How old is your oldest fish as of 2020?

[Zionas]

Would love to hear from you guys what are your oldest fish as of 2020?

1. What type of fish?

2. How big was it at the time of purchase?

3. Is it still alive?

4. How big is your tank?

5. What are its tank mates?

Any secrets?


Could also be an invert or coral!

[Timfish]

I still have the Sailfin Tang and Purple Tang purchased in 1994 and posted in this thread
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...7#post25706647

Sialfin is a Z. velifer and was 5"-6" TL when purchased. Purple Tang is Z. Xanthurum and was 4"-5" TL.

Some corals or inverts purchased in the '90s I still have in my systems include:
Brown finger sinularia
Palua green finger, Sinularia foliata (This is unique as it was not described until 2008 and is the rarest of the various Palau green fingers)
Orange and green zoas
Green Brittle Star, was roughly half grown.
A single finger polyp, has never grown or split. :/
Brown BTA
Tri color frogspawn
Xenia (this stuff was considered difficult then)
GSP
Toadstool
Cabbage
Purple, red, green watermelon Actinodiscus mushroom polyps
Bubble coral
Yellow rock polyps
Yellow, pink and white cryptic sponges

Gotta admit I always seem to have some aiptasia survive the various cullings I've done over the decades.

[Zionas]

Whoa. 26 years and counting! Good job!

[Timfish]

Thank you!

[Zionas]

I hope you have my fish for as long as you and other guys have!

[ggfrancis]

Originally Posted by Zionas

Would love to hear from you guys what are your oldest fish as of 2020?

1. What type of fish?

2. How big was it at the time of purchase?

3. Is it still alive?

4. How big is your tank?

5. What are its tank mates?

Any secrets?


Could also be an invert or coral!

11 yrs.
Percula clown fish, inch long when I bought it. Now 2-21/2 inch long. Now paired with a designer clown. Laying eggs every 2 weeks. 75 gal display tank+sump. It has purple tang, wrasses (10), Copper band butterfly, mandarin goby. Secret, multiple small feedings 3-4 times a day.


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[Zionas]

Originally Posted by ggfrancis

11 yrs.
Percula clown fish, inch long when I bought it. Now 2-21/2 inch long. Now paired with a designer clown. Laying eggs every 2 weeks. 75 gal display tank+sump. It has purple tang, wrasses (10), Copper band butterfly, mandarin goby. Secret, multiple small feedings 3-4 times a day.


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Did its original mate die?

[billdogg]

Meet Hannibal - Gymnothorax Undulatus - Undulated Moray



~16" when I got him, 4' and as big around as my upper arm when he died 25 years later.

He spent most of his time with me in a 150 long, eventually by himself. He'd eat anything else I tried to keep with him including a saucer sized sailfin tang, a large guinea fowl puffer, and a emperor snapper that measured 16-18".

The biggest issue I had with him was sky high nitrates due to his enormous appetite. I solved that using a spare 120g tank with ~300 pounds of sugar fine sand as a refugium. Filled the fuge with kenya tree and palythoas, both of which thrive only less than pristine water conditions. It took the nitrates that were so high as to be untestable after a 100g water change to barely detectable within a couple months.

[Zionas]

25 years is awesome. Is that their normal lifespan? I wonder how old he was when you got him. Because 16” is still pretty big. I suspect he may have been 35+ if not 40+.

[Timfish]

Originally Posted by Zionas

Congrats on having super long lived fish! What tanks do you have currently and do you have any secrets to ensuring that our fish remain healthy and long-lived?

I am really curious to know what other fish you’ve kept for a long time, especially smaller reef fish like dwarf angels / other angels, Clowns, damsels, Cardinals, wrasses and basslets etc.

Good job!

Thank you!

This may seem pretty esoteric but at teh top of the list I think is a holistic view of ecosystems and the importance of microbes. (PaulB mentions this once or twice. )This was concept was solidified in a very brief conversation 23 years ago talking with the director of a local hospital's infectious disease department when she pointed out good bacteria in the wrong place is bad. My take away (and other authors certainly had a part in this realization) was balance in an ecosystem was important and outweighed the needs of any single species in that ecosystem. Pragmaticly what this meant was before doing something to save an individual animal, fish or coral or invert, weigh it against what's best for the ecosystem.

Second I've gotta say redundancy. I try to set up my systems to minimize any risk of a dieoff WHEN any one piece of equipment fails. One of the simplest ways I've found of doing this is adding air pumps and I am particularly fond of Penn Plax's B10 which turns on when power fails and will run several days. Unfortunatel the biggest preventable problem I've seen over the years is well intentioned people trying to do my cleints favors by turning off heat or air conditioning. The yellow tang in the thread I linked to in my first post was killed this way. Visiting family members turned off the AC when they left for a day trip heating the tank up and killing many of the fish and a significant number of corals.

Third, and I've seen this posted by other experienced aquarists here, is keeping it simple. Ease of access and ease of replacing equipment is critical in my experience in long term success. Some of the saddest things I've seen is when I'm called by someone to help figure out what's wrong and I find a heater or motor buried under a fancy plumbing system where it couldn't be seen or checked that has failed and exposed metals to saltwater. A less obvious problem with some of these equipment heavy systems is a lot more heat is generated and may cause the system to run several degrees above ambient. Throw in the fact corals can have an internal temperature 1 oe 2 degrees above the water surrounding them and it explains why an aquarist suddenly has a few corals die when everything seems to be fine.

I see I'm starting to rant so 'll get off my soapbox now.

I still haven't had most clownfish make it to 20 years. 10 to 15 seems to be a good average. This bothers me some as the record for a wild clownfish is 28 years for a Tomato clown. But longevity in clownfish may be something like domestic cats where the record is 34 years but ask any vet and 20 years is a pretty old cat. So record aga and expected age may be very different numbers.

The only damsels I keep are Chryseptera sp. I avoid all the larger species and any that don't keep their juvinile colors as adults. For the Chryseptera species I've kept 10 years is pretty good. I will not keep any Chromis,there's just a very poor 1 year survival rate.

I've had several dwarf angels live 12 -14 years which I'm pleased with. In the wild life expectancies are 1-11 years. The tanks I've kept long term have all been on the smaller side of 500 gallons so I've not kept many large angles. The biggest problem I've had is they outgrow their tanks and finding good homes for them in bigger tanks is not easy.

The problem with wrasses is what we usually get are supermales which in the wild often only live months. These are the ones that can really start to look old after just a few years. The best way I've found to describe it is they start to look "ratty" like a cat will when it gets really old.

Cardinal, basslets, gobies and blennies. Some people may think this sad but I haven't really payed a lot of attention to these fiah for the most part. I know I've had Lawnmower blennies around 10 years. I've had Pajama and Bangii Cardinals 5-8 years. 3-4 years seems to be a good average for Anthias but I thinkk the longest is 7 years (I suspect large groups of females where a male is allowed to change naturally in a really big tank may have better survivalrates personally). I've avoided psudochromis mostly because I can keep several grammas together and have some interesting behaviour displayed as well as keep different species together.

[Zionas]

Originally Posted by Timfish

Thank you!

This may seem pretty esoteric but at teh top of the list I think is a holistic view of ecosystems and the importance of microbes. (PaulB mentions this once or twice. )This was concept was solidified in a very brief conversation 23 years ago talking with the director of a local hospital's infectious disease department when she pointed out good bacteria in the wrong place is bad. My take away (and other authors certainly had a part in this realization) was balance in an ecosystem was important and outweighed the needs of any single species in that ecosystem. Pragmaticly what this meant was before doing something to save an individual animal, fish or coral or invert, weigh it against what's best for the ecosystem.

Second I've gotta say redundancy. I try to set up my systems to minimize any risk of a dieoff WHEN any one piece of equipment fails. One of the simplest ways I've found of doing this is adding air pumps and I am particularly fond of Penn Plax's B10 which turns on when power fails and will run several days. Unfortunatel the biggest preventable problem I've seen over the years is well intentioned people trying to do my cleints favors by turning off heat or air conditioning. The yellow tang in the thread I linked to in my first post was killed this way. Visiting family members turned off the AC when they left for a day trip heating the tank up and killing many of the fish and a significant number of corals.

Third, and I've seen this posted by other experienced aquarists here, is keeping it simple. Ease of access and ease of replacing equipment is critical in my experience in long term success. Some of the saddest things I've seen is when I'm called by someone to help figure out what's wrong and I find a heater or motor buried under a fancy plumbing system where it couldn't be seen or checked that has failed and exposed metals to saltwater. A less obvious problem with some of these equipment heavy systems is a lot more heat is generated and may cause the system to run several degrees above ambient. Throw in the fact corals can have an internal temperature 1 oe 2 degrees above the water surrounding them and it explains why an aquarist suddenly has a few corals die when everything seems to be fine.

I see I'm starting to rant so 'll get off my soapbox now.

I still haven't had most clownfish make it to 20 years. 10 to 15 seems to be a good average. This bothers me some as the record for a wild clownfish is 28 years for a Tomato clown. But longevity in clownfish may be something like domestic cats where the record is 34 years but ask any vet and 20 years is a pretty old cat. So record aga and expected age may be very different numbers.

The only damsels I keep are Chryseptera sp. I avoid all the larger species and any that don't keep their juvinile colors as adults. For the Chryseptera species I've kept 10 years is pretty good. I will not keep any Chromis,there's just a very poor 1 year survival rate.

I've had several dwarf angels live 12 -14 years which I'm pleased with. In the wild life expectancies are 1-11 years. The tanks I've kept long term have all been on the smaller side of 500 gallons so I've not kept many large angles. The biggest problem I've had is they outgrow their tanks and finding good homes for them in bigger tanks is not easy.

The problem with wrasses is what we usually get are supermales which in the wild often only live months. These are the ones that can really start to look old after just a few years. The best way I've found to describe it is they start to look "ratty" like a cat will when it gets really old.

Cardinal, basslets, gobies and blennies. Some people may think this sad but I haven't really payed a lot of attention to these fiah for the most part. I know I've had Lawnmower blennies around 10 years. I've had Pajama and Bangii Cardinals 5-8 years. 3-4 years seems to be a good average for Anthias but I thinkk the longest is 7 years (I suspect large groups of females where a male is allowed to change naturally in a really big tank may have better survivalrates personally). I've avoided psudochromis mostly because I can keep several grammas together and have some interesting behaviour displayed as well as keep different species together.

I really appreciate your detailed reply. It’s so well-thought out. I’ve heard in many other places that Clowns easily live 20 years or more. Do you get wild-caught or Captive Bred Clowns?

Yeah you’re right about wrasses. What has stopped me from buying most of them is that they are sold as males which may not have much time left in them. At least where I am the only exceptions seem to be the most commonly offered Six-Line and Yellow Coris. The rest like Fairies, Flashers, and Melanurus etc. come in too large for my liking and I know I won’t have much time left with them. Hence my decision to stick to the Yellow Coris.

I’m glad your dwarf angels live over 10 years. Which species have you kept? Lawnmower Blennies living 10 years also seems pretty impressive. Do you find them hard to wean onto prepared foods?

And which damsels of the Chrysiptera sp. do you / have you kept and which individuals (in terms of species) made it 10 or more years?

Paul B is really, really impressive. He has a 30-year old and a 20+ year-old pair of Fire Clowns in his tank. His pair of Yellow Watchman lived 10 or 12 years I think. He manages to keep Mandarin Dragonets for 10 years.

I know his methods, unfortunately they aren’t replicable for me as I live a couple hours away from the coast (in Guangzhou, a couple hours from the South China Sea actually). The reefing hobby where I am (China) is so new, probably no more than 16-17 years old which is shorter than the lifespan of a lucky and well-cared for Clownfish.

I’ve read posts by several people here and on clay-boa who’ve kept Pajama Cardinals for over 10 years and Paul Talbot (the Australian guy who runs the Majestic Aquariums channel on Youtube) put out a video of a PJ Cardinal in one of his tanks that is almost 15 years old. Not sure if it’s still alive as the video was made probably 2 or 3 years ago but either way I’d be happy to keep one for that long and it doesn’t seem hard for them to live long.

I’ve also read posts here and in other places of people who’ve had Yellow Watchman or Pink Spotted Watchman Gobies for around 10 years or a bit more than that.

Not sure if these people are just lucky or if it’s really not hard for these species to live long lives. I browse through posts where people show off their longest lived fish and going by numbers alone (what I’ve seen in the posts) Clowns and Tangs seem to hold the most records for 20+ year old fish.

[Anemone]

I shut down my home tank in 2013 to do a home remodel, so my oldest fish are from a small work tank that I moved into a larger (new, 88 gallon Red Sea Max Reef) tank at home in February, 2018. I have three fish from that small tank (28 gallon, that I upgraded to a 40 gallon) that I bought when I started it in December, 2012. They are a 5" Hepatus Tang, a 3" Royal Gramma and 1 1/2" Yellow-Tailed Blue Damsel.

I had some older fish - 12+ year old clowns and another Hepatus - in my 19 year old main tank (65 gallon) when I tore it down in 2013. I'm hoping the fish in my current tank live as long.

Kevin

[Zionas]

Originally Posted by Anemone

I shut down my home tank in 2013 to do a home remodel, so my oldest fish are from a small work tank that I moved into a larger (new, 88 gallon Red Sea Max Reef) tank at home in February, 2018. I have three fish from that small tank (28 gallon, that I upgraded to a 40 gallon) that I bought when I started it in December, 2012. They are a 5" Hepatus Tang, a 3" Royal Gramma and 1 1/2" Yellow-Tailed Blue Damsel.

I had some older fish - 12+ year old clowns and another Hepatus - in my 19 year old main tank (65 gallon) when I tore it down in 2013. I'm hoping the fish in my current tank live as long.

Kevin

Me too! I hope you also have long lived fish. How much have your fish grown? Your current ones and your older ones.

[ggfrancis]

Originally Posted by Zionas

Did its original mate die?

No. It didn’t pair up with another clown except with a young male designer clownfish.


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[Zionas]

Ahh ok thanks for clarifying.

[MondoBongo]

1. My clowns, 8+ years. followed closely by my Mandarin Dragonet (7+ years)
2. clowns were itty bitty (think less than an inch), mandy was on the smaller side
3. yes and yes. alive, happy, and healthy.
4. started with a 75. went to a 155, then back down to a 120. the 155 and 120 have side car tanks that act as fuge's.
5. bunch of stuff over the years. lyretail anthias, yellow tangs, kole tangs, copperbands, lawnmnower blennies, etc

[Zionas]

Nice!

[ggfrancis]

Originally Posted by ggfrancis

No. It didn’t pair up with another clown except with a young male designer clownfish.


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They are getting ready to lay eggs again. The last batch hatched 5 days ago.


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[skip0211]

Powder Blue Tang..13 yes this past August.

[moondoggy4]

^^^^^ Ditto here I bought a Powder Blue Tang somewhere back in 2007, so yeah right about 13 years now, big and fat.

[Timfish]

For those interested here's some links on life expectancies. One of the studies showed in some locations dwarf angels were luckiy to survive much longer than a year. :/

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00392841


https://reefs.com/magazine/aquarium-fish-longevity/


https://www.jstor.org/stable/1444899?seq=1


https://www.ingentaconnect.com/conte...00006/art00007


https://reefbuilders.com/2017/07/12/...-to-buy-a-beer

http://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/134/m134p015.pdf


http://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/145/m145p033.pdf

[Zionas]

Originally Posted by Timfish

For those interested here's some links on life expectancies. One of the studies showed in some locations dwarf angels were luckiy to survive much longer than a year. :/

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00392841


https://reefs.com/magazine/aquarium-fish-longevity/


https://www.jstor.org/stable/1444899?seq=1


https://www.ingentaconnect.com/conte...00006/art00007


https://reefbuilders.com/2017/07/12/...-to-buy-a-beer

http://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/134/m134p015.pdf


http://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/145/m145p033.pdf

That’s sad. As a group would you say dwarf angels are more fragile than larger angels, most Tangs and even butterflies (the easier ones).

[Zionas]

Originally Posted by MondoBongo

1. My clowns, 8+ years. followed closely by my Mandarin Dragonet (7+ years)
2. clowns were itty bitty (think less than an inch), mandy was on the smaller side
3. yes and yes. alive, happy, and healthy.
4. started with a 75. went to a 155, then back down to a 120. the 155 and 120 have side car tanks that act as fuge's.
5. bunch of stuff over the years. lyretail anthias, yellow tangs, kole tangs, copperbands, lawnmnower blennies, etc

Ahhh how long did your Tangs, Copperbands and Lyretails last? Many people seem to keep Tangs for a long time.

And what about the lifespans of your Lawnmower Blennies?

[Timfish]

Originally Posted by Zionas

That’s sad. As a group would you say dwarf angels are more fragile than larger angels, most Tangs and even butterflies (the easier ones).

There's too many species across differetn genus to say whether large or small angelfish are hardier. Jsut becasue dwarf angels seem to have shorter life expectancies doesn't mean they are less hardy than other larger angels. ANd the size of the systems fish are put into is a factor. I'm really glad to see Queen Angels can't be caught or imported below a certain size, far to many were stuck in tanks way to small for them by inexperienced aquarists who didn't know what an acceptable tank size was or wouldn't know when it was time to rehome them.

[ggfrancis]

Also, diet and feedings makes a big difference in keeping fishes alive for a long time. Multiple feedings a day with different fish foods is ideal. However, it doesn’t happen all the time due to concerns for abnormal water parameters.
I just met another reefer, she was concerned that she’s having alot of fishes die. She only feeds once a day because her husband is concerned that the NO3, PO4,NH3 will go up.


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