Fish life expectancy

[jerwin]

As I was feeding and watching my fish today I was thinking about how long will these fish live. I am guessing the bigger the fish possibly the longer the life but I was wondering. I have not really seen any numbers on how long they can live. I am thinking that some of these fish could live up into their teen years. Maybe a database could be compiled to keep track of this.

Here is kind of a list of what I have and the size I got them and length of time I have had them.

Blonde Naso tang 2.5inches 6 years old 12 inches with 1 1/2 streamers
Blue Hippo tang 2.5 inches 6 years old 10 inches
Purlple tang 3 inches 5.5 years old 6.5 inches
Flame angel 1 1/2 inches 3 years old 4 inches
Yellow Belly Hippo 1 1/2 inches 1 1/2 year 6 inches
Powder Brown tang 3 inches 1 year 5.5 inches
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Pair Ocellaris Clownfish 1 inch 3 years 3.25 inches[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Royal Gramma 1 inch 1 year 3 inches[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Other fish [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Pair Leopard wrasse 3 inches 3 months[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Morish Idol 3.5 inches 3 months[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Rock Beauty 2 inch 2 1/2 weeks[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I feed about 5 small portions a day and a variety of stuff. Nori (Green, Purple, and red), Spectra Pellets (regular and +A), New Era both pellets, New Era Grazer, cyclop-eeze, Frozen Brine shrimp, Frozen mysis shrimp, and frozen cocktail shrimp. ( I dont feed flake foods. My fish dont like to grab food off the surface of the water)
[/FONT]
All of my fish are fat and happy and no real issues on fish picking on coral or each other. Powder brown tang chase fish from time to time, but Purple tang is the god father of the tank.

I would like to hear about other peoples long term keeping of fish and feeding, if they do anything special to keep them.

Thanks

 

[eliramos]

its awesome that your fish are all doing so great!
i think it all comes down to husbandry, all these animals have the potential to live into there teen years some even to their twenties. Given how they are kept in captivity with no natural predators and our ability to qt all new species and keep disease and infection away!
its all about stewardship and patience!

 

[GHill762]

talk to some of the older reefers.. people that have 10-20+ year old tanks.. some of them have pretty old fish..

 

[TJ's Reef]

100% agree with (eliramos) above and sounds like your fish are in very good hands. I to feed often and with a variety of quality foods and feel this is a key to my success.

Cheers, Todd

 

[Eienna]

I don't know how it was kept, but I heard of a yellow belly blue tang that was 28 years old.

 

[jerwin]

Wow. I would think a public aquarium might have some ideas on length of age if they keep track of their fish that close. My Naso and Hippo I have had since I started the tank. That was through the ups and downs of the tank and they are still kicking.

I also think feeding a large variety of foods helps to prevent a lack in an area of their diet. I believe this also helps to keep them from picking on any corals in my tank.

 

[afurrymurray]

I read a story about a lung fish being in a public aqaurium of over 80 years.

 

[jerwin]

Any one in the hobby have fish a long time. I remember a guy talking about a pair of watchman gobies he had for 14 years.

 

[larangcon]

I have a blue hippo that went through 3 ich infestation. The ich wipe out all the fish except the hippo. It's been 6 years now and it's the only fish I have in my 120. Don't want to take a chance with another ich breakout with a new fish. So far the hippo is liking all the attention and all the food. I guess it's all up to each individual fish.

 

[Deinonych]

A LFS in my area has a Yellow Tang and a Ocellaris Clownfish that are both older than 20 years. They also have a 15 year old Mottled Filefish and a Purple Tang that's close to that age as well. They are all in a 125g display tank (and not for sale).