Hey everyone, I absolutely love RTCs, but definitely cannot properly house one for life so will not be getting one. However, I know short body variations are a thing, and have done some digging but can't really seem to find much about their average size in aquaria. I've seen some people saying 2' max but wanted to see if anyone has any more info/personal experience with SBRTC. I'm planning on starting up a new fish room and want to eventually build an 8x4 tank, so was hoping maybe Id be able to house one of these guys if I implement a ton of filtration. Thanks.
Short Body RTC size?
- Thread starter Suarez
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That's almost an impossible question to answer as there are so many things that factor in. But generally speaking anywhere from 18 inches to over 3ft
From hearsay, their lifespan is too from 1 year to several years. And a price tag of a few hundred $.
this is the part that is a bit tricky... if you find sb rtc with straight spines.. they can live for many many years and the tags can be over 2k as well
Thanks for the info, I'll most likely steer clear if they have a shortened lifespan and a huge price tag. I'm not sure if the shortened body is due to selective breeding or just a lucky mutation, but I'd feel guilty supporting a trade that's harming the fish if it's intentional breeding that's causing the short-body defect.
From what I understand.. the sbrtc are not intentionally bred.
A priori they cannot not have a shortened lifespan because the internal organs don't care if the body is full length or shortened length and grow as big as they are programmed and get jammed and misshapen inside.
Badly disfigured animals don't live out a normal and expected lifetime, even in safe captivity, not to mention the wild. Neither do people, even despite all the modern medicinal advances, mostly available only to the richest and "privilegest" anyway.
I respect your view and you personally, Vincent, so if we disagree sometimes, it should be fine in my eyes. You have "only" 2-3 more decades of earnest fish keeping and knowledge gathering on me
It's capitalism and in capitalism, when a new market opens and the offer is slim and the demand is high, the price of goods is high. Then a lot of people jump on this, what's called a bandwagon, to make $$ and the offer increases and prices drop.
If there is a known way, or an experimental way, or even a potentially supposed way to make a fish a short body one, you can bet your left butt cheek the "bandwagoneers" will explore and employ it. This is what's called a no-brainer.
Thus, to me, people that buy or want to buy these animals are aiding and abetting this activity, to which I (and the OP) have an ethical objection.
Yet, I believe that freedom is above all. If it is not illegal, one must be free to try it and practice it.
I also believe that on the one hand, we must be able to talk about it as friends and well meaning peers, to build up each others' knowledge, and on the other, must avoid things we already know we disagree on.
