Life Expectancy?

[SJ2K]

This is somthing I havent heard much about here and would be great to get an idea of. For each individual species, if kept in prime conditions, what would there life expectancy be? I heard today that guppies normally only live about 9 months? When I was sure it was a few years so getting this cleared up would be really great as it would help others determin wether there fish have died because of old age or incorrect conditions.

If everyone could just post 1/2 species (or as many as they know) that they know there general life expectancy for sure, this could build up to be somthing very helpful when researching potential new tank inhabitance

Thanks

 

[dwarfgourami]

9 months sounds very short for the guppies- I'd say 18 months-2 years (and sometimes longer) is more like it for healthy guppies. The males in my community tank are coming up for 18 months (born in my tank at spring halfterm a year ago) and they're certainly not looking decrepit in any way. Their mother must have been at least a year old when I bought her and she lived over a year with me.
The problem is that so many guppies have health problems these days, which will shorten their lifespan. Also they can be quite old when you buy them.
Besides, when you read about a fish's natural lifespan, that can mean anything from this-is-how-long-they-tend-to-live-on-average from the-oldest-fish-recorded. If one individual does not reach its natural lifespan, that may not mean you have done anything drastically wrong- all humans don't reach the age of 78 or whatever present life expectation is. All cats don't live to be 20. But if all your fish die very young for their species, then you might want to look either at your fish keeping practices or at your supplier.
As a general pointer:
tetras tend to live longer than livebearers- c. 4 years, compared to c. 2 years. Livebearers particularly males, put a lot of their energy into reproducing instead, they live a brief but intensive life.
corydoras also more like 4-5 years
plecs might live 10 years or more

 

[lilfishie]

theres a list in my sig that shows a good variety of fish, as for guppies most mine have lived well over 2 years

 

[SJ2K]

Ahhh cool, thanks

 

[PRW1988]

Even though lilfishie has got it covered I figure I maswell add a few lol, Koi can live upwards of 25 years, it's been said that the emperor of Japan has two Koi that are over 100 years old. Arowanas can live 50years+ given proper care, Betta fish can live 5 or more years, my oldest betta died at the ripe old age of 8 last year so don't say that a betta living over a year isn't possible. Angelfish can live I believe 15years+, Oscars I've been told can live for over 30 years if given the proper care and a huge tank.

Hope that's a bit helpful lol.

 

[Bignose]

Could post about each species.... or I could post this article I found a while ago that lists the average life expectancy of most of all the common fish:

http/www.aquarticles.com/articles/manage..._Lifespans.html

Just be careful thinking that your fish died too early compared to this list, because 1) the list are just averages, just like there are 110 year old people or 30 years olds that die of stroke, some fish are going to live longer or shorter lives, just naturally. and 2) unless you raised them, or bought them as juveniles, you can't really be sure how old the fish is. Especially if it was wild caught.