Survey on fish mortality

Hi,

As a newbie I am interested in mortality differences between different fish species that we keep in our tanks. I've heard that clownfishes may live for a long time and that cardinals typically live much shorter. The sturdiness of different species also differ. Unfortunately I can't find any empirical data on these things, so I set out to design a survey that will hopefully help to answer some of these questions.

What I basically want you to do is to tell me how long your deceased fish lived in your tank after introduction before dying. Why they died and how old they were when you got them doesn't matter. Just for how long they lived after being introduced in your tank. With this data I will make graphs that show relative differences in mortality distribution between different fish species. From such curves we might gleam information on the maximal years the different species may live in our tanks after introduction, and hopefully some information on their relative sturdiness/sensitivity. For this survey to be valuable it is important that many people participate -- so please take the time. If you have experiences with more than one specimen of a specific species, it is possible to take the survey multiple times.

I will post results from the study here when they are ready. Hopefully this will provide us with some interesting data on fish longevity.

Please take the survey here: Longevity of marine ornamental fish in captivity

 

That's a neat idea, but there are a whole bunch of factors that determine the results. It's not just the breed of fish. Lighting, what and how often people feed, water quality, how heavy a tank is stalked, how often water changes are done, how they aclimated the fish and if they were put in a QT tank.

The list goes on, I don't see how you could get actual results for each breed.

 

You are absolutely right. Some people will not give the fish adequate conditions and their fish will die early. Other people will give them expert treatment and they will live till their biological lifespan.

But, if enough people participate in the survey we must assume that this will be evened out between the different species (there will be an equal number of "good" and "bad" hobbyists for each species) and hence differences in mortality caused by differences in biological lifespan and sturdiness will rise out of the statistical noise. At least that is what I hope for, and the preliminary results looks promising.

I didn't mention it in the earlier post, but I have posted the survey on multiple forums, in an effort to get as many participants as possible.

 

As a method of getting a rough estimate, I agree with your methodology (though I'm not much help on data; I had to find homes for the fish in my last two tanks because of international moves). I do want to point out, however, that some species might actually be favored by poor hobbyists. For example, few established hobbyists buy copper banded butterfly's because they know the mortality risk. The few that do may have a plan and even have long term success, but the fish is more likely to end up in the hands of an inexperienced keeper. I think wherever there is a good reason to avoid a fish, its mortality statistic will be made to look worse by the avoidance of it by experienced keepers.

 

+1 Very good point. I had a golden stripe marron clown for 21 years but the survey only goes to 15.

 

That is a brilliant point. And some fish might turn out to appear more difficult than they are because they are popular among inexperienced people and therefore suffer more early deaths than other fish. This is going to be an interesting study and conclusions must be drawn carefully indeed.

 

It actually goes to "15+ years". I lumped all years passed 15 together since otherwise there would be too many options. So please add your golden stripe maroon to the survey . Any fish still surviving passed it's 15th years may of course also be added to the survey.

 

i for one love this idea thanks for going to the trouble to put it all together
really look forward to seeing your results

 

I makes a difference what age they are when you get them. I personally think you should add if they are juvies, sub-adults or mature adults.

Some fish live longer if they are bought as adults. Others live longer if they are juvies.



----------------
Sent from Tapatalk, so please forgive grammar and spelling

 

Most fish we keep, in the ocean will live 10-15+ except possiby some smaller fish, such as some gobbies. Some, many more, such as clownfish can live 20 or so. Most fish in aquariums will live significantly less.