[Delphinus]

Someone linked to an article (well, more of a blog I think) a couple weeks ago where he talked of carbon use and the buildup of generic "organics" and his theory was that it was the buildup of organics over time, that which can't be easily skimmed out, that contributed to the max size of fish, smaller than that of their wild counterparts .. more so than tank size and the old addage that they grow to the tank and stop. I don't think he cited any research so who knows how close to the mark that was but nevertheless it does seem an interesting (and plausible) theory.

My desjardini sailfin tang is 9 years old and I'm not sure that he has stopped growing but I don't have a good way to quantify that. He's certainly 3 times the length that he was in 2001. That said he's considerably smaller than those I have seen in public aquariums.

Heard lots of theories about this sort of thing, ranging from "they grow to the size of the aquarium" to "they never stop growing" to "they don't really stop growing but they develop skeletal issues and eventually perish prematurely because they CAN'T grow properly" and now this last one (that was clearly in favour of carbon usage to combat the buildup of "organics") in that it has nothing to do with water volume but rather the chemical soups that tanks tend to become over time.