# Calvus Slow Growth



## pretty-nifty (Nov 4, 2009)

I've read here that calvus grows slow. I think I know why.  It's because they don't eat much! Is this normal?


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## Furcifer158 (Feb 16, 2008)

Mine always ate like champs and still grew slow


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## Razzo (Oct 17, 2007)

Furcifer158 said:


> Mine always ate like champs and still grew slow


I bet mine grow slower than yours :lol:


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## fmueller (Jan 11, 2004)

I have a suspicion that the growth rate of Calvus might be more dependent on tank size than that of other fish. I've grown up some Calvus in a 240G with other Tangs, and they've grown to a very respectable size in 5 years. I've also had some Calvus in a 29G for about 3 years now, and they seem to grow alot slower. Has anybody else observed this difference?


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## 24Tropheus (Jun 21, 2006)

To be honest I gave up growing on young and bought a WC pair. :wink:


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## triscuit (May 6, 2005)

I can't say that tank size has influenced mine- I grew out some in a 55- still pretty slow. But my group I picked up last year is has doubled/tripled in size in 10 months. I'm beginning to think that the original stock quality may be most important- this last batch traveled well, settled well, and grows well. (Both sets were yellow calvus bought from different but highly reputable retailers).

Altos eat like pigs- once they're settled. It's pretty normal for them to be picky for the first couple months in a new tank.


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## jrf (Nov 10, 2009)

triscuit said:


> my group I picked up last year is has doubled/tripled in size in 10 months.


Similar experience with the 5 I had in a 40BR for about a year. They were about an 1Ã¢â‚¬Â


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## fmueller (Jan 11, 2004)

triscuit said:


> I can't say that tank size has influenced mine.


The ones that grew fast in my 240G were gold head comps. The slow growers in the 29G were firefins. Would you expect that to make a difference?

I buy nearly all of my fish via my local fish clubs and reputable breeders these days. The gold heads were from a very well respected breeder in Michigan, but tiny when I got them - about 1/2". The firefins came from the breeder award program in my local club, but I forgot who exactly bred them. Nice fish though!


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## BioG (Oct 12, 2008)

triscuit said:


> But my group I picked up last year is has doubled/tripled in size in 10 months. I'm beginning to think that the original stock quality may be most important- this last batch traveled well, settled well, and grows well.


I couldn't agree more. I used to think tank size and clean water had everything to do with it and I still think clean water helps them along but now that I am breeding MANY Calvus types and pairs I must say that the fry from my BIG Calvus get big fast and the smaller ones don't.

It's stock I think. I have one male/female Congo breeding and both of them are 6-8 years old but the male is only 3.5 inches and the female is 2 inches. Their fry are small, stay small, grow slow. I have a 6 inch black pectoral Pair (The female is 4 inches) and their fry grow to over an inch in 8 months!

Sure food, water, and tank size help but I think stock and competitive surroundings (Raising many fry together rather than a few) have the majority to do with it. :thumb:


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## fiupntballr (Jul 7, 2004)

I once put a calvus into a 180 where he really exploded in size up from 3/4 to 2 inches in about a month then his growth rate seems to have normalized to a slow rate.


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## jrf (Nov 10, 2009)

Water change amount/frequency definitely has had a direct affect on the growth rate of my Calvus. I started out doing small weekly WCs and then bumped it up to large bi-weekly WCs. There was a visible difference in growth rates between the two.

It could be that the smaller tanks just pollute faster between water changes than the larger tanks, and that this species growth rate is strongly inhibited by pollutants.

Nonetheless, IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢d still call them slow growers as compared to any of the other fish IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ve owned.


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## 24Tropheus (Jun 21, 2006)

I think we agree on. This is not an in and out cichlid that is for the short term for breeding and profit.
Go for some thing else if you want fast profit. Saying that it is my next breeding project.  
No way do I do this stuff for max selling I would go Mbuna say "Acei" for that. :wink:


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## pretty-nifty (Nov 4, 2009)

triscuit said:


> Altos eat like pigs- once they're settled. It's pretty normal for them to be picky for the first couple months in a new tank.


This may be the case in mine.


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## pretty-nifty (Nov 4, 2009)

triscuit said:


> It's stock I think. I have one male/female Congo breeding and both of them are 6-8 years old but the male is only 3.5 inches and the female is 2 inches. Their fry are small, stay small, grow slow. I have a 6 inch black pectoral Pair (The female is 4 inches) and their fry grow to over an inch in 8 months!


In general, are calvus difficult to breed?


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

It could be said that calvus are easy to breed but the fry are challenging to raise.


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## pretty-nifty (Nov 4, 2009)

DJRansome said:


> ...but the fry are challenging to raise.


Because the fry grows so slow?


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Because they die easily. If you search through posts you will see that 100% living to juvenile is the exception rather than the rule. And the ideal is to not move them and raise them in a large tank like a 55G or larger.


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## pretty-nifty (Nov 4, 2009)

DJRansome,

How many calvus do you have in your 125G and what kind are they?


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

I have four inkfins, one male and three female adults. I've just added six juveniles hoping to get a bunch more females.

The other adult male had to hide behind the background so I put him in my all male tank to see how he would do. So far, so good.


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## pretty-nifty (Nov 4, 2009)

DJRansome said:


> Because they die easily. If you search through posts you will see that 100% living to juvenile is the exception rather than the rule. And the ideal is to not move them and raise them in a large tank like a 55G or larger.


So from egg to about 1.5" dies easily? I see them at the lfs at about this big so I'm assuming they're ok about that big. That's how big I got mine.


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## BioG (Oct 12, 2008)

it's more like up to half an in or smaller and you should treat them like jaundiced newborns. I LOVE Calvus, by far my favorite fish but now that I have backed off on keeping EVERY single batch of fry I am enjoying my life A LOT more :lol: !

With new fry up to almost an inch it's like picking up hairs at a barber shop one at a time, it's just tough. And then, yo pay you for your troubles it can take them 2 years to get to a respectable size. I always tried not to sell mine until they were big enough to sex sos I could get the pick of the litter but the generations just kept stacking up.

Now I keep one brood per year and I have time to actually feed myself etc. :lol: !

You must double the tank size and all husbandry parameters (By double I mean twice as much care and equipment as a comparably sized brood of "normal" tangs.) when raising these guys. X2 filters, X2 water changes (Must be absolutely PERFECT match when changing), feeding is doubled too but you must cut the amount of food offered in half, and it must be specific foods... Oyyy!

Just talking about it tires me out. To be truthful, I have raised Many broods of this fish and the ones I paid less attention to ended much smaller in numbers, a dozen survivors (OUt of 100 or so!) +- but the "dozen" broods were always well formed, larger, and healthier. Even when breeding wild Calvus, when they sling 100+ fry I'd say about a 5th of them almost always had visible defects, mostly in the gill plates and jaws. My point is that raising all 100 of them may not be the best way to approach it because the only thing more painstaking than raising just a dozen of these turds for 2 years only to sell them for $10-$20 is raising/feeding 100 of them and having to throw away a bunch of the retarded ones 

ANyway it's kind of a right of passage I think for every tang hobbyist to give raising Calvus a whirl so congrats and good luck :thumb:


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## Furcifer158 (Feb 16, 2008)

I don't agree with them being sensitive when there fry, or at least they are not for myself. Just like BioG, I only keep one spawn per year from my altos. You just wind up with to many of them.
I just let other fish take them out. I see it as a good way to get some extra nutrition between feedings.

notice the small comp fry.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Furcifer158, do you get 100% survival? And do you move the fry to a 10G while in the shell and to successively larger tanks until you have 100+ in like a 55G? Just curious.


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## Furcifer158 (Feb 16, 2008)

well I usually take the eggs, put them in my tumbler, they all hatch with my special tumbler, than put them into a breeder cage for about a month than they go into a 10G. It has worked great for me. I think the only time I start losing some is when they eat each other as some get bigger faster.

I don't have pics of the eggs in my new tumbler but do with the old style.
Fire fin parents----note eggs in cave


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## Furcifer158 (Feb 16, 2008)

I don't put them into anything larger than a 10G till around 6 months old.


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## Razzo (Oct 17, 2007)

This is my first group of F1 calvus, there is approx 200 in there? With a double move this summer which included 4 motnhs in a temp apartment, I just didn't keep up with the wc & power feedings. I just started doing two to three wc each week and I feed them about 3x per day. They eat like pigs. Here's a few pics of the fry and I'll post a couple of the wc parents too.

They started in a 10 gallon tank and I have them in a 55 now. Slow growers. After a little TLC for the first motnh, I found them to be more durable. In the early stages, careful water changes and feedings help against high losses.

F1. Altolamprologus compressiceps (black congo white pearl)













































Parents


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## Razzo (Oct 17, 2007)

10 gallon new fry tank


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## jrf (Nov 10, 2009)

Razzo & Furcifer158: What are you guys feeding the fry?

Razzo: Is that an AC with a pre-filter on the 10 gallon? I ususally only see sponge filters on fry tanks.


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## Razzo (Oct 17, 2007)

jrf said:


> Razzo & Furcifer158: What are you guys feeding the fry?
> 
> Razzo: Is that an AC with a pre-filter on the 10 gallon? I ususally only see sponge filters on fry tanks.


For the first few weeks, I have just started using Hikari first bites. Before that, I would crush up NLS grow & ocean nutrition omni flake (mash it almost into a powder). I just started using first bites, I think it will work really well. As soon as they can handle NLS grow, that is what I feed them. I will also give them a flake sometimes too. Once in a while I will put in some cyclopese.

Yes, that 10 gallon tank has an AquaClear 50 on it with a prefilter kit (filtermax from JEHMCO). I like the AC with prefilter because I keep extra biomatrix in my AC70's and when I need to start up a fry tank, I just use the spare biomatrix and plop it into the AC50. Seeded biomax plus a couple rocks from an established tank and I am usually cycled right away. I use the prefilters on all my aquaclears.


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## Razzo (Oct 17, 2007)

Closer look at the prefilter (on an AC70) - the kits have adapters for AC50's



















Fits on any round intake, even my AC110s and the intake for my FX5

Can't see them to well in my 265 (I had 3 AC110 & one Fluval FX5 all with prefilters)


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## Razzo (Oct 17, 2007)

Btw: I totally agree with only raising one batch per year. You can go nuts trying to keep every spawn alive. It is just not enjoyable trying to do more. Right now, I have three fry tanks going with orange fin comp fry & calvus fry. I only want to take care of one fry tank.


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## jrf (Nov 10, 2009)

Razzo said:


> Btw: I totally agree with only raising one batch per year. You can go nuts trying to keep every spawn alive. It is just not enjoyable trying to do more. Right now, I have three fry tanks going with orange fin comp fry & calvus fry. I only want to take care of one fry tank.


Yeah, I haven't tried to raise any of my Alto fry yet. I will at some point, but for now it seems a bit too much like work.


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## Furcifer158 (Feb 16, 2008)

I have always just crushed up NLS grow. Its not to bad if you use two spoons.

Razzo, would you be willing to ship?
I work for a LFS on sundays and I bet I could help you sell those Calvus.

jrf, Definitely try to raise some altos at least once. They are slow growers but the rewards are worth it when you see the little 1" alto's.


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## Razzo (Oct 17, 2007)

Furcifer158 said:


> I have always just crushed up NLS grow. Its not to bad if you use two spoons.
> 
> Razzo, would you be willing to ship?
> I work for a LFS on sundays and I bet I could help you sell those Calvus.
> ...


Hey Furcifer,

Thanks for the offer to help 

Yes, I am comfortable shipping from my frontosa breeding days (I did a lot of shipping). One problem though, that entire batch of Calvus fry is spoken for by a good wholesale customer of mine. I do have some really nice looking F1 A. compressiceps orange fin fry that are available. If you are interested we should probably continue this conversation via private message (in respect of this site's rules) 

Thanks,
Russ


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## Lestango (Nov 11, 2010)

I haven't read every post but have comments on Altolamp growth. These fish are predators as compaired to feeders of opportunity. If you watch them feed in a mixed flock of Tangs over rocks you will see that they stalk their food, even if it is flakes or small pellets. They stalk, stalk, watch for an opportunity; then strike with lightning speed. They do not adapt to aquarium feeding as to neos, etc. In my mixed tank of comps, ndobhoi, leleupi, helianthus and transcriptus they are the slowest to grab food just ahead of the julies which hug the bottom more closely. In order of feeding aggresivenes it goes: ndobhoi, leleupi, helianthus, comps and julies. My ndobhoi are the fastest growing and the leleupi next.

There is not just one thing. I am sure in nature the same condition occurs and as a result evolutionary characteristics have adapted to their niche in feeding chain. No matter how you feed them the compressed ones will grow slow, but you can make them grow faster by selectively feeding them food that better fits their predatory nature. Try them in a tank loaded with guppies and let me know what happens.


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## jrf (Nov 10, 2009)

Lestango said:


> I haven't read every post but have comments on Altolamp growth. These fish are predators as compaired to feeders of opportunity. If you watch them feed in a mixed flock of Tangs over rocks you will see that they stalk their food, even if it is flakes or small pellets. They stalk, stalk, watch for an opportunity; then strike with lightning speed. They do not adapt to aquarium feeding as to neos, etc. In my mixed tank of comps, ndobhoi, leleupi, helianthus and transcriptus they are the slowest to grab food just ahead of the julies which hug the bottom more closely. In order of feeding aggresivenes it goes: ndobhoi, leleupi, helianthus, comps and julies. My ndobhoi are the fastest growing and the leleupi next.
> 
> There is not just one thing. I am sure in nature the same condition occurs and as a result evolutionary characteristics have adapted to their niche in feeding chain. No matter how you feed them the compressed ones will grow slow, but you can make them grow faster by selectively feeding them food that better fits their predatory nature. Try them in a tank loaded with guppies and let me know what happens.


I feed NLS sinking pellets. And in my tanks with few fish and little competition for food, I've seen what you describe. They'll watch a pellet and "strike" it. However, in my tanks with alot of fish and competition for food, my Calvus are right in there with everyone else making sure they don't lose out.


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## Furcifer158 (Feb 16, 2008)

Lestango said:


> I haven't read every post but have comments on Altolamp growth. These fish are predators as compaired to feeders of opportunity. If you watch them feed in a mixed flock of Tangs over rocks you will see that they stalk their food, even if it is flakes or small pellets. They stalk, stalk, watch for an opportunity; then strike with lightning speed. They do not adapt to aquarium feeding as to neos, etc. In my mixed tank of comps, ndobhoi, leleupi, helianthus and transcriptus they are the slowest to grab food just ahead of the julies which hug the bottom more closely. In order of feeding aggresivenes it goes: ndobhoi, leleupi, helianthus, comps and julies. My ndobhoi are the fastest growing and the leleupi next.
> 
> There is not just one thing. I am sure in nature the same condition occurs and as a result evolutionary characteristics have adapted to their niche in feeding chain. No matter how you feed them the compressed ones will grow slow, but you can make them grow faster by selectively feeding them food that better fits their predatory nature. Try them in a tank loaded with guppies and let me know what happens.


Sorry man but I disagree with you a lot. It does not matter if you are feeding pellets or live, in fact you would get better growth with pellets as they have at least twice the protein as live feeders. Feeding live is also just to much of a risk. Why take it when you know your fish will be healthier and grow faster with pellets. Take a good look at the food you feed your fish, you could learn a lot.


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## Manoah Marton (Feb 17, 2009)

> Take a good look at the food you feed your fish, you could learn a lot.


 :thumb: :thumb: :thumb: Well said!


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## Lestango (Nov 11, 2010)

Sorry = I don't feed my fish live food. I was merely referring to what they eat in the wild and their hunting nature. But you answered my question in a way. I still think their innate feeding habits have contributed to the slow growth characteristic.


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## BioG (Oct 12, 2008)

Most predators grow slowly (I'm using the term most loosely and also in comparison to vegetarian animal species). Take Elephant or hippo maturity over say wolf maturity  I admit I'm guessing here.

But there may be something to what Lestango says. Perhaps they've adapted super slow metabolisms to accommodate the irregularity of feeding. However, I would say that they're less "hunters" than they are trappers. What I mean is that I've seen them cruise a tank waiting for the right moment to nail a ghost shrimp but even if you have a huge tank you're talking 6-8 feet of willing travel for food. Also, while I have seen them follow a ghost shrimp I have also seen them give up chasing it very easily, much more content to wait for the next one to swim right in front of their face. I think we think it appears that they're hunting because other fish in the tank chase the shrimp (Or whatever food) relentlessly thus increasing the odds of the shrimp swimming into the Calvus' view again and again. 

Cool thoughts though :thumb:


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## Furcifer158 (Feb 16, 2008)

BioG said:


> Most predators grow slowly (I'm using the term most loosely and also in comparison to vegetarian animal species). Take Elephant or hippo maturity over say wolf maturity  I admit I'm guessing here.
> 
> But there may be something to what Lestango says. Perhaps they've adapted super slow metabolisms to accommodate the irregularity of feeding. However, I would say that they're less "hunters" than they are trappers. What I mean is that I've seen them cruise a tank waiting for the right moment to nail a ghost shrimp but even if you have a huge tank you're talking 6-8 feet of willing travel for food. Also, while I have seen them follow a ghost shrimp I have also seen them give up chasing it very easily, much more content to wait for the next one to swim right in front of their face. I think we think it appears that they're hunting because other fish in the tank chase the shrimp (Or whatever food) relentlessly thus increasing the odds of the shrimp swimming into the Calvus' view again and again.
> 
> Cool thoughts though :thumb:


Its hard to say that they are less hunters than trappers in aquarium though, since they are eating the food that we give them and not having to hunt for there food everyday. Maybe if they had to hunt every day we could see a whole new side of alto's.


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