Fish Size - Wild vs Captivity

[RaymondL]

I understand that most fish have a longer life expectancy in the wild versus in captivity, does the same apply for the size of the fish in that in the wild they get much much larger than kept in captivity?

I don't necessary understand the science why fish don't/can't grow to their natural size in an aquarium, or the fact that they don't live as long as well in captivity, so if anyone can chime in that'll be appreciative of.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I understand that most fish have a longer life expectancy in the wild versus in captivity, does the same apply for the size of the fish in that in the wild they get much much larger than kept in captivity?

I don't necessary understand the science why fish don't/can't grow to their natural size in an aquarium, or the fact that they don't live as long as well in captivity, so if anyone can chime in that'll be appreciative of.

I did an informal study on this years ago using the maximum size of fish listed on fish base.org compared to the length fish reached in public aquariums. These were long term captives, so full growth was assumed. There is some variation between species, but on average I found that fish reached about 80% of the fish base maximum length.

Jay