Estimating the Need for Swimming Space for Aquarium Fishes

JumboShrimp

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Just a general thought-- sometimes even if your fish don't go up high on a regular basis, in times of aggression one will often take advantage of the extra head-room (above the rocks) to zoom up and out of the danger posed by another fish. :)
 

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Jay thank you for this incredible article. I replied to you on a separate thread asking questions before coming across your article. This sort of information is well thought out and provides an actual quantifiable determination of needed space for specific species of fish as well as understanding the how's and why's. Priceless information buddy. Thank you for all your hard work and for furthering the knowledge of this particular Reefer!
 

Dburr1014

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Old writing but good to understand the needs.

Question: why is there such a disparity between sizes?

I looked up a purple tang, 36 cm record, 10 cm common. What?
Which number is used x 0.8 for the calculation? 14 inches seems way big and 4 inches seems to be still a juvenile.
 
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Jay Hemdal

Jay Hemdal

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Old writing but good to understand the needs.

Question: why is there such a disparity between sizes?

I looked up a purple tang, 36 cm record, 10 cm common. What?
Which number is used x 0.8 for the calculation? 14 inches seems way big and 4 inches seems to be still a juvenile.
You need to be careful using Fishbase data - some of it is computer generated, and there is little human error checking. In other cases, they have some outlying record in their database (often a super male) that skews the record size. You’ll see that in some wrasses and tangs.

The 0.8 multiplier (80%) of the adult Fishbase size is from a study I did where I measured a large group of decades old fish in a public aquarium (fully grown) to the full size given in Fishbase, and those ran, on average, 80% of the Fishbase value. If you want to be more conservative, just use the raw Fishbase value.

Jay
 

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