How long do they live?

[salttess]

I have a tomato clown that is about 17 years old. She has been acting strange lately. She has had a mate for about 7 years. She has been staying close to the sand and swishing it with her tail so much that her fins are getting ragged. Used to hang in the anemonies all day but now not so much. TIA Tina

 

[hijinks]

Don't hold me to this but I seem to remember 20-25 years

 

[Reefvet]

A friend has a 25 year old pair.

 

[scbill88]

I wonder how that compares to life expectancy if the wild.

Probably only a couple years before a predator would them.

 

[Paul B]

Clowns can live to almost 30 years, maybe longer but no one has kept them longer that I am aware of as the salt water hobby started 42 years ago. My fireclown is 23 and still spawning but that doesn't mean much. His mate is about 16.
They swich their tail in the sand to clean a nest and that is a healthy sign. Not to the point of making their fins gagged, I am not sure about that as I can't see that fish from here. Mine does it all the time and sends detritus flying.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Just some ramblings...Think of people. They might live 20 years. They might live 80 years. They might live 110 years. There's no reason to think the lifespan of a fish will be any more specific. You can know about how long the longest lived fish of a species is, and perhaps the average, but that says little about when exactly an individual is going to die from something, even in a perfect environment.

 

[snorvich]

Just some ramblings...Think of people. They might live 20 years. They might live 80 years. They might live 110 years. There's no reason to think the lifespan of a fish will be any more specific. You can know about how long the longest lived fish of a species is, and perhaps the average, but that says little about when exactly an individual is going to die from something, even in a perfect environment.

And if you could know, would you really want to know? :idea:

 

[Paul B]

Hello there Randy. Actually we kind of know the life expectancy of people. It is about 76 years. Of course the people that got hit by trains or stung by box jelly fish or run over by anorexic Supermodels skewed the readings slightly but that is about the average lifespan of the majority of people. I may be a little off as you have to go by life insurance companies as they know exactly that you will die five minutes after your life insurance pay outs run out.
But if a fish is healthy and lives to it's natural lifespan that would be very hard to determine because the only people who will ascertain those numbers are scientists and most scientific studies only go in for a few weeks or until their grant runs out. That is also why so many people have problems with ich. It has been studied to death for like 6 weeks at a time.
The oldest person was about 122 so we can say people don't live longer than 122. (I am close now) But some clownfish have lived into their 30s so we know that at least they "can" live that long. Carp can live 40 years and sturgeon can live much longer than that although I am not sure how they figured that out but I think in sturgeon they can count the rings on their bony plates like we can determine the age of trees or rock stars. :dance:

But I do know that if you have clownfish and they usually die in your tank after 5 or 10 years, you are doing something wrong and maybe should take up stamp collecting. Virtually all fish with the exception of seahorses, pipefish and some small gobies or maybe desert pupfish live longer than that. And there are like 6 desert pupfish left so who cares about them?

 

[salttess]

Thanks! She is calming down and fins getting better. Just worried me that it went on for about 3 weeks.

 

[Paul B]

Mine have been doing that for 16 years.

 

[showjet98]

I read of a maroon clown at the Shedd aquarium in Chicago that was over 40 years old.