Banded Archerfish Growth Rate?

[Legacy]

Hi everyone,

I know... tons of questions about the archerfish. I'm going to buy some this weekend for my starter 40G tank, (180G Future). I'm interested to hear from some people who have owned these fish. I had be told in a previous thread that the growth rate was pretty slow and that if I started with 1" juvenilles that they probably wouldn't exceed 4" over an 18mo period of time.

I'm trying to decide how many to start with since they are a shoaling fish I wanted to go with 5 - 2" Toxotes Jaculatrix (banded archers), start them in the 40G and start work on setting up a 180G to be ready in about 1 years time.

I'm thinking maybe only 4 fish? They will be the only fish in the tank. Any thoughts? I've done a lot of research online but haven't found anything that talks about growth rate other than they have a 10yr lifespan which makes me think they probably grow slowly. If I can figure out how quickly they will grow I can decide on how many to keep to make sure they're happy.

Thanks in Advance.
Dave

 

[aquakev]

i had a few a little while ago. I bought them at about 3.5in. and didn't notice them grow that much at all.

But on a side not, if you can keep the water level a few inches from the top of the tank I did watch them perform acts like that in your image and also spitting down live crickets.

The only thing I can think about in your situation is feeding, mine did accept tetra tropical crisps but not much other stuff besides dried and live crickets and that could get messy in a 40g tank.-just something to think about.
Very cool fish!

 

[Legacy]

I have 10" of water only so including the inside of the canopy they have almost 13" of open air above the tank. Sounds like it's pretty much true about the slow growth rate... I'll probably do 4 fish just to play it safe... they might surprise me.

Thanks so much!