Cause of such variation in growth of angel fish…

[Magnum Man]

I’m assuming this is our fault ( or is it just as prevalent in wild caught angels??? )

I don’t have a lot of angels ( 4 right now, between 2 tanks ) but I have had a couple zebra lace angels, for close to a year now, they were bought at the same time, and were about the same size at purchase, and likely from the same parents ( speculating ) but one is nearly twice the size of the other, after a year…

I have a couple more in another tank, one I call my pet store mutt ( I don’t often buy fish from this pet store ) but they had 3 large angels, about an inch and a half bodies, with out the fins, so I bought one of those 3… they normally have angels about the size of a dime… that fish took a couple weeks to get settled in, coming from the pet store environment, but it’s growing like a feeder pig I’ve had it a couple months now, and it’s doubled in size… I tried doing an F-1 fish, but it didn’t make it in that tank, but I later added a blue diamond angel a little over a month ago, that is eating well, but hasn’t changed sizes in a month

Just wondering if the growth differences I’m seeing are related to how long these fish have been in captivity and the line breeding to get things like the zebra lace pattern ( pet store fish looks like an attempt at an orange cap platinum, but the orange kind of tapers or fades into the body, instead of a distinct line, like the cap varieties, so probably made the pet store by breeder grading???

 

[gwand]

I have variable sizes in my white cloud mountain minnows, CPDs and platys. I think it has to do with genetic variation and who is the more aggressive eater. My larger fish are definitely the food hogs of the tank.

 

[MaloK]

I agree with Gwand, those that eat the most. Grow a lot faster.

 

[Uberhoust]

I have raised a number of batches of angel fry and now only have ones that I bred. The size variation is about a factor of 3 times, 4 or 5 if you count the mass of the fish. Some of the fish never seemed to grow much, I even put the runts in a large tank of their own when they were younger but they never grew fast. I believe in my case there might have been some double recessive issues.

 

[gwand]

If genetics is the predominant factor you can breed for size easy enough.

 

[Colin_T]

I had very little variation in sizes of fish from the same batch of eggs. If there were size differences, it was from poor genetics (ie: fish with one eye or deformed body or fins). However, I wasn't breeding freshwater angelfish and they are severely inbred and do have a number of issues relating to size variation in the same batch caused by the inbreeding.

Some varieties of freshwater angelfish can grow slower than other varieties, but if you have 2 fish from the same batch and one is outgrowing the other, then it is either bullying (2 males and the bigger one dominates the smaller one), lack of food (often related to bullying), or health issues (intestinal worms, gill flukes), maybe poor genetics (the fish is physically weaker). Some fish can have more intestinal worms than others in the same batch and the fish with the most worms will grow the slowest.

I would deworm the tanks and see if the smaller fish grows after that. You should also watch out for intimidating behaviour from the bigger angelfish. This can appear as the bigger fish looking at the smaller fish and the small one swims away, to things like charging (rapidly swimming towards) the smaller fish, flaring its fins out at the smaller fish, getting to the food first and not letting the smaller fish have any or as much food.

Section 3 of the following link has info on deworming fish.

What to do if your fish has Stringy White Poop.

Fish do a stringy white poop for several reasons. 1) Internal Bacterial Infections causes the fish to stop eating, swell up like a balloon, breath heavily at the surface or near a filter outlet, do stringy white poop, and die within 24-48 hours of showing these symptoms. This cannot normally be...

www.fishforums.net

 

[Magnum Man]

Angels in general seem to exhibit more variation, than others… maybe a Cichlid thing, and or a worm, or intimidation thing, as suggested by @Colin_T, or a genetic thing, as indicated by @Uberhoust, or a combination??? I now have watched my Tin Foil barbs grow from babies to mature, and they are different sizes, but not the extreme witnessed in the angels…. The Zebra Laces seem like buddies, or siblings that get along… there is no intimidation between those two… the bigger one is dominant, but they are in a tank of mostly tetras, and the smaller one is always hunting for food, and I, if anything, have a tendency towards over feeding… so it’s getting plenty of food

 

[Uberhoust]

Of the fish I bred the albinos were definitely the smallest, the largest is a Portuguese blue but otherwise only the silvers (normal angelfish color) seem to grow to full size. I feel the smaller ones likely have an albino gene that is not expressed in the color but affects the size. Of two batches only the albinos had deformities. The parents did not have any obvious signs of carrying the albino gene but it is obviously present in both.

 

[GaryE]

When I bred angels, and I only did it a few times, I found body size similar, if you discounted the fins. I always looked for fish with the tallest fins I could find, and most of the offspring followed the parents. I find a lot of the new linebred varieties - blues, pearl scale etc have the fins I would sell to the store I didn't like - big bodies and stubby fins. They were my version of culls - fish I would never breed. They seem to be the norm with a lot of the strains now.
The elegant, tall finned types I liked (I bred the old marble, half black types) looked bigger, but I expect if I had weighed them, they would have been about the same as the "stubbies'. I really don't like the look of a scalare with a big body and stumpy fins. I don't care what they do to the scales or colours, it's bad breeding.