How long should your saltwater aquarium fish stay alive?

[Frosted_reef]

I have two percula clowns that I have had for 16 years now. They have endured 3 moves from one end of Canada to the other and done extremely well. They still constantly have a clutch of eggs the are taking care of.

 

[Daydreamer]

I’ve had my pair of clowns for almost 9 years

 

[300gallon]

Purple tang used as profile pic, I have had him over 21 years, still going strong

How many times has your amazing friend been rehomed in those 21 years and how many times have you changed the way you care for him or her i.e. tanks, pumps, skimmers, lighting? How much did it cost to keep up with technology or you the old fashion guy like me who believes if it isn't broken don't fix it!

 

[McPuff]

Wrasses are going to live about 7 years and in my experience that is pretty accurate... had 3 that died within months of each other and would have all been close to 7. So when I buy a wrasse I want to get a small juvenile. I have a pink spot watchman goby that I got in 2005 so I estimate he is at least 17 but probably 18. Cardinals do not seem to live very long. My pair lived about 6 (female) and 8 (male) years under my care. Tangs and angels should be able to cross the 15 year mark without much trouble. My tangs are all just over 5 years in my care at this point (likely still 6 years old or less total). No idea about triggers or puffers but guessing that 10 years is pretty easy for them too. They tend to grow slowly and mature late.

 

[jcdeng]

I don't know the age of the fish when I first added him/her, but its been in my tank for 8 years now.

fishes in my tank the longest:
tomini tang 8 years
one spot ff 7 years
Lineatus wrasse 5 years

Hope I didn't just jinx them now.

 

[Mkus]

My clown in this photo was a baby when I got him the size of my pinky nail he’s not much bigger now got him in 2008!

 

[Mkus]

My clown was bought in 2008 the size of my pinky nail not much bigger today still going great13 years later!

 

[UltraKelius]

I hope my Clowns will live for 20+ years! Cardinals definitely have shorter lives, I had pair in my second tank around the 5 year mark when the female died. The male died not too long after. People that have kept their fish for 20 + years, what are you feeding?

 

[bnord]

Just turned 66, and have a 18 month old tank with a 18 month old (+/- it was a baby when I got i) Vlamingi and its now an accurate 7 inches... (filet size my son says)

My goal is to bury him in the garden, before they bury me

 

[fcmatt]

Some of my fish are so old they use a cane to get around.


;-)

 

[Derpy Clown Fish]

We've had a blue tang for a while now! They have survived a sickness which wiped out a tank one time, too.

 

[Emerson]

Of course, it depends... I expect (hope) my fish will be with me at least 5 years.

I've had a few jumpers that got out despite a screen top, and I had a sailfin blenny that ate too much frozen food, got an intestinal block, and his belly ruptured. The replacement black combtooth blenny has a more discerning palate, and will hopefully stick to nori, Hikari Seaweed Extreme, and other algaes he finds in the tank. He's been with me for more than a year now; I really hope he sticks around.

I had a mated pair of black onyx percula clowns for three years, and expected them to last for 10+. Sadly the female disappeared while I was on vacation over the past summer.

 

[Lance Fjeseth]

I had an ocellaris clown that lived about 12 years. I had him in college, moved him to my mom's classroom at the high school when I graduated - where he was very happy. He survived 4 days with no power when the tornado took the roof off the school. When my mom got access to the school, 4 days after the storm, my parents moved him to their house where he lived in a bucket with a canister filter. They then moved him back to the tank at the school after repairs were done. He lived a few more years. We named him Lucky.

 

[tgrick]

Hawkfish. Easily 20 years old. I miss not seeing him perched on his rock to greet me.

 

[Zionas]

Ooh what damsels do you have?

 

[Zionas]

What kind of Hawkfish did you have?

 

[Nemo&Friends]

I feel better to know that cardinal fish do not live very long. I had 3 and I think the one who lived the longest was less than 3 years when it died. I was wondering if I did something wrong with them.
I had not idea of how long a fish would live, when I started this hobby, but I certainly did not expect any of them to live over 20 or 30 years.
However, I am starting to realize it can be so.
My oldest is a four striped black and white damsel which I have for over 10 years. But I got it from a friend and I do not know how long ,he had it before I got it.
The youngest fish are 2 years old now, a 6 lines wrasse and a hyppo Tang.

 

[Timfish]

Some I'm thinking should live decades and a century might not be as far fetched as one would think. For those unfamiliar with aging fish their ear bones (otoliths) grow rings which can be counted to detrmine a fish's age. What zoos, aquariums and hobbyists are showing is much like most other species of animals maintained in captivity, fish are attaining life expectancies exceding their wild counter parts. A notable example documented by Charles Delbeek is a pair of Starry obies, Asterropteryx semipunctata, maximum age of a group of wild specimens was 16 months however a pair were documented in a research lab to have attained and age 11 years, roughly 8 times longer than the wild. While I doubt this extreme will correlate to most other species we keep, from the data available on both wild and captive specimens it seems reasonable we should expect and plan on the fish we keep outliving any data we have on wild life expectancies.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/J-Delbeek/publication/314878332_Comments_on_the_Extremes_in_Longevity_in_Fishes_with_Special_Reference_to_the_Gobiidae/links/58c6e955a6fdccde55e3b0c4/Comments-on-the-Extremes-in-Longevity-in-Fishes-with-Special-Reference-to-the-Gobiidae.pdf

Local variation in mortality rates and life-expectancy estimates of the coral-reef fish Centropyge bicolor

Local variation in mortality rates and life-expectancy estimates of the coral-reef fish Centropyge bicolor (Pisces: Pomacanthidae) - Marine Biology

Mortality rates of the coral reef fish Centropyge bicolor were based on the disappearance of known individual fish. Data were collected over three years from 1978 at four sites around Lizard Island, Queensland, Australia. To measure disappearance, membership of 36 harems (comprising about 150...

link.springer.com

Longevity of the Anemonefish Amphiprion clarkii at Miyake-Jima, Japan with Notes on Four Other Species

Longevity of the Anemonefish Amphiprion clarkii at Miyake-Jima, Japan with Notes on Four Other Species on JSTOR

Jack T. Moyer, Longevity of the Anemonefish Amphiprion clarkii at Miyake-Jima, Japan with Notes on Four Other Species, Copeia, Vol. 1986, No. 1 (Feb. 10, 1986), pp. 135-139

www.jstor.org

An extraordinary life span estimate for the clown anemonefish Amphiprion percula

An extraordinary life span estimate for the clown anemonefish Amp...: Ingenta Connect

www.ingentaconnect.com

Growth and longevity in acanthurid fishes;an analysis of otolith increments.

https://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/134/m134p015.pdf

 

[Mkus]

I hope my Clowns will live for 20+ years! Cardinals definitely have shorter lives, I had pair in my second tank around the 5 year mark when the female died. The male died not too long after. People that have kept their fish for 20 + years, what are you feeding?

I feed a small variety shrimp pellets and all kinds of frozen my pygmy angel is 5 years in my tank..

 

[Radman73]

As long as possible.