YWG - 66 days and STILL tiny

[NicoleC]

Any ideas, guys? My little YWG baby is still soooo tiny. He eats, he scoots around, he almost acts like an adult but doesn't hide when he sees me unless I startle him when I stick something in the tank, and then he's off like a flash. He's sort of yellow tinted on the front half, but definately not bright yellow, and the back half (tail) is still pretty much clear.) He's got a nice fat belly, especially after meals.

This is not right, I think. Oceanarus reported babies 1/2" to 3/4" at day 42, but still on rotifers and BBS then, CE/BBS at day 56.

I had Lad on BBS around day 30 and CE about day 37. (If memory serves, but the dates are close.) Otohime only at 58 days.

On the other hand, they reported babies only 1 1/2" long at 4-5 months. That's still a lot of growing to do.

So how far behind IS Lad? And what, if anything, should I be doing about it?

[NicoleC]

Anyone have any thoughts?

[mwp]

Well, I mulled this one over when you originally posted it but figured I don't have any watchman goby experience. But I do have plenty of general fish rearing experience...

Considering how only one made it through this far, it's safe to say that it may have gone through some pretty rough patches there....it could be a bit stunted.

The only thing you can do to get fish to grow as fast as they can is to pump 'em full of food and keep the water quality pristine. Heavy feedings and small daily water changes? I'm pretty sure I'm only telling you what you already know. Hopefully someone else may have a more exact answer for you!

MP

[NicoleC]

I'm already feeding way more than he can eat and doing small daily water changes. With just the one little tyke in there, water quality is not an issue and is very easily kept up. The daily changes are more habit and chronic over-parenting than anything else. :)

I wonder if there is a social or environmental component to fish devlopement? Although baby fish don't live together in the wild, as far as I know, neither is he feeling any environmental pressure. No predators, no competition for food, and not even any real stimuli.

I am still wondering if I should add him to the clownfish tank. I'd need to put him in a protected area just in case. Or perhaps nudging the tanks next to each other and taking away the side barriers would help.

[mwp]

Well, it certainly doesn't hurt for him to have some "competition" that encourages further feeding as well as gets him burning some extra calories. FWIW, I believe one of the LFS here recently brought in some tank raised YWG - all are around 1.5" in length and BRIGHT yellow - a lot of them have deformed mouths (thus, why I think they may be tank raised).

Not that any of that really helps. I can say that yeah, I do feel like solo fry generally don't grow that well, but I'm more likely to attribute that to earlier developmental issues (i.e. if a human doesn't get the right nutrition and the right time, he may never reach his genetic "potential"...same thing here with the lone goby...).

Of course, my personal opinion is WHO THE HECK CARES! Congrats on having this guy make it well past metamorphosis!

Matt

[Peter Schmiedel]

Nicole,

I think oyu can definately rule out the social factor as a reason for slow growing.

The only enviromental componets should be temp and water quality. As you maintain both perfectly I dont see any issue.

Guess you will only know if you have a second batch to compare, mainwhile I would still stick on the littlke fellow and try to feed him up. Belly feeling is not to place him with the clown's.

[NicoleC]

Well, until some of these babies grow up to get sold, I don't have room for any more batches. My clowns should be ready in a couple of months to go.

[oceanarus]

A thing to keep in mind that is particularly true with this fish. They grow at differing rates. You can't definitively say at day X your fish will be Y long. We have seen that within the same batch, fish that were 3X larger than their smallest siblings. There was enough of a size difference at times that predation became a problem. Your particlur fish may just have been the slow grower and you have no others from that batch to compare against.