Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have an IBC system running, been running now for 14 months or so. Over time the gunk on the floor built up a bit making my fish hard to see, particularly with any murky water.

So, fo some unknown reason, for about a week now, which weirdly is since the last heavy rain, which normally CREATES murky water, my water has been crystal clear.

And I now have a puzzle...

I have SP's and catfish in there, and they seem to be going great. My SP's were 5cm fingerlings in Jan13 and are looking fit and active, although the 43º+ days a month or so back killed quite a few of them before I got things under control again. My tandanus are also fit and active, and the largest is about 20cm long and maybe 4 - 5cm across the head.

Here's the puzzle... although there is some variation in size among both species, almost all of them are 15cm or more - except for one catfish which is about 8cm long - it doesn't seem to have grown since about 12 months ago. Seriously somewhere on here I reported on my fish sizes back about 2 months after I got them and the bigger ones were that size.

If I didn't have a lot of reading telling me neither species will breed in a tank I'd think the little one is a tandanus baby, the difference is so great.

How does a fish survive and not grow?

Do I have a midget fish?

How come the SP's haven't eaten the poor little bugger?

Got two Bass in my big system that I got over 3 years ago and they would be about 100mm at best now. Some fish just dont grow very well and you will always have a range of sizes from the same batch

I have silver perch that are probably 6 years old, there are a couple of them that haven't really grown at all since I got them. One had a mouth deformity and he couldn't eat pellets, the other I don't know, just never grown.....

Yep, same here. Had a few that never really grew at all.

Hm... one might get them together and breed from them and start a new craze for miniature fish.

I want microsharks!!!

Me too,
I want micro-sharks with freeekin laser beams.......

Hey theres a thought. Bullsharks that only grew to 5' instead of 15' would be great.