Fish Stunting

[cuticom]

It's kinda long story but the basics are my Mum believes in the "fish will only grow as big as their tank and be perfectly healthy" Anyway last week her pond broke, and much to my shock she scoops out 3 tiny goldfish and dumps them in my tank till she fixes the pond. These fish have gotta be at least 5-6 years old, I remember buying them when I was a little kid, they were my first fish. After I almost killed them a few times (hey I was little, they looked hungry) they mysteriously disappeared, guess I know where they went now.

Amber, Opal and Jade are three single tailed fish, Ambers a comet, Jade and Opal are long tailed shubunkins (I think they're called Bristol shubunkins?) Anyway the fish are no more then 3 inches long and as I said 5-6 years old. For now they're in my 50g tank, along with Onyx a little one inch black Moor, who resides in the tank by himself.

Anyway, the only info I can find on fish stunting is that it's bad for them, will make them die an early death etc. Nothing on what happens to the fish after it's been stunted or any proper info.

I was wondering if any of you guys knew anything about it? ie is there any chance of the fish growing? As I'm really tempted to just leave them in my 50g (60g including filter capacity) but the thing is, if they're gonna grow I don't really want to keep them cos the last thing I want is to stunt my little black moor too.

Some pics
Amber
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n12/cutencoolcages/stuntedgoldfish007resize.jpg

Opal
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n12/cutencoolcages/stuntedgoldfish012resize.jpg

Jade
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n12/cutencoolcages/stuntedgoldfish020editresize.jpg

We will have a 75 000+ liter koi pond finished by wintertime that they can go in, but they gotta grow, otherwise they'll get eaten by the birds, Lord knows how they survived in that little 25g pond for 6 years.

Any help is appreciated

Thanks
Emma

Edit- Oops forgot to add my tank has a water capacity of 60g and has a homemade filter which is designed to aerate the water as much as possible and provide a huge amount of media for biological filtration. The water runs over sponges, into a shallow catchment area filled with ceramic noodles, then waterfalls into a second catchment area filled with 4 kg of broken terracotta pots before falling back into the tank via another series of water falls, it also has two large air pumps running at all times and is turned over 10 times per hour. LOL yes I overcompensated but I really want Onyx my little moor to grow as big as possible.

[liv2padl]

fish maintained in tanks which are too small or in conditions which are too crowded, develop severe stress syndrome. these fish do not exhibit proper color, do not develop proper fin form, do not exhibit proper metabolic development, do not exhibit normal behaviour, do not develop proper musculature, do not develop properly functioning organ systems and as a result, slowly lose their inherant resistance to disease. this results in a significantly shortened lifespan and along the way, lots of diseases for which the poorly conditioned fish is a good target. do they grow after they're stunted? no ... it's too late. their organs and metabolic systems are already in stress. there's not much more to know. they die prematurely ... that's it.

[cuticom]

Thanks.

Thats what I was thinking, I'm sorta surprised they lived so long though. Hmm do you think I should leave them in the 50g tub? If they won't grow any further they should only present a fairly small bioload, and I'd say they'd much prefer the clean filtered water of the tank to the sludgy tiny unfiltered space of their pond.

[liv2padl]

I'm sorta surprised they lived so long though they haven't really ... goldfish live for 30 years. 6 years is not very long and they certainly won't make it full term.


do you think I should leave them in the 50g tub? as long as it's filtered and the heat is stable, yes.

[cuticom]

I know goldfish live 30 years but 6 six years of stunting in cramped conditions is surprising, especially that the only water change they would've had was when it was rained. Ah well will let them stay in the tub and see how they do.

[cuticom]

Hmmm interesting, the three stunted goldies are beginning to look better, more rounded and more in proportion, I guess the effect of clean water and good food is healing them to some degree.

[Derringer]

Be nice if there were some guidelines to go by. From what I have read thus far it seems to be a guessing game; and thus people just say put your 1" goldfish in a tank big enough for its future adult size.

I guess I need to do some more research because I would think someone has documented/charted the growth progression of various species of fish. I would like to know for instance tank sizes by age of fish so that you could start your 1" goldfish in 5-10-20 gal tanks and know when to size up to 30-50 gal; then to 100 gal etc then to pond if necessary.

Knowing 'when' stunting might take place could prevent it from happening. Personally I could never see myself sticking a couple 1" goldfish into a 50+ gal aquarium all by thereselves just because one day they could be 16" or more a piece.

So, what is the growth rate? 1/4" per month? 2" per year? 8" per year? Is that type of data available?

Curious!

[cuticom]

Just another update on the stuntlings, Amber the comet has died, it appears to be from some longstanding deficiency but the two shubunkins are growing quite well now, and I'm in the process of setting up a 100g pond for them, which should hopefully do them for the rest of their lives, if not can always dig them a 300g pond.

[Kyohti]

I wouldn't keep them with your moor. They are two very different body-types... the subunkins are designed to be a lot faster and more streamlined and they might harass their slower, dumpier cousin and steal his share of tje food from him since he's too slow to get his normal amount of food with faster fish around.

carp-style with carp-stye... egg-shape with egg-shape. Mixing the two usually leads to a smaller and less happy egg-shaped fish for the above-mentioned reasons.