Sipping my caffeine this morning, and pondering life... ( of larger wild caught fish )

Again, I’m blessed with how all my tanks are running right now, and “Sid” my “Hypoptopoma thoracatum” ( Giant Oto ) is working the glass and caught my attention… I put “Hypoptopoma thoracatum” in quotes, as that is what it’s supposed to be.. I have 3, and Sid is obviously a different species, than the other 2… but it was noted by the seller, at time of purchase, that these came in, extra large… larger in fact, than sources say they get…

This is Sid... his eyes are mounted much lower, than on the other 2 ... I think he can watch me, when stuck on the front glass... something most fish would not be able to do...



I recently got a group of Jumbo Cardinal Tetras, that came in bigger than sources say they get, so I’m assuming they were wild caught, as no one raising fish would want to hold on to them long enough to get to jumbo size…

Also assuming the bulk of my Hillstream’s are wild caught, as several of those came in as big as sources say they get… once they come at adult size, guessing it would be hard to tell, how long they have been adults, especially if there is no growth noted, in your tanks…

Admittedly the Cardinals being smaller, and in a school, are harder to keep track of life, of a specific fish, but a fish like Sid is very noticeable…

So I’m pondering how long I can expect, an adult wild caught fish to live??? Sid is quite personable, and the only one like him, so he’s big enough, I’ll know when he dies, and being a single, there is no question, on which one he is… I should try to find when I bought him, just to monitor his life here…

Looks like I got him, in the group, with the other two, in May of this year… he looks to be thriving, so I expect he’ll die of old age, with the varied diet he gets… he’s around 6 inches, and may have thickened up a bit, but don’t think he’s grown any longer…

You never know the age of fish - I've even seen farms clearly selling off breeding stock as it aged out, as jumbo fish. Most fish from anywhere tend to be young, as lives in the wild have predator problems, but even commercial fish have no guarantees there.

I went about 20 years only buying wild caught fish (with the odd fish bred by club members), and I found the lifespans to be long. I will never know if that's because I got better at keeping fish, or because I got better fish to keep. I suspect the latter.

@Magnum Man - you are in a familiar zone. You like fish that aren't well known. If you look up lifespan, you'll only see guesses for fish that haven't been in the hobby for long. If the species has only been in the hobby for 3 or 4 years, how would we know if it lives to 15? You have auriantacum, I believe. When they arrived, they lived for weeks or months. Now, with a little learning involved, shippers are no longer half-killing them, and how long they thrive is up for grabs.

Thinking about it, I suspect, that probably does happen, that every few years, farms would sell off their older breeders in favor of younger more vigorous / fertile breeders... ( in the case of the Cardinals )

I have had really big cardinals, as well as cardinals that lived from 5 to 7 years and died of disaster, not old age.They reach jumbo size at over a year, so I think they're probably bred once and unloaded. The little ones you see get to sale size in about 3 months, if how they've grown when I bred them here is any measure.