Marine fish captivity size limit?

[solepain]

Hi all, My wife and I have a 125 gal saltwater tank and i do mean saltwater
we use only ocean water gathered at the boat landing and currently we have
two fish and a crab in our tank. a Sea bass which we caught by fishing pole
off the pier on a piece of shrimp which it could swallow so no damage was
done to th fish and now e are raising it in our tank along with a Black drum
which we also caught the same way. both fish area year old in our tank.
they started out at about 5" in length for the sea bass which is now 7" and
the drum was about 9" and now is about 12". we also have a full grown blue
leg crab.

The question is how big will they get in an aquaruim rather then open ocean.
we feed them shrimp, clam, mussels, squid, octopus.

Mark & Susan

[Master Luke]

It's a bit of a myth that fish grow to fit the size of the tank, unless your
tank is at least 3ft wide (regardless of length or volume) I would return
the 12" fish - width of tank divided by 3 = maximum length of a (single)
fish. A rather simplistic stocking rule of mine but a good one in my
opinion. I use this calculation for the total stocking level; tank width
divided by 3 multiplied by the tank length in feet which gives me a total
maximum fish length, the depth doesn't fit into my formula!

Luke
http://www.masterluke.freeuk.com/aquarium

"solepain" <sole...@dmv.com> wrote in message
news:ts38glm...@corp.supernews.com...

[June]

Hi

What every the size of your tank, I would think a feeling and caring
aquarist would not keep say a 12" fish in only a 3 ft tank. (it would be
cruelty) especially if you have grown to love your fish. If you have to ask
the question is it to big, I think you already know that the tank is to
small. Otherwise why would you be asking the question.

If I am mistaken and I hope I am, there are a lot of aquarium books that
give the aquarium size fish grow too, and also what they would grow to in
the ocean. The aquarium is always less that the ocean.

June

"Master Luke" <maste...@NOSPAMCRAPfreeuk.com> wrote in message
news:100256857...@hebe.uk.clara.net...

[Master Luke]

Of course a 3ft tank wouldn't be big enough for a 12" fish, that would be
ridiculous. 3ft WIDE I said - not the length! :o)

I don't think people should keep fish that big no matter how big their tanks
are (it's cruel), excluding the large public aquariums I guess, tanks at
home don't tend to be that big. I'm probably going to make myself very
unpopular on here now for saying that! But do I care though? :o) I shouldn't
even be on this newsgroup really - I keep temperate marine!

Luke
http://www.masterluke.freeuk.com/aquarium

"June" <sande...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote in message
news:3bc23...@mk-nntp-1.news.uk.worldonline.com...

[June]

Hi Everyone

I had a reply to the post that I answered about Marine fish captivity size
limit? I have copied it to the group so you can all see what > "solepain"
sole...@dmv.com>
had to say in answer to my post! As you can see from the reply I got,
solepain are trying to anticipate what size the fish will reach. Because
they are fish a fisherman would catch, we on the group may not be able to
answer the question of what size they will eventually grow too. If you ask
fishermen in the area where you caught them, they may be able to tell you
what size they grow to in the Ocean. From what is the Ocean size for a
fairly large fish, you would be able to say that it would grow about 3/4
inches smaller than the Ocean size. As I dont think we are talking shark
size.

What Master Luke says in his post about fish not outgrowing their tank - is
not a myth. Pond fish give off something in the water and when that hormone
gets to a maximum the fish do stop growing. Unfortunately this will not be
the case in a marine aquarium because of the regular water changes the
hormone they give off will be diluted every time their is a water change.
I hope this helps, with the problem. I can see you are taking proper
precautions for the future care of you fish.

June

> "solepain" <sole...@dmv.com>

thanks for your reply and I do not think they are two big yet, I am just
trying to get some estimate of what I can expect them to get, for now all I
have is they seem to be growing about 1/3 larger each year. I'm making sure
I don't have what you mentioned too big of fish in a tank, as that would be
bad and not a responsible aquarium keeper.

"Master Luke" <maste...@NOSPAMCRAPfreeuk.com> wrote in message
news:100265275...@eos.uk.clara.net...