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The Loach Forum Archives (2)
Re: Perhaps
Posted By: Nick <andrew_nj@wvwc.edu> In Response To: Re: Perhaps (Dave Guest)
Date: Wednesday, 5 January 2000, at 2:38 p.m.
Ok, yeah, I follow now.
The wonderful world of pheromones, the inter-individual communicators. There are loads and loads of these little guys and I don't know of any specific ones that effect growth rate off the top of my head. The thing is that hormones act so darn fast and well in such low concentrations (like adrenaline). This makes it close to impossible to remove enough for big time growth. This is why if you have say clown loaches bigger than 6-8" in a tank you are doing good. But in nature you can find them around 18" or so. There are also some pheromones that are produced by the alpha and/or beta organisms in a unit. These will effect the behavior and the growth factors of the other members, each to some degree. As for the water changes, well good luck getting all the pheromones out. Hormones work in such low concentrations that you would need to (just guessing) run several high powered protein skimmers, lots of activated carbon and do major daily water changes. So it would be difficult to impossible to allow for the maximum size of a fish to be reached in an aquarium. A single fish in a big tank would most likely grow the best and fastest provided this is a "loner" species. So for the most part it is hard to get around, there are always freak cases. But hey, nature likes to find the rules that humans make, then smash it to bits with an odd ball example or two.
Nick
