Panther or spotted grouper?

stellablu

stellablu

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Nov 10, 2004
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Port St. Lucie, FL
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Does anyone have one of these guys? I'm interested in hearing about them and any advice you have. Just window shopping for salt set-ups and want to hear about experiences caring for panther groupers.

Does anyone know how fast they grow?

Thanks
 
Very. You can have a foot long fish within the year- easily.
And they are ravenous, mean, and have really big mouths- kind of limits the tankmates.

You will need an extremely large dedicated tank to keep this fish. Please be aware that they don't stay cute and spotty for very long either. Most fish boards are littered with "What should I do with my Panther grouper?" and "Panther Grouper free to good home." posts.
 
The LFS I go to has juvenile and adult panther groupers. The adults being just at a foot long and they still have the same vibrant spotting as the younger fish.

A few of the tankmates in various tanks were this beautiful spotted & striped angel (I'll find out the name, I can't remember) and a black and white striped eel. They warned me that anything the size of his mouth or smaller was lunch.
 
As far as I know they get to be over 24 inches, and need over 100gallons. I've seen very large ones returned to my lfs becuase of their size/eating habbits... also there is one in a restruant thats kept in a tank with sharks and the grouper is around 26".
 
I tend to like single species tanks better anyhow. That way I can focus more attention on individuals rather than groups. They seem more like my "babies" in that aspect.

It would be really cool if you could sneak a picture the next time you stop by that restaurant! :)
 
(I'll see if they let me, they have a tall sea horse tank, and a reef tank, but the reef tank isn't that cool... tons of aptasia (really cool huh? hahaha) and they also have a clarki clown which is around 7" (thats big) and they have a tang in a tank with a shark and a huge moray eel and a very large volitan lion, i'm not sure why the tang is in there but they said they have never had a problem... yellow tang, as far as i remember)
 
I full grown adult Panther Grouper (Chromileptis altivelis) isnt a foot long. You're looking at more like 2' - 2.5'+. A friend of mine, that owns a local fish store, has an 800gal. tank with a 6 yr. old Panther that is 3' long.

They grow quickly, like Cearbhaill said. In the end, you'd need probably a 180gal. - 240gal. to house an adult Panther.

They are both fish eaters and invert eaters, so pretty much anything you have in your tank, that's smaller then their mouth, is going to be lunch.
 
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