Watching fish age.

[Paul B]

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

 

[snorvich]

Paul, we all get old and fat.

 

[SDguy]

Paul, we all get old and fat.

Thanks for the reminder :blown:

 

[arsenic]

my dad still has a yellow tang and a purple tang that he got back in 97 or 98. purple still looks like a young vibrant fish, but yellow.... he looks like a zombie fish. all his fins are thin and threadbare. they're not even solid any longer - many areas of the top doral have holes in them.

but he's still kicking and seems ok beyond looking like swimming death

 

[Jacob D]

Was that first photo taken with a pinhole camera? That thing must be older than dirt

Fun thread Paul. I guess I'll get old one day too, but probably not fat. I don't think ingesting any amount of animal parts or beer can change that

 

[jyxie]

thanks for the great share!

 

[Paul B]

Jacob, that was not a pin hole camera but I sometimes put a jeweler's loupe in front of the lens to take close ups. I hand hold it so you see the edge of the thing.
And Jacob, you aint that young :lol:

 

[Cliff]

thanks for sharing... I have a pair of clownfish about 11 years old now

 

[eja99]

Great thread, thanks for sharing.

 

[Paul B]

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"

 

[Jacob D]

Jacob, that was not a pin hole camera but I sometimes put a jeweler's loupe in front of the lens to take close ups. I hand hold it so you see the edge of the thing.
And Jacob, you aint that young :lol:

Hahahaha... you got me man! I think one of us will have to buy the other a beer next time we see each other.

 

[thor32766]

Wow that is really cool. I regret not taking more pics of my fish when they were younger. I have a sailfin, yellow and two blue hippos I have had over 8 years. They are huge now, wish I had baby pics still of them.