Un-stunting Clown Loaches

[hyak2]

Hi, I have been given 4 new clown loachs from someone closing their 39 gal tank down. All 4 are around the 4 1/2 inch mrk but are about 9 years old! So I am assuming they are stunted? I've put them in a mature 400 litre tank by themselves to give them a bit of space, but is it possible that I can get these fish to start to grow again? what can I do to encourage them to grow?

Any advice anyone can give would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[CrashingWaves]

First of all, not to question how credible you are, but how do you know they're 9 years old? Obviously it's possible for them to be that old, it just isn't likely, and I'm really not sure how you would know.

But anyway, I really don't know if it's possible to unstunt a fish if they're that old, it seems like it could be possible though. I did with a clown loach, but he was only a year or so old. Regardless of if they grow more or not, they'll still be great fish. Just feed them a healthy, balanced diet and they'll do awesome. Oh and, of course, don't forget the snails .

God Bless,
Joshua

 

[hyak2]

First of all, not to question how credible you are, but how do you know they're 9 years old? Obviously it's possible for them to be that old, it just isn't likely, and I'm really not sure how you would know.

But anyway, I really don't know if it's possible to unstunt a fish if they're that old, it seems like it could be possible though. I did with a clown loach, but he was only a year or so old. Regardless of if they grow more or not, they'll still be great fish. Just feed them a healthy, balanced diet and they'll do awesome. Oh and, of course, don't forget the snails .

God Bless,
Joshua

Hi, I've known the person they came from for a long time so I know they are at least this age, they've always been healthy disease-wise. They have all grown since she got them as tiny babies, just not more than this. I suspect maybe the cause was dietry + infrequent tank maintainence and so on, but I haven't ever had an old fish that has not been of normalish size - so I wonder if this can be sorted out by understocking and keeping the diet good or infact if there's anyone on here who has already done this with a fish?

 

[andywg]

Stunting is a strange one. A fish will continue to grow until the day it dies, but at certain times in its life it will grow quicker than others. In addition to this the growth is dependant on a number of factors (water temperature, availability of food, level of certain chemicals in the water). I doubt you will ever "un-stunt" a fish to the point that it catches up with its peers and attains the same length.

The "stunting causes death and disease" is not the clearest thing to prove. When discussing the potential for organs to keep growing while the body doesn't Bignose found some science that shows that stunted fish are just as healthy as regular fish on the inside, all else being equal. Indeed, rather than leading to an early death it may well be that stunting is a life saving tool by the fish to prevent it growing too large to move in a limited space (within reason of course, no way you'll get away with an RTC in a 10 gallon).

You will probably notice a small spurt of growth from moving the fish over, I know that CFC's fish seem to put spurts on every time they are upgraded.

 

[CrashingWaves]

Another thing I would like to mention is, they very possibly are stunted, however clown loaches tend to grow fairly quickly to about that size and then their growth rate tends to decrease greatly after that. As stated above they will go in growth spurts from time to time though.

God Bless,
Joshua

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

The clown loaches may grow a bit now they are in a large tank, but they probably won't grow that large. Regular water changes are very important to the growth of clown loaches, the cleaner you keep the water in the tank the more likely the loaches are to grow more.

A long time ago i adopted 2 goldfish (a comet and a common) that had been kept in a 15gallon tank for years on end and the goldfish were only about 3-4inches long. I've had them in a 125gallon tank with some other goldfish for over a year now and the two adopted goldfish have grown to about 9inches+ . They probably won't grow to 20inches like some common and comet goldfish are capable of, but i expect them to grow to at least 12-15inches+ long hopefully as the years go by .