It's difficult to take casual searches at one public aquarium as definitive especially when some people are growing fish larger than Fishbase reports as a maximum. (In fact, on a separate note, I discovered a catfish whose size was incorrectly misreported on Fishbase as perhaps half of the actual size in the wild. I had emails with one of the scientists who categorized and documented the exact catfish in the Amazon, who concurred that the FB size is wrong.)
So, beyond those words of caution...it's imo always best to take the absolute maximum possible for the fish you can find (reported sizes on MFK, FB, tackle records, spear and net records, etc.) and assume it will get that big.
From there it depends on each fish and what else is in the tank. If the goal is to see the fish display as much natural behavior as you can 'reasonably' see (what I call the naturalist approach), then you'll have a fairly spacious tank for active swimming and/or territorial and/or shoaling fish. If the goal is to cram as many fish into one container (what I call the collector approach), then obviously that tank will be much smaller and natural fish behavior will not be as important.
Since the article seemed to think that keeping elephants in a zoo is okay because hay is put right there on the ground for them (where in reality they are chained, cattle prodded and crammed into a fraction of what they need), my take is the author is from the collector school.
IMO, animals that have to be tortured, physically restrained, or stunted in order for them to be kept, just shouldn't be kept as pets or specimens.
So, beyond those words of caution...it's imo always best to take the absolute maximum possible for the fish you can find (reported sizes on MFK, FB, tackle records, spear and net records, etc.) and assume it will get that big.
From there it depends on each fish and what else is in the tank. If the goal is to see the fish display as much natural behavior as you can 'reasonably' see (what I call the naturalist approach), then you'll have a fairly spacious tank for active swimming and/or territorial and/or shoaling fish. If the goal is to cram as many fish into one container (what I call the collector approach), then obviously that tank will be much smaller and natural fish behavior will not be as important.
Since the article seemed to think that keeping elephants in a zoo is okay because hay is put right there on the ground for them (where in reality they are chained, cattle prodded and crammed into a fraction of what they need), my take is the author is from the collector school.
IMO, animals that have to be tortured, physically restrained, or stunted in order for them to be kept, just shouldn't be kept as pets or specimens.
