Wondering how long can I expect my fish to live.

[Nemo&Friends]

I am very curious to know what is the life expectancy of the fish we keep in our aquarium and did not find any discussion about it. Does it vary with the species?
My oldest is a damsel who is over 10 years old, but my firefish lives were much shorter, may be 2 years. I just got 2 new ones and hope they will live longer than that. What is a normal lifespan for them though?
Some reef2reef members say that their fish dies of old age, how old is that? I certainly aim for that too, but how do you know they died from old age? My Eibli Angel must be about 6 years, and so is my rabbitfish. How much longer can I expect them to live? Except for the 2 firefish that I got about 6 weeks ago, my youngest fish are an hyppo tang and a sixline wrasse, I bought 2 years ago, shortly before Covid.

 

[JaimeAdams]

I have a friend who's rabbit fish jumped after 40 years. Ive seen plenty of people with fish in the 20s and 30 year marks

 

[Nano sapiens]

I am very curious to know what is the life expectancy of the fish we keep in our aquarium and did not find any discussion about it...

https://reefs.com/magazine/aquarium-fish-longevity/

 

[ZoWhat]

.....

 

[mdb_talon]

I think when people say their fish "died of old age" it is just them saying they were old fish with no outward signs of disease. Whether it is accurate or not who knows . However it is probably a fair statement to make if the fish are approximately the age they live to in captivity....which in itself is not always easy to figure out and can vary drastically depending on the type of fish.

 

[Zoa_Fanatic]

I am very curious to know what is the life expectancy of the fish we keep in our aquarium and did not find any discussion about it. Does it vary with the species?
My oldest is a damsel who is over 10 years old, but my firefish lives were much shorter, may be 2 years. I just got 2 new ones and hope they will live longer than that. What is a normal lifespan for them though?
Some reef2reef members say that their fish dies of old age, how old is that? I certainly aim for that too, but how do you know they died from old age? My Eibli Angel must be about 6 years, and so is my rabbitfish. How much longer can I expect them to live? Except for the 2 firefish that I got about 6 weeks ago, my youngest fish are an hyppo tang and a sixline wrasse, I bought 2 years ago, shortly before Covid.

It totally varies based on the fish. Oldest clownfish on record was like 45 when he died. My engineer goby lived to approximately 12-15 (we don’t remember when dad bought him, I know I had him 7 years) and they’re expected lifespan is like 5 years. I’m his case you could tell it was old age. He got slower and slower, eventually became blind, and then just faded away on me.

I have a damsel whose around the same age and is still mean as the devil and shows no signs of sickness or “aging”.

Edit: you’re stuck with that damsel. They live around 20+ In our tanks. I like mine, I got him his own 16 gallon cause he’s such a monster.

 

[MillennialReefer]

2 years ago I saw a hippo tang at my LFS that was 15 years about 7-8 inches long. The fish was being rehomed after outgrowing the folwr tank it was in. The fish looked healthy but definitely a little 'washed out' if that makes sense.

 

[Nemo&Friends]

Thanks for your replies. It helps, especially Nemo Sapiens link was very informative. I was always wondering how you can determine a wild fish age.

 

[Nemo&Friends]

I guess that I am not going to be able to change the population of my tank anytime soon unless I re home some fish which I am very reluctant to do, as I do not think it is good for them.

 

[Sharkbait19]

Very much species and care dependent.
Most gobies only live in the 3-5 year range.
I’m pretty sure tangs are recorded well into their 30s.

 

[HeyLookItsCaps]

I’ve had my purple tang 8 years along with my pistol shrimp. That’s my oldest residents

 

[Breadman03]

https://fishbase.mnhn.fr/search.php has lots of info on many species.

 

[Zoa_Fanatic]

Very much species and care dependent.
Most gobies only live in the 3-5 year range.
I’m pretty sure tangs are recorded well into their 30s.

Depends on the individual as well. Engineer gobies usually die around yeat 5, mine made it to 10+.

 

[Zionas]

How big did that thing get after 40 years?

 

[Timfish]

A long, long time. We're probably a long way from knowing how long to expect fish to live in captivity. There are indications (wrasses, dwarf angels, gobies, clowns) may live much longer in captivity than in the wild. Others and myself had and have dwarf angels live past the max age documented for their wild counterparts. Tangs certainly should make it into their third decade if not longer.

As far as telling when an fish dies of old age I have seen fish after years of looking great and living as long or longer than the ages given for their wild counterparts start to look "ratty", kinda dul and worn out, much like an old dog or cat, for weeks to months before dying so I'm pretty confident they did die of old age. But there are certainly others as old or older than wild that looked great when they died and I gotta wonder if they might have lived longer if I could have figured out if they hhad a problem.

 

[Rmckoy]

Can we say a fish of a specific size is roughly what ever age ?

so a 4” yellow tang is roughly x years old ?

 

[Sharkbait19]

Can we say a fish of a specific size is roughly what ever age ?

so a 4” yellow tang is roughly x years old ?

To a degree. Lots of factors affect growth rate, but if something is growing at the expected average rate, then it should be rather simple to do.

 

[snorklr]

at this point i'm wondering how long i can expect myself to live...

 

[Nemo&Friends]

Thank you for answering my question. I will continue checking for more opinions/ answer.

 

[legionofdoon]

I have a blue green chromis that's over 15 years and survived several moves.