So I know that this is not good for the fry's form as it matures (esp if you want show quality fish)....but exactly how do breeders speed up a fry's growth?? And how much quicker is the growth as opposed to traditional fry raising?
Matt, thanks for that link. Just seems a bit strange why show breeders would do this since I've heard so much about how these fast growth rates do not allow the fry to attain maximal quality fins & colors.
If fed the right foods and given clean water you will have better growing fry, healthier fry and more colorful fry.. as you are giving them all they need to thrive.
By not doing the proper water changes, nor feeding enough/not feeding the proper food you are just stunting them, causing them to grow slower.
Yes, naturally bettas can take 9 months to mature, but that is in the wild where food is scarce, stress is high, etc etc. Which can play a factor.
I have heard accelerated growth can have some bad side effects.. but honestly.. I personally would rather my fish have clean water and good food and let them grow however that type of treatment allows them to grow.
So it would appear to me that this is not really "accelerated" growth but rather just their normal wild growth. And in captivity what we're experiencing (if we don't do abundant water changes & plenty of food) is STUNTED growth rather.
from my past breeding experience, the main drawback of "power growing" your fries ( I tried and it worked ), were, in general their color not as "bright/vivid" as the "normal growth" ( those with regular WC but not 80-100% daily ). I tried by "splitting" my fries in 2 groups. Fed the same food ( live food only ). Does anyone else have different result?
I would have to agree with myates that the right food and water quality will determine the balance between growth and form.
Assuming water quality or water changes are the same; Wormy foods will boost growth while shrimp like foods will improve form. i feed mine daphnia - tubifex - frozen bloodworms. They grow twice as fast as the ones only fed daphnia. BUT they tend to have smaller fins, including smaller ventrals. The later usually shows smaller body but bigger fins.
Perhaps there is the fact that I could overfeed tubifex thus fry can constantly snack on them. While daphnia usually die faster thus can't over feed too much. But many locals also hold similar opinions about tubifex vs daphnia.
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