fish

[Pointy_kitty]

LOL sorry about that title......... very original
can anyone tell the the age of a fish??

 

[Adrinal]

probably not by site... there are no growth rings or anything if thats what you mean.. You can guess with the size. Some fish change colors so you can determin their stage... but not age.

 

[modernhamlet]

LOL sorry about that title......... very original
can anyone tell the the age of a fish??

No, but when they start babbling about how in their day they had to travel in schools... upstream... both ways... without a filter... Then you know they're getting a little long in the dorsals.

*taps the microphone*

Is this thing on?

 

[Doggfather]

they get bigger

 

[LoveMyOscar]

...

 

[Landlocked]

The only way to really tell a fish's age is to keep track of how old it is yourself.


Or you could just ask the fish itself . . .

 

[Adrinal]

LOL sorry about that title......... very original
can anyone tell the the age of a fish??

No, but when they start babbling about how in their day they had to travel in schools... upstream... both ways... without a filter... Then you know they're getting a little long in the dorsals.

*taps the microphone*

Is this thing on?

 

[Idolz]

Cut it in half and count the rings...
No don't do that, I don't know really.

 

[dbollack]

To age them accurately you either are there when they hatch or wait for them to be dead. Once dead the fish's otoliths can be removed and split in half. The rings of the otolith are added daily I believe, and will tell you the age. If a laser test called inductively-coulpled plasma mass spectrometry is applied you can also find out the environmental history such as water parameters at each point in its life.
Scale rings can also be counted but are less reliable because they are dependent on growth of the fish, so if the fish isn't growing time passes and it is not recorded while the rings of an otolith are laid down no matter what.
A side note, I sure wouldnt want to have to analyze an otolith because the largest one that I dissected out of a rainbow trout was as big as a guppy eye (imagine doing tropicals like tetras).