whats the typical lima growth rate?

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Prometheus

Prometheus

Candiru
MFK Member
Jun 9, 2008
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the title pretty much says it all. im wanting to put a lima in a 75 gallon (w 18") and i know that wolnt be enough for a full grown, im just trying to figure out how long before one would outgrow that tank. if 3 or 4 years can be reasonably expected then i should be fine. im in college and cant get a tank any bigger than a 75 till im graduated unless something changes otherwise i would go for something like a 200 gallon. this is a bichir tank by the way. would these be compatible with each other?
 
well...... mine has not grown to quick
i have had mine for a few months now mayb 3 to 4 and he has prop grown 2 to 3 inches
he is around 6
 
ok, well i do appreciate your input, personal experience is what im looking for. anybody else wana second what Gdub1221 is saying? or even offer advice on other good tank mates? im leaning towards a black ghost knife at this point but id still like some input. Anne gave me a good list of fish to check out but i havent been able to research all of them yet and i also dont know how trust worthy internet sources are. id rather have it from word of mouth like here on a forum.
 
My lima is about 6-7inches. I have had him for about 4-5 months and have not noticed any growth what so ever. They seem to be a very slow growing fish. I think my pacu eat a lot of the food before he can get at it so this may be stunting his growth. He also is not active during the day at all. It is very hard for me to believe that they get so big because mine hasn't grown a bit!! I plan on taking him and a few select smaller fish out of my tank and into a smaller tank where the pacu can't steal all of their food.

I have my lima with a tiny 2 in raphael, a 2 inch rubber lip pleco and a bunch of rope eels. He is not aggressive at all towards any of my fish. He eats rosey reds and catfish pellets, never seen him get mean with any of my fish. I think he is a great community tank fish with fish of simalar size.
 
slow growing is good. im sure if worst came to worst and i just couldnt upgrade the tank when i need to i can always put him in an inexpensive kids pool or something.

important question: once a lima gets bigger do they act predator? in other words, he's supposed to be a tank mate for my delhezi bichir and senegal bichirs. the delh will reasonably get to 12" and the senegals will probably get at least 9"-10". are lima's predator or do they just scavenge?
 
i have one that went from about 4 in to 13in in a year, and the black ghost should be much bigger than the lima from the outset because they are slender and may be looked at as food, like my elephant nose of the same size as the lima was
 
It has everything to do with the quality and quanity of the food that you feed them. Catfish are notoriously voracious and will pretty much eat all the food that you will feed them. If you want it to grow slowly but be healthy, only feed it like maybe every other day, maybe even 2 days, but feed it top quality food when you do. I jsut posted a thread about some hybrids I recently had, they grew like weeds on frozen bloodworms 3x a day and live food once a week. They dont need to be fed that much at all.
 
My lima went from about 4" to just over a foot in a little over a year. My lima is housed with a bicher with no problems at all. The growth rate does seem to be slowing down now however.
 
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