• Folks, if you've recently upgraded or renewed your annual club membership but it's still not active, please reach out to the BOD or a moderator. The PayPal system has a slight bug which it doesn't allow it to activate the account on it's own.

Study on fish aggression and tank size

Hawkeye

Hawkeye

I think the caveats here should be explored further.

Is it a no brainer that larger tanks are more suitable for fish than smaller tanks? I would say for the most part yes - but would a goby/pistol shrimp really care between a 10g and a 100g?

I know my pearly jawfish has occupied the same spot in my 120 that is probably smaller than the size of my hand.

Another caveat (in my humble opinion) is that cichlids are known to be territorial right? I mean you can't just dump 5 juvis of them in a tank and hope for the best. Take a cardinalfish for example -it's quite the opposite. You put only one or two in a tank - it's just not natural for them. They school in the hundreds in the ocean.

The thing that most people fail to see when transitioning from FW to SW is that they think well the fish should get along. Neon Tetra, Angelfish, couple hatchetfish or zebrafish, etc. - thru them together -feed no problem. Then in SW they don't understand why the small tiny blue devil damsel, and domino damsels are causing such havoc for the poor firefish.

This is a true story:
A few years ago I was at AqOB and the lady was picking up a nemo (bagged already for her) and then she proceeds to the FW section and says she wants one of the blue lake vic cichlids. At that point she is asked how many tanks she has - she says ONE. Can't they go together?

:p
 
J

Jcurry@wesketch

Hawkeye said:
IThis is a true story:
A few years ago I was at AqOB and the lady was picking up a nemo (bagged already for her) and then she proceeds to the FW section and says she wants one of the blue lake vic cichlids. At that point she is asked how many tanks she has - she says ONE. Can't they go together?

:p
Click to expand...

The same thing used to happen so often when I worked in an LFS that I used ask if they had a saltwater tank before I even went and got a net. LOL
 
M

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
Phil I understand what you are saying, but certain fish should not be put in certain sized tanks. If they are, as the study confirms, this will lead to more aggression of the fish which can lead to death, stress, and disease. In your example a jawfish can be kept in a 30g tank, however a blue tang in a 30g tank is going to be a much bigger problem.
 
JRWOHLER

JRWOHLER

A lot of aggression depends on how territorial the fish is...I had a bicolor pseudocromis from a 10G-24G-120G the bigger the tank the less annoying he was. By the time he got to the 120 he was a reasonable fish. I use the term loosely but he was better. So fish size isn't the only thing. Generally you can say bigger tank is better....unless your talking sexy shrimp or something like that, I cannot imagine where a smaller tank is better.
 
Hawkeye

Hawkeye

mnat said:
Phil I understand what you are saying, but certain fish should not be put in certain sized tanks. If they are, as the study confirms, this will lead to more aggression of the fish which can lead to death, stress, and disease. In your example a jawfish can be kept in a 30g tank, however a blue tang in a 30g tank is going to be a much bigger problem.
Click to expand...

All too true. So how do we make good use of the study? Maybe it should be printed out and available as a flier at meetings? Or part of a sticky on the planning forum? You and i both know the lure of the hobby to many is to stack 8 yellow tangs in a 120 gallon circular tank. The episode from Tanked! where they had teh telephone booth and a "school" of yellow tangs reinforces that notion.
 
radiata

radiata

NJRC Member
I hope Ronald Oldfield didn't receive a government grant to do that study. Anyone have a link to the actual study, and not just a synopsis?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top