Stunting Growth

[Straydum]

i hear alot about stunting growth and all but can you actually see them in your fishes? lfs keeps their fish in smaller tanks, does it mean that the fishes there are stunted?

anyone?

 

[cheesy feet]

Your lfs's tanks are most likely to be run on a large system, so no they are not stunted.Also the fish are only there for probably something like 2 weeks on max, so I doubt much damage could be done to them.The 'when your fish gets stunted the organs keep growing but the fish doesn't' has actually not been proved true.

 

[confusion]

f stunting happens because a small tank has too little water, then LFS' which big water systems probably wouldn't stunt them, but if it's because the tanks are too small for them, then they may well be stunted. OTOH, LFS' typically don't have full size adult fish in their small tanks (unless the fish are just small)

I would also say that a lot of fish in an LFS are there for longer than 2 weeks (at least at mine). I had been thinking about getting a moonlight gourami that my LFS has had in it's tank since I started going, about 8 months ago. I did buy it yesterday, btw. Certainly if the store can't take care of the fish well, there will be turn over due to them dying.

 

[Straydum]

thanks for your replies.

yeah fishes do stay in shops for awhile, more than 2 weeks mostly. so its the tank size and the amount of water than stunts growth. can u actually detect such stunting?

 

[Matty P]

Dunno if you can detect it, but it will drastically reduce the length and quality of it's life.

 

[BigC]

You will not normally detect stunting in fish at your LFS. If he/she is meticulious then they will be performing waterchanges constantly throughout the week and removing sick and diseased specimens from sale. Stunting can be hireditary as well as bad managment. If you breed from runts you are hardly going to get good offspring. So stunting in your LFS, providing the stock brought in is good, healthy and robust then stunting is not a factor given that they will order in fish with a high turnover rate. So if they want to make money then fish stitting in tanks for a length of time is doing the owner no favours.

 

[chibi]

I read in a fish magazine called Aquarium Fish Magazine once that stunting does not drastically effect the health of the fish. A man did some research by using discus. He put about 5 in a 10 gallon and 5 in a 50 gallon. He did water changes to the 10 gallon every day 100% and the 50 gallon about once a week. Turns out all discus were healthy and they lived for a very long time. In other words, the fish aren't killed by their size but rather the quick buildup of toxins. Unfortunately, I don't have proof so you'll just have to go with what I say.

 

[Teelie]

Just because there are no immediate effects from it doesn't make it right and even if it wasn't causing problems how many people will do 100% daily water changes to prevent them?

 

[Straydum]

on one hand, i do agree that stunting does not cause any apparent damage or causes the fish to suffer immediately, but on the other, i do feel that no doubt there would be damage done. the severity and the reversibility still cant be determined i guess.

 

[cheesy feet]

Actually with some fish (Discus mostly) you can tell they are stunted by there big eyes and different body shape.

 

[fourthtimelucky]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't stunting caused by two factors: the fish's ability to swim about & therefore develop normally, and also the water quality?

So if you put one fish in a 5g tank and changed the water weekly, then two in a 10g and changed it fortnightly, the two in the bigger tank would presumably stunt more since they were only getting 5g each and the water changes half as frequent.

I guess that there would be lots of other factors that would affect this theoretical experiment (such as filtration, the ability of a bacterial coony to maintian itself on twice the food etc) but I just don't think the discus story proves much.

I think stunting is cruel and something that should be avoided. The fish that just "stay small" may look okay despite their health being seriously compromised, but when you see them all malformed and unable to swim properly it is quite obviously something that causes suffering.

 

[rdd1952]

Here is a thread I did a while back that has some good information in it about stunting. Also in post 4 there is a link to another good thread.