Silver Dollar Tank Size

[LiamC]

Hey,

I really like the idea of keeping some Silver Dollars in the future when I have a larger tank. My question is, what is really the minimum tank size you'd reccomend? I've seen people keeping them in quite small tanks, and yet at my local sealife centre they have some which are HUGE (and I do mean huge - almost the size of a human head). I know fish grow according to the size of their tank, but I didn't think they grew on that scale.

Any advice...

 

[fluttermoth]

First of all, I'd like to say; fish do not grow to the size of the tanks; this is no more than an old wives tale. All that happens is that the fishes growth is stunted and they become unhealthy due to the fact their internal organs don't stop growing, or they die from poor water quality.
It's like trying to keep a Great Dane dog from growing by keeping it in a broom cupboard!

Silver Dollars are very skittish and need to be kept in groups of at least 5. The absolute minimum would be a 48"x15"x18", so not that massive! You could have up to 7 in a tank that size.

 

[LiamC]

Hi

Thanks very much for your reply. The reason I got confused about Silver Dollars, as I mentioned, was because I saw some in my local Sealife Centre that were HUGE (I mean too large to keep in any home aquarium). Could these have been wild ones?

 

[fluttermoth]

There are a lot of different species called 'Silver Dollars' which grow to a variety of different sizes; they'll just be one of the bigger ones

 

[Davo86]

Personally I would not keep Silver Dollars in anything less than 5x2x2, SDs will get much bigger than people expect, especially if they have the space to grow into, 8" plus should be an easily achievable size for most of the commonly seen Silver Dollar species