Watching fish age.

Paul B · Feb 6, 2011

Over the years I have aquired many fish as babies or very young and watched them grow to old age. They seem to age almost like us and some even get wrinkles. I remember one of my first percula clowns that I got when he was 1/2" long. He grew to only about 1/1/2" and got to about 14 years old. He was never sick and did even get a few wrinkles. Or it looked like that anyway.
I find that fish get more secretive also as they age. My cusk eel sometimes would swim around as a youngster but as he aged, I never saw him unless it was at night with a flashlight. He died in an accident at the age of 18.
I also got my fire clown as a tiny fish and I thought he was a red hawkfish at first. He is now about 16 and very ornery. I can't put my hand in the tank without getting bit. This biting started a couple of years ago. Of course now he (or she) is spawning so they get mean in that state anyway.
OK not really mean, but protective. He fights all day with my long nose butterfly who likes eating in the fireclown's nesting area.
This pair of watchman gobi's started off as tiny, skinny yellow fish. Then they turned into grayish brown fish that would always stay together in the front. After a few years they started to spawn and lay their eggs in the back of the tank but after they hatched, they would come back into the front. Gradually they started to stay in the back and under rocks and I can never get a full glimpse of them anymore. They are also hard to feed because I have to look for them under the rocks with a flashlight, then shoot some clams into their den. They love fresh clams.
I don't remember how old they are, maybe 10 or 12 so they have at least another decade to facinate me.
THis is one of them as a baby

Here they are about a year old, always in the front and always together

Then they got old and fat

But they still have time for each other as evidenced by her with a batch of eggs

MimicOcto8 · Feb 6, 2011

dude wow that was history right there! you need to post up a thread about your success and how you've managed to have fish for over a decade. unbelieveable! thank you so much for posting

Paul B · Feb 6, 2011

Thanks MimicOcto but in a few weeks my reef will be 40 years old. You just need to get old enough to do that.

BlazinNano · Feb 6, 2011

Those are awesome pics man. I hope I am in this hobby long enough to watch my fish age. Well actually I hope I am successful. Enough to watch them age.

btkrausen · Feb 6, 2011

What a tremendous life these guys have had in your tank. I hope to keep some fishes that long one day

Congrats, thats a great story.

skinz78 · Feb 7, 2011

Wow thanks for sharing your story with us! I have always wondered how long a fish could stay alive in our systems.

I hope we get some pic's of your reef on it's 40 th birthday too!

joejoe1055 · Feb 7, 2011

it is just amazing to watch a full life cycle of your fish, i know i would be ultra attacted

Paul B · Feb 7, 2011

There are pictures of my reef all over the place but in March I will start a new 40 year old thread.
I love to watch fish age, they start out kind of cute like us with big eyes and flat faces.
This little burrfish that I collected in the Atlantic is about as large as a marble here, see how cute he is.

Here he is 2 years later which is just a teenager in burrfish life. Still cute but diferent.
I donated him to a public aquarium a few weeks ago.

Paul B · Feb 8, 2011

Fish must have a hard time adapting to life in a tank. A tang for instance in the sea is never alone, they are always living in a school and think as a group. When they are swimming in a school of maybe 100 individuals they all turn in unison as if of one mind, but they are not. They all have a seperate mind but they act like clones.
All of a sudden one will slightly turn, then the one will turn a little more and so on and in an instant they are all going in a new direction. Then they all at once dive to the rocks where they feed on algae and each one "lands" on a rock right next to his twin. They never bump into each other or fight. Wherever they happen to hit, thats where they feed. In a tank they don't get the opportunity to do that or interact with others of the same species. Even if you have two or three, that doesn't help that fish.
Their teeth are made for scraping the thinest growth of algae from an irregular surface, not grabbing artificial flakes or biting lettuce in a clip. They usually get used to this but are always stressed. If they had a voice I am sure we would hear a lot of screaming and crying.
Bottom dwelling fish like damsels and gobies have other concerns. We have an easier time feeding most of them but those types of fish that don't school are constantly looking for a mate. Most healthy fish fill up with eggs, even if there is no mate around. Those eggs can stay in the fish for a time but then they are re absorbed or cast into the water to feed other fish.
Developing eggs puts a large burden on a fish as eggs are mostly oil. To make eggs fish need to eat much more food than normally necessary because eggs could be 1/4 of the fishes weight and they can spawn every couple of months. The natural way to dispose of these eggs is to mate and raise the babies (or at least eat them). For fish to make eggs they must be in excellent health, much better than captive fish are and they need much richer food, flakes and pellets don't usually do it. A fish can live for decades on that type of food but it will hardly if ever produce eggs and a female fish that does not produce eggs is in far inferior condition than a spawning fish or at least a fish in breeding mode.
It must also be very stressful for the male fish who wants to protect a nesting territory of a few yards and only has a few inches. I know in my 6' long tank there is not much room for fish to swim back and forth the length of the tank due to the rockwork, but thats what my long nose butterfly wants to do. He has nothing else to do and that particular fish likes to poke their noses in holes looking for worms. On these trips which occur every 30 seconds or so he must swim past my fireclown. This fireclown is old and has been guarding a nesting spot in the same place for about 16 years.
There is always a confrontation when the butterfly passes. The clown attacks and the butterfly sticks his dorsal spines in his face.
This must be frustrating for both fish and I am sure that they don't remember one trip from the next so they don't know enough to keep out of each other's way. That reminds me of when I was a small kid walking to school.
(Uphill in the snow both ways) There was this house with a big dog that I had to walk past and the dog would always bark at me and try to jump over the fence. I was always terrified to walk there but my brain is slightly larger then a long nose butterfly so I knew to wait until the dog ran to the back of the house, then I would run past.
Fish on the other hand have a 3 second memory like a goldfish swimming around in a bowl.
"Look a castle"........"Oh Wow, what a neat castle"......"OMG, that is some cool castle"........."Who would have thought, a castle"......"Who put that castle there"

akabryanhall · Feb 8, 2011

I would love to see pics of a tank 40 years in the making! My fish fascinate me as well, and I always wonder how they will act when they get old. This gives me some insight. Thanks!

Paul B · Feb 8, 2011

It's just your typical 40 year old tank

And this is when it was a typical 30 year old tank

Wy Renegade · Feb 8, 2011

ROFL, awesome Paul. Have to say for a 40 year old its still pretty darn good looking.

skinz78 · Feb 8, 2011

LOL there is no such thing as a typical 40 yr old tank! It looks great! Just curious, how many times over the years have you had to add sand?

btkrausen · Feb 8, 2011

Typical 40 year old reef, haha. Not quite the common expression around here.

Heck 5 year old reef is almost rare

Wy Renegade · Feb 9, 2011

btkrausen said:
Typical 40 year old reef, haha. Not quite the common expression around here.

Heck 5 year old reef is almost rare

40 years old is certainly a pinnicle of achievement, no question about that. However I think 5 year old or even 10 old reefs may be a little more common than you think. But, could be I'm wrong.

Paul B · Feb 9, 2011

how many times over the years have you had to add sand?

The dolomite gravel has been in there for maybe 45 years since it was a brackish tank in the 60s.
I added a couple of pounds of live sand once many years ago that someone gave me but it is basically original.

The tank started out as a 40 gallon, this is how it looked in about 1972.
I also looked like that but have not changed one bit, even the watch band and the hair

Captain Nemo · Feb 9, 2011

WOW!!! What a story. Congrats on keeping a tank running that long! I hope to keep my tank long enough and well enough to see my fish age like you have........

skinz78 · Feb 9, 2011

WOW I have heard of peoples sand breaking down in time, have you ever had any nitrate issues with the gravel?

Paul B · Mar 11, 2011

The dolomite gravel is original and has been in there even before the tank was full salt, when it was brackish in the 60s

it's raining here now and cold so as I was looking at my tank trying to get into my fishes heads I thought I would post something, I don't exactly know what but it will come to me. I notice that my two fireclowns now are no longer breeding with each other but have two different nest sites on opposite sides of the tank. This is a problem for the other fish because each fireclown attacks any other fish that come near. My long nose butterfly has to navigate through both territories on his circumnavigation of the tank every minute or so and on each pass must confront both fish. The two clowns do not invade each other's areas but they do meet at the boundry of each ones domain and give each other dirty looks.
The hippo tang has learned to take a short cut to by pass both fishes nesting sites and has no problems. Hippo tangs are much more comfortable navigating in close quarters of rock than long nose butterflies. In the sea a hippo tang will take cover in the rocks while a long nose butterfly will try to swim away just above the rocks.
I would imagine their long nose would make it difficult to get into tight spaces, or get out anyway. Also a butterfly has more of a defense mechanism in the long sharp spines of it's dorsal fin that it thrusts in it's opponent's face and a hippo tang has an offensive weapon in the scalpel that it has just before it's tail. That is why they call them surgeon fish but we all knew that.
I also think that the clowns know about the other fishes weapons and know which fish they should not mess with. They don't seem to bother with all the other bottom dwelling fish and pay no attention to the gobies, mandarin or pipefish. I guess they consider rthose fish as sissies and no threat.
Just my observations on a rainy day