I'm not sure about where anyone else lives, but the number of teeny tiny two inchers for sale in various pet shops is really annoying.

Thankfully this only is only 6 inches right now, but he's in fairly horrible shape. Looks like it has some sort of ich, but much more crystalline and larger than I'm used to. Plus it's on one eye. That and seriously torn up fins. Thankfully the idiot kid who had it's mom called me and dropped him off.

He got it tiny at Petco (she thought), at about two inches. Had it in a tank with smaller fish, when it started eating his smaller fish he moved it into a tank with bigger fish. (Some sort of cichlids was all she knew) and they proceeded to beat the hell out of it. Kid apparently didn't care if it got eaten or not. Grr.

Man that sucks.

Unfortunately there are people who should not own fish. It is irresponsible fish-keepers as you have mentioned above that threaten the hobby.

Apocalypse First thank you for joining the forum, by your statement I can tell your an experienced hobbist and will fit in quite well!

Saint what are you going to do with it once its well?

How big do the get?

Word. You put it far more politely than I would have.

As far as what I'm going to do with him? I have no idea just yet. The oldest kid is already petitioning to keep him though. He's pretty fugly right now so he better heal up or I'm gonna end up being stuck with him. Him and the one eyed aro can start a support group.

Anyway. He's completely stressed right now, and I'm hoping he'll calm down and eat. I'm going to start meds tonite or tomorrow depending on when he eats. I've never seen ich on the eyes before, so while I'm guessing that's what it is, I'm not sure. Planning on dosing with some malachite green and raise the temp some.

Detroit: They seem to average 3 and half feet to 4 feet however they can supposedly get out to 5. I've never seen 'em that big though.

Wow

about 4.5' and around 180#

They have known to get larger in the wild.

Lardy for sure, Mike, there's a guy by me that has had one for near 10 years now and while is still hasn't quite broken 4 feet (it's real close though) it weighs almost 140lbs. Dude is very generous with feeding though too.

life span is about 15 years.

I wonder about that. There's lots of reports saying they live longer than that.

Some of the areicles I have read gave different life spans. 15+ was the most common so I went with that.

I wish more people would research the pets they would like to get instead of making impulse buys because something looks cool to them. This goes for all animals not just fish.