# Anyone Weigh Their Fish?



## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Lost another 10 year plus fish: Metriaclima estherae.

I noticed how heavy she was, I guess usually I net younger fish and/or less blocky fish.

She was 5.5 inches long, but I realized I don't know anything about average weight for fish. Maybe not a very useful statistic if it is not a food fish. Made me curious though.


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## tanker3 (May 18, 2015)

Sorry for the lost, but a 10year old Zebra is an old fish. It had a long life. 
DJR, are you looking for a way to weigh the fish, or asking approx how heavy is one?


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Average weight. Like average length or average life span. I was not expecting her to be as heavy as she felt.

Yes she was one of my first fish and I lost both my 10 year-old fish just recently.


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## BC in SK (Aug 11, 2012)

If I understand correctly you are asking what 10 yr. old 5 1/2" mbuna would approximately weigh?
I've been weighing all of my fish every year since 2010 so I have some idea what weight range, though I do not have a direct comparable.
The best comparables that I have weighed would be young male Acei, 47 grams at 5 1/2" and young female bumble bee, 61 grams at 5 3/4". At older age they could weigh considerably more at a given length but I would tend to think at most a 60-80 gram range (at 5 1/2").
In terms of a fish that weighs a lot and is very bulky and heavy for it's length, it would be hard to top a male convict. A couple examples: at 6", weighed 105 grams. 5 1/4", weighed 73 grams. At the same length, I doubt many mbuna could out weigh that. So at 5 1/2", I would tend to think it would have to be well under 100 grams.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Cool! She was 71 grams. Not fat, just a nicely formed estherae.


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## Fogelhund (Dec 3, 2002)

Nope, never weighed an aquarium fish. Congrats on keeping a fish for that kind of life, sorry for your loss.


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## Aaron S (Apr 4, 2015)

Ok, so is nobody going to ask BC what made him decide to start weighing fish? That thought has never crossed my mind lol.


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## BC in SK (Aug 11, 2012)

Aaron S said:


> Ok, so is nobody going to ask BC what made him decide to start weighing fish?


Many reasons. 
But for the most part because IMO weight is a much more accurate reflection of the size of a fish. 
Particularly when a fish reaches their larger sizes, they may not be longer in length, but can be considerably larger in size. 
I like some degree of accuracy; not somebodies guesstimate. When it comes to sizes of fish, both big and small, IMO the hobby is full of pretend made-up numbers.
Weight really puts things into perspective. Giant danio at 4" is 1/2 the length of male crabro at 8". But at 11 grams vs. 173 grams it's less then 1/15th the weight. And yes the crabro really is 15x the size, not twice the size :lol: http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa480/bercom/068_zpszr3boiff.jpg
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa480/bercom/004.jpg
Another example male convict and red tail shark at similar length, both a little over 5". Sounds like similar sized fish:http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa480/bercom/098_zpsaxzqlder.jpg
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa480/bercom/138_zpsptqikp9j.jpg
73 grams vs. 27 grams. In my hand or in the tank, to me the convict is almost 3x the size.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

I was going to ask...thanks Aaron for doing so, LOL.


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## CharlesMTF (Oct 20, 2003)

How do you go about weighing the fish?


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## Aaron S (Apr 4, 2015)

I would assume you get a kitchen food scale and a small tub with water which you pre-weigh then add the fish and do the subtraction.

By the way, BC. I totally agree and as a PhD Chemical Engineer I totally appreciate accuracy of measurement and wanting good data. I just found it odd. I would consider it if it were less of a pain in the butt to catch the fish.


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## BC in SK (Aug 11, 2012)

Aaron S said:


> I would assume you get a kitchen food scale and a small tub with water which you pre-weigh then add the fish and do the subtraction.


Yeah, it could be done that way, although you would just tare the scale rather then do any subtraction or math. In my case I would probably need a better scale to have the added weight of water as you would need at least a gallon to weigh larger fish pushing all of the weights closer to the 10 lb. range or so. I have tested my little electronic kitchen scale against known weights and it is always bang on, though I've never weighed anything above 5 pounds.
I do the weighing out of water for the simple fact that I'm getting a picture taken of it and also measuring the length of the fish right after. It's done very quickly. http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=168278 
I'm certainly not the first or only one that has weighed aquarium fish. Seen it on a number of threads in other forums in the past, though it is usually done with larger fish. I'm probably one of the very few that has done it with mbuna and other smaller fish (??).
As a record of my own fish it's certainly useful to me. I think it does or will yield useful info over a long period of time.
Just one possible example would be to show what size one might expect fish to be about 2 years after purchase. Of course it will vary somewhat dependent on the particular fish and conditions but probably falls with in a typical average: 
male Demasoni 3 3/8", male electric yellow 4 1/2", male Acei 6 1/2", male bumblebee 7 3/8".
Put another way: male Demasoni 12g, male Electric Yellow 32g, male Acei 72g, male Bumblebee 120g
IME, most cichlids can grow considerably up to about 3 years from purchase....and then after that growth is much slower, and very little, if any length is put on.


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## noki (Jun 13, 2003)

I don't know if this is a big difference but a dead fish may weigh different from a living fish, and dead animals start to change almost immediately.


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