ID Shark Housing

[Karl K]

This is not real evidence, but this should be a healthy fancy goldfish, compared to a stunted one: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_HHlesUNOY...AAAiw/0Gr6vumOEkw/s1600/post-9-1145600416.jpg As you see the stunted one has much larger eyes, and should also have larger eyes. As said i found this under and article about stunted goldfish, but i do not know if this might just be to different goldfish (There so meny of these goldfish species, and some of them have large eyes, so maybe it has some large eye goldfish genes or something) Or maybe the healthy one is the one with the big eyes, i've just heard meny Places, that stunted fish get larger eyes and organs compared to body size, and this eventually kills them, so when i saw this Picture under and article about stunted goldfish, i just assumed the one with the large eyes is the stunted one.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Thanks. I cannot find the article. Is there an article? I can only get the two pics, which are descriptive.

The funny thing is that it is the same fish in both photos, the bottom is photoshopped to showcase the difference.

 

[Karl K]

Thanks. I cannot find the article. Is there an article? I can only get the two pics, which are descriptive.

The funny thing is that it is the same fish in both photos, the bottom is photoshopped to showcase the difference.

Well thats not helpful at all.. Let me find it. http://juliesgoldfishadventures.blogspot.dk/2010/10/recognizing-stunted-fish.html I dont know if it says anything about the organs. Heres some more: http://www.allabout-aquariumfish.com/2010/05/stunted-fish-condition.html dont know how reliable this article is. More: http://www.seriouslyfish.com/stunted-growth-means-stunted-lives/ ... Again you never no how reliable the sources are.

 

[Aweshade9]

Thanks, Aweshade. Don't get me wrong, please. Not digging under you. Only trying to learn... together. We are all in one boat

Let me understand this better. The first sentence is a wide statement about cichlids. Then one example. Does it mean you have a plethora of additional examples from your experience or the experience of others or from articles to support it? Sorry, I am not a cichlid guy, so I don't read much about them. Is this widely reported on cichlid forums?

If it is just one example (or even several examples), it would not support the breadth of the first statement and, furthermore, may have alternative explanations like diseases, mutations, other gene defects from inbreeding, line-breeding, etc.

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Ben (from Germany) pointed out an article to me about an experiment with stunting carps by not changing their tank water and the ensuing accumulation of the growth-inhibiting hormones in the water which stunts their growth dramatically. There was no mention of body proportions change or larger eyes etc.

Nothing of this sort was mentioned in the articles I've read on fish stunted in large numbers in small ponds - bream (Abramis abramis) and European perch.

I wanted to give personal experience about eye to body ratio, thats why there is only one example. Here is the most documented source I could find about eye to body ratio in cichlid http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?276365-Are-my-fish-stunted There isn't alot of reading about it, or at least not alot I can find. I'll try to find pictures of stunted cichlids and post them so you can see the eyes.

 

[Aweshade9]

http://www.cichlidae.com/askpam/viewtopic.php?t=121 In the second post, a paragraph under Size of Aquarium, it says "An adult stunted fish is easy to pick out because the head and eyes are larger and they are not in proportion to the body of the fish." That's all i have for now

 

[alexanian]

I can also confirm the eyes to body ratio being unproportional in stunted fish. I've kept angelfish on numerous occasions and in a group there will sometimes be a stunted individual. Now the eyes do not get abnormally large, the eyes are the same size as the other angelfish that grew normally, but the body of the stunted fish is much smaller then the rest of the group and hence u can notice that the eyes r bigger then they should be for their size. If the whole group is stunted I can understand how it can pass unnoticed, but when u have a healthy fish next to it to compare it with it becomes pretty obvious. This is also commonly reported by discus fish keepers and u can probably inquire further on discus forums if you want to learn more.

 

[muskieboy]

I'll post pictures as soon as I can. I'm spending a few days away from my home, though.

I regret to admit that my water changes have been infrequent. Because the tank has so few inhabitants, it does not often appear dirty. Because of this, I simply continue to add water when needed, and change the water filters and carbon every month. Now that you bring up hormones in the water, I'm reminded of what I read when I first bought these fish: that fewer water changes will stunt them... Sheesh, I feel so silly for not keeping that practice up! I'll correct that ASAP!

This collection of hormones may also explain why my pleco has seemed under for the past month. He has remained consistently pale: a light, washed out brown as opposed to his deep vibrant brown. If my ID sharks are under stress from poor growth, then perhaps he feels this same stress. (I had researched pH imbalances and plecos; after correcting the pH, I was never able to cause him to return to his deep color.)

The eyes on the ID sharks have not always been as large as they appear now. They are roughly 0.5" where they've normally hovered around 0.25" (respectively, I understand the larger the healthy fish, the large the healthy eye.) Only a few days before first posting, I sat down and studied them closely to look for any signs of illness that might relate to popeye. Months earlier, I put them through two rounds of both fungal and bacterial treatment with both associated Kordon products. When I noticed no change after the total of four treatments, I thought that maybe it was the natural change in the fish as they grew, and that I was just paranoid.

What type of filtration do you have?

You should be doing weekly or at least bi-weekly water changes of at least 30%. You do not need to replace your "water filter", this is where your nitrifying bacteria lives. If you need to clean it you can rinse the media in tank water. Also carbon serves no purpose unless your looking to rid of medication.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Agreed on the WCs. Good catch on "water filter". I missed that... although BigTrain does not appear a beginner...

Carbon may be useless, unless...

I posed this question several times. No answer so far. Does carbon adsorb (remove from water) such large organic molecules as hormones? I imagine it should but it'd be good to know with some surety.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Karl, Aweshade, Alex, thank you much for the helpful info and great links. I've started learning about this aspect.

So far, I surmise that the "too big eye" (and sometimes too big head and/or fins) occurs in stunted cichlids, including angels and discus, and fancy goldfish.

In catfish, the stunting is revealed mainly in skeletal abnormalities; no big eye symptom.

In all, of course, the stunting is revealed by the small size at maturity and short lifespan.

All the websites offered appear as reputable to me. Karl, SeriouslyFish is quite a reputable site. I found this article http://www.seriouslyfish.com/stunted-growth-means-stunted-lives/ very, very educational for me. For one, it appears I was mistaken about the very existence of the growth-inhibiting hormone. Stunting is rather the result of action of the growth hormone but modified by the body's stress response. Excellent article. I much recommend to all to read it.

http://www.bigfishcampaign.org/ is an excellent resource too. The way I see it, it is not against MFK and Co but simply for improvement in the area of our hobby that most of us appear to be passionate about.

 

[Karl K]

Karl, Aweshade, Alex, thank you much for the helpful info and great links. I've started learning about this aspect.

So far, I surmise that the "too big eye" (and sometimes too big head and/or fins) occurs in stunted cichlids, including angels and discus, and fancy goldfish.

In catfish, the stunting is revealed mainly in skeletal abnormalities; no big eye symptom.

In all, of course, the stunting is revealed by the small size at maturity and short lifespan.

All the websites offered appear as reputable to me. Karl, SeriouslyFish is quite a reputable site. I found this article http://www.seriouslyfish.com/stunted-growth-means-stunted-lives/ very, very educational for me. For one, it appears I was mistaken about the very existence of the growth-inhibiting hormone. Stunting is rather the result of action of the growth hormone but modified by the body's stress response. Excellent article. I much recommend to all to read it.

http://www.bigfishcampaign.org/ is an excellent resource too. The way I see it, it is not against MFK and Co but simply for improvement in the area of our hobby that most of us appear to be passionate about.

Good that you enjoyed the reading Sorry if i opened a can of worms. Anyways i just closed it I dont if you saw the Pictures of the Stunted RTC in the Seriuesly Fish article? Anyway it seems that catfish develop skeletal deformeties.