a slow growth time or could be stunted from where he previously was.

 

[RD.]

Interesting looking little flowerhorn, looks like a Kamfa with a very Trimac looking head. I like it! This is not a short body, but it may carry short body genes. Next to impossible to tell with hybrids such as this. Has this fish been dewormed? If not, I would treat for the potential of tapeworms using PraziPro. See more about tapeworms below.

Worms in Fish Tanks – Are They Dangerous to Fish?

How can you tell if the worms in your fish tank are the good kind or the bad? And how do you get rid of the worms without harming any of the other lives in the tank? Learn about aquatic worms here.

www.petmd.com

Cestodes - Tapeworms

Internal cestode parasites, such as tapeworms, are significantly harder to diagnose in fish. Active passing of cestode segments in the feces can be very difficult to see. More commonly, failure to thrive or gain weight is the most frequent sign of infection. Positive diagnosis of cestode infection can only be made with a fresh fecal microscopic exam.



Second question, what are you feeding, and approx. how much? Overall this fish looks healthy, and does not appear to be stunted. I would deworm this fish with PraziPro and post back with the results. Good luck.

 

[Niki_up]

I feel like the 29g could be the reason for stunting. I always thought a 55g was minimal for a FH. This guy looks Trimac crossed with GT, I too like his looks!

 

[RD.]

I missed the 29 gallon part, I thought that was just used to cycle the media for the "new" FH tank? Personally I wouldn't keep a regular non bonsai FH in anything under a 75 gallon, better yet a 100 gallons. Many can reach 12"+ inches when they mature. It is of course also possible that this fish is only genetically wired to reach 8-9" max when it is fully mature. I owned a fader yrs ago that stayed small its entire life. It just never reached the massive proportions that one sometimes sees in FH.

 

[ny.subway]

It looks like a trimac or those old gen flowerhorn. Maybe move it on a bigger tank to see if its still gonna grow big.

 

[RD.]

Definitely not a pure Trimac.