Exactly how long can sterbai live ?

[anewbie]

I have a decent size group of sterbai in the 500 - when i moved 3 years ago i collected all the ones i had and put them together in the 500. At this point i would say the oldest ones are somewhere in the 7 to 9 year range - also they keep getting larger - esp the females and i swear some of them are close to 4 inches.

So exactly how long can they live ? Will they live forever as long as they can find sand to play in ?

 

[ambrosia04]

I think in captivity they can reach 10-15 years

 

[Magnum Man]

a little digging seems to indicate around 15 years… while it’s a safe bet, that not many of those 15 year old’s had the luxury of being well cared for, in a 500 gallon tank, so you may be setting new records…

 

[Innesfan]

I just posted in another thread that I have the remnants of a small school of Hoplisoma CW21 that are in their mid/late twenties. I assume most 'cories' have a similar firm grasp on life.

 

[GaryE]

You'll never get exact numbers. I have a life expectancy of 83.05 years. A male in the USA gets an average of 79.76. But we're all humans.

We all know that there are factors at play there, for us and for fish. We're still not quite sure what the outer limits for human lifespan are, and we watch that much more carefully than we do fish.

The first time I looked up the lifespan of the turtles I inherited, the early internet said 30. Then after a few years, it said 40. Now, it says 45. I think what was up there was the longer people kept these creatures, the clearer their lifespans became.

25 year old corys put my efforts to shame. My oldest cory got to between 12 and 15 years, and that was just one individual aeneus. So is 30 possible? We'll know in 5 years.