by Malli » April 18th, 2006, 12:49 pm
Unfortunately, the idea that goldfish and koi only get as large as the space they can grow in is not correct; in actuality, as they grow they produce more and more waste, and if their environment is not large enough to dissapte the waste sufficiently or house enough bacteria to process it, they become stunted, wich is where that idea comes from. Fish waste is not visible to the naked eye and therefore it was thought that the fish were growing to the size of their environment, when in fact what was seen was simply a tough fish surviving nasty conditions. I've seen stunted Tropical fish as well. On the other end of the spectrum, I had a large pleco in a 20 gallon tank, that by the time I gave him away, could not turn around in the tank widthwise without bending his body, at that point it was him and a couple guppies in there and I was doing 30% water changes and weekly gravel vacuums to keep up with his waste.
Malli