The true size of Arapaima gigas

[kydsexy]

i love intelligent discussions!!! it's been a while since i had one

im not saying that genetics don't play a role in fish, but it's just not as significant a role as in humans for example. your guppies could have displayed different growth patterns due to amount of food being consumed, overall health from birth, aggression towards one another in the tank setting. the social dynamics of fish are not fully understood, and this can have a drastic effect on the growth of an animal.
Example: salmonid farms & stocking plans
if you visit any salmon/trout farm, you will notice that from the time of hatch, the fish that do not make it to adulthood are the fish that came from unfertilized eggs. during my college years, i visited over 25 salmonid farms and contacted plenty others on their survival rate. over 90% of the hatcheries surveyed boasted a survival rate of 95% or greater and the other were over 80% success rate. there was also a consistent growth rate amongst all of the hatcheries individual growth rates of fish. except for the breeders held from year to year, the size of released fish were with 1/2" of one another.

i think it's cool that you're in Germany. Germany was the first country to successfully raise trout in a fish hatchery. you should call around and ask some of the hatcheries what they feel about lifelong growth rates

 

[Acheloos]

Very interesting information. I don´t think there are any trout hatcheries next towhere I live, but it would be surely interesting to visit one. You are doubtless right, in fish the amount of food is much more important for the size than in humans, and with genetics it´s the other way. Just look how immense the differences are between the trouts which live in the small streams which are only some inches deep, and which feed only on small insects and their larvae. It will probably mature at 20cm and never grow much bigger, but if it would live in a big and deep lake, it would possibly reach a length of 1m or more.
But there are still the genetics, even for fish. My guppies lived all among the same conditions, with the same temperature and food. If you look at fish in natural habits, you will also always find some very big specimens, which live among the same conditions as others, but which grew much more.

 

[Aquaman_95]

Awsome! I love Monster fish and these fish really are!

 

[Zoodiver]

freshwater stingrays are the largest freshwater fish.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/photogalleries/stingray-pictures/index.html


at 4.3 meters, a gigas would easily dwarf this ray and a claim such as "There are accounts of freshwater stingrays growing as large as 1,000 pounds (450 kilograms), which could make them the largest freshwater fish in the world, Hogan said" probably would not be made by any accredited biologist, especially fishing in Asian waters. I have to agree with Acheelos that minus freak species, which none have been verified, A. gigas probably reaches around 3m and 200kg.

Does anyone have any proof that they are capable of growing larger?

My thought on Hogan is that he's out to get attention and not qualified to do what he is setting out to do. All large size rumors of these rays are JUST rumors, and nobody has found one larger than an arpaima gigas.

 

[kydsexy]

we must always remember tho, even living in the same environment with the same feeding schedule and everything else the same, if i swim at the top and you swim 3 inches lower than me, i might get to eat more food than you because you choose to wait til the food comes to you! but anyways,

thank you for the honestly intelligent discussion! i needed it, im headed back to get my masters and this really motivated me to become a teacher even if im teaching the wrong information? lol. be sure to try and find a few German hatcheries, my old aquaculture professor had a ton of pictures from European hatcheries in general, absolutely stunning

 

[Arowana1]

I've got a photo of an Arapaima out of one of my books that was published in 1994 and they have a picture ( Jurassic Fishes, on page 4) of a Arapaima caught near Manaus in fishing nets that looks to be about 3 to 3.5 meters. The photo has a fisherman in the frame for some scale (guesstimate 5 to 5'6" tall) and the fish looks double his size. The scales are as large or larger than the man ears. I'm would post a photo however I'm not quite sure how to scan and download photos yet. This fish is longer than any of the fishes posted from the Thai fishing site listed earlier however looks alot leaner.

 

[Zoodiver]

This one?

 

[kydsexy]

awesome!

 

[Arowana1]

Yup that's the photo, it seems like it is over 3 meters or 9 feet possibly more. The book has a second photo that is claimed to be of an arapaima that is 9 to 10 foot however their is no scale for the fish in the photo. Zoo diver thanks for posting the photo.

 

[dirtyblacksocks]

My thought on Hogan is that he's out to get attention and not qualified to do what he is setting out to do. All large size rumors of these rays are JUST rumors, and nobody has found one larger than an arpaima gigas.

they used to say the same thing about giant/colossal squid