Watching fish age.

[Paul B]

Over the years I have aquired many fish as babies or very young and watched them grow to old age. They seem to age almost like us and some even get wrinkles. I remember one of my first percula clowns that I got when he was 1/2" long. He grew to only about 1/1/2" and got to about 14 years old. He was never sick and did even get a few wrinkles. Or it looked like that anyway.
I find that fish get more secretive also as they age. My cusk eel sometimes would swim around as a youngster but as he aged, I never saw him unless it was at night with a flashlight. He died in an accident at the age of 18.
I also got my fire clown as a tiny fish and I thought he was a red hawkfish at first. He is now about 16 and very ornery. I can't put my hand in the tank without getting bit. This biting started a couple of years ago. Of course now he (or she) is spawning so they get mean in that state anyway.
OK not really mean, but protective. He fights all day with my long nose butterfly who likes eating in the fireclown's nesting area.
This pair of watchman gobi's started off as tiny, skinny yellow fish. Then they turned into grayish brown fish that would always stay together in the front. After a few years they started to spawn and lay their eggs in the back of the tank but after they hatched, they would come back into the front. Gradually they started to stay in the back and under rocks and I can never get a full glimpse of them anymore. They are also hard to feed because I have to look for them under the rocks with a flashlight, then shoot some clams into their den. They love fresh clams.
I don't remember how old they are, maybe 10 or 12 so they have at least another decade to facinate me.
THis is one of them as a baby

Here they are about a year old, always in the front and always together

Then they got old and fat

But they still have time for each other as evidenced by her with a batch of eggs

 

[dtd87]

Thats so cool. I'm glade you still have the photos to show the progression

 

[WABlonde]

Such a sweet write-up.

 

[dutchschoon]

that is really cool.

 

[Paul B]

I love to watch fish age, they start out kind of cute like us with big eyes and flat faces.
This little burrfish that I collected in the Atlantic is about as large as a marble here, see how cute he is.

Here he is 2 years later which is just a teenager in burrfish life. Still cute but diferent.
I donated him to a public aquarium a few weeks ago.

 

[NWDiver]

Nice as always Paul, thanks!

 

[Krish]

I'd say I had one fish that I really loved that I bought actually before it was supposed to be on the market to sell which was a baby arowana which still had it's yolk sac attached to it. Everyone that I knew that had arowana's fed theirs live food, but my arowana never tasted live food. I brought him up on pellets, flakes as well as he took other different types of food as well. One morning I glanced at the tank and didn't see him. I said that's strange because being almost a foot long now, there's no way he could be hiding. The tank had a canopy, but no glass top and the back of the canopy was open. Well when I opened the stand to take a look towards the back of the tank, sure enough he jumped out and was on the floor dead. . That really upset me as I really loved that fish. Always followed me when I got near to the tank. I think that was the only fish ever I was attached to and I guess it's because I had it from a very young age and put a lot of time and effort into him watching him grow.

 

[dragoneggs]

Wow Paul! Anytime you want to share 'experience' stories like this, we are all ears... I mean eyes!

 

[Paul B]

Thanks Dragoneggs and NY Diver

 

[Paul B]

Fish must have a hard time adapting to life in a tank. A tang for instance in the sea is never alone, they are always living in a school and think as a group. When they are swimming in a school of maybe 100 individuals they all turn in unison as if of one mind, but they are not. They all have a seperate mind but they act like clones.
All of a sudden one will slightly turn, then the one will turn a little more and so on and in an instant they are all going in a new direction. Then they all at once dive to the rocks where they feed on algae and each one "lands" on a rock right next to his twin. They never bump into each other or fight. Wherever they happen to hit, thats where they feed. In a tank they don't get the opportunity to do that or interact with others of the same species. Even if you have two or three, that doesn't help that fish.
Their teeth are made for scraping the thinest growth of algae from an irregular surface, not grabbing artificial flakes or biting lettuce in a clip. They usually get used to this but are always stressed. If they had a voice I am sure we would hear a lot of screaming and crying.
Bottom dwelling fish like damsels and gobies have other concerns. We have an easier time feeding most of them but those types of fish that don't school are constantly looking for a mate. Most healthy fish fill up with eggs, even if there is no mate around. Those eggs can stay in the fish for a time but then they are re absorbed or cast into the water to feed other fish.
Developing eggs puts a large burden on a fish as eggs are mostly oil. To make eggs fish need to eat much more food than normally necessary because eggs could be 1/4 of the fishes weight and they can spawn every couple of months. The natural way to dispose of these eggs is to mate and raise the babies (or at least eat them). For fish to make eggs they must be in excellent health, much better than captive fish are and they need much richer food, flakes and pellets don't usually do it. A fish can live for decades on that type of food but it will hardly if ever produce eggs and a female fish that does not produce eggs is in far inferior condition than a spawning fish or at least a fish in breeding mode.
It must also be very stressful for the male fish who wants to protect a nesting territory of a few yards and only has a few inches. I know in my 6' long tank there is not much room for fish to swim back and forth the length of the tank due to the rockwork, but thats what my long nose butterfly wants to do. He has nothing else to do and that particular fish likes to poke their noses in holes looking for worms. On these trips which occur every 30 seconds or so he must swim past my fireclown. This fireclown is old and has been guarding a nesting spot in the same place for about 16 years.
There is always a confrontation when the butterfly passes. The clown attacks and the butterfly sticks his dorsal spines in his face.
This must be frustrating for both fish and I am sure that they don't remember one trip from the next so they don't know enough to keep out of each other's way. That reminds me of when I was a small kid walking to school.
(Uphill in the snow both ways) There was this house with a big dog that I had to walk past and the dog would always bark at me and try to jump over the fence. I was always terrified to walk there but my brain is slightly larger then a long nose butterfly so I knew to wait until the dog ran to the back of the house, then I would run past.
Fish on the other hand have a 3 second memory like a goldfish swimming around in a bowl.
"Look a castle"........"Oh Wow, what a neat castle"......"OMG, that is some cool castle"........."Who would have thought, a castle"......"Who put that castle there"

 

[Paul B]

I took this picture in Bora Bora and long nose butterflies are rather common there and they have no trouble living with the very large fish of the South Pacific. They have their niche with their long nose and can pull food from deep holes. The wild ones in the picture seem to have longer snouts than the ones in our tanks. Maybe because those fish are not collected in Bora Bora being so remote from just about everywhere. I am sure their snouts kept evolving longer to get at those elusive worms because other fish there also have long snouts to get at that food but no where near as long as these butterflies.
They don't dive in the coral as that nose is very fragile and their jaw looks as if it would break just by thinking about diving in coral. If they damage that mouth, they die. They can not eat much at one time and must forage all day. They also can not tear food into pieces like many fish can. They try by shaking their heads but those tiny teeth are practically useless for tearing and I would imagine just by the physics of their anatomy that if they shake too hard they would crack their jaw.
These types of fish along with mandarins, seahorses and pipefish need to eat at least a few times a day, preferably all day but that is not usually possable in a captive reef which is why these types of fish are considered "difficult". It is not their fault that they are difficult, but ours. They live quite well if their needs are met especially in regard to food. If we were fed half a cow once a day and were not allowed to use our hands. And it was consumed by other creatures in a matter of seconds, we would also starve,
But if that cow was cut up in tiny pieces and re plenished every few minutes, we would not have a problem.
I personally feed my fish in the morning with some live worms. That is mainly to keep the long nose healthy and many of the other fish are not up yet because they can eat more food at one seating so they get along with the last meal in the afternoon.
Then I give the tank new born brine shrimp every day.
The shrimp are for the tiny bluestripe pipefish, the clown gobies and some corals like the gorgonians. The other fish eat them but I think they think of them like M&Ms because they are just too small to supply much nutrition.
If I did not feed worms and baby shrimp, I would not be able to keep these fish long enough for them to die of old age. I would not have a fish that I was not willing to care for. The fish we keep should not have to adapt to our world but we should at least try the best we can to have the world we create for them to be as close as possable to their world. We can not give them an ocean to swim in but we can and should at least supply them with what they need and what they recognize as food.
No matter how nutritious it is, if they don't recognize it as food, they will not eat it.