baby fish... he won't grow!!!

[Opcn]

I think th reason everyones fry come out so much smaller is that most of us have our tanks overstocked and don't change the water often enough. The fish you see in the pet stores either come from breeeders who are raiseing animals for show and must raise them well or farmers who do all there waterchanges with big hoses and Can feed there fish growth hormone if they wish. My little brother has a huge betta that we bought at the store it was raised in the same large tank as its parents and I have yet to measure it but at 3 months old it is a good CM longer than any other betta I have ever seen.

 

[Angry_Platy]

Is the molly in a tank with adult mollies? This is not good, they need a seperate growout tank to get to full size. Adult mollies and other livebearers secrete a hormone that stunts the growth of juveniles in an enclosed place like a tank; in the wild this would be diluted by the large amount of water they were in. It took me 3 generations of various midget guppy, platy and molly fry to finally figure out I was doing something wrong by housing them with the adults.

Which hormones? Secreted from where exactly?

I raise all my fry initially in a breeding trap in the tank they were born in...then when they are about 3 weeks old they get moved into the 6gall...followed by the 10gall 2 weeks later then finally the main tank (after about 6 weeks)....none of my fry have been stunted....in fact, the first fry I had grew up for its first 2 months in the breeding net then the rest of the time in the main tank.....it is now the same size as its father....and chances are it won't get much bigger (genetics)....ALSO....my fry that end up being female are larger than fry that end up being male...

SO....the hormone theory is....well...incorrect (to be polite)....what could be more the case is housing a lot of fry together in the main tank and the lack of food available to them (too small to fight the adults for feeding rights)....

And as for willywonkas spelling (is that how you spell it )....WHO CARES?? I am not a rocket scientist and still I managed to read..and understand it!!!