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Just because I feel too silly posting it on the forum I found it on. . .

Soooo, waaaayyyyyy back when I first got my first tank, I was told that you shouldn't do water changes(guy was a grade A f*******) if you want your fish to stay small. I was told that you should only change the filter media out because that was what magically took out all of the fishy waste and that you never ever ever had to change water unless you wanted your fish to get big. Duh, because everybody whose anybody knows that fish only grow to the size of their tank. Because of these magical fish hormones. Of course I believed him because I didn't think that he'd flat out lie to me. So he told me that the fish produce a hormone that prevents them from growing if there is too much in there.

I KNOW THAT THAT ISN'T TRUE AND THAT HE WAS LYING TO ME. Felt the need to shout that so people didn't lecture me about how it was wrong I know it's wrong.

K. So on the other forum, this guy was asking a question about a tank and someone responded with

to also say, your fish release hormones into the water of which plants dont take care of. while WC's arent as needed in a large system with a low fish load and a bunch of plants, its still needed to some degree to keep the hormone levels down.

Ah, the mysterious fish hormones again. Now, it doesn't make sense to me that you would have to do water changes to rid the tank of hormones, because people who have natural planted tanks can get away with a decent fish load and changes in water once or twice a year. And I'd always read that the water changes were important in non-planted tanks to remove impurities(nitrates and detritus mostly) and in planted tanks to "reset" the tank for a new week of fertilizing.

So what's the deal with the hormones?

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I would say that persons hormones are out of whack and maybe they require a fluid replacement

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Keith

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I'm pretty sure that hormones, by definition, stay inside the body.

Fish in fact do signal to each other with dissolved substances: pheromones, not hormones. Most of the ostariophysans (which includes carps, characins, catfish, and electric knifefish) possess some sort of alarm substance pheromone. I have witnessed this in debauwi catfish. When at the LFS, one of the cats jumped out of the tank, and I put it back in. Almost instantaneously the rest of the debauwi cats in the tank freaked out and were obviously showing signs of panic, despite the fact that only one of them had been in danger.

Fish do react by decreasing their growth rate in the presence of high crowding conditions. They can do this naturally to a point in the event of, for example, unusual drought conditions. However, I am not sure if this is because of pheromones.

Water changes are the best way to clean the water of possible impurities. IMO you can't have a "decent" fish load and change water only once or twice a year, the bioload has to be low to do water changes that seldomly.

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.

This reminds me of something I was told the other day by a coworker. She had a Betta die on her and was asking me what could have caused it to die, So I asked all the standard questions, here were the answers.

PH nitrite, nitrate Ammonia readings

her answer "What's that?

Waterchanges

Her Answer "every 4 to 5 days her BF completely stripped down the tank removed everything and washed it completely. He said it was the only way to keep the tank clean"

Size of tank 10 Gallons

Stocking 1 Betta.

Need I say more.

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When I first got a tank, 5 or 6 years ago, I had a few Green Tiger Barbs. One of them had become dominant, and not only was he/she the clear boss, but they were also the biggest by some distance. It was before I had discovered this website, but I asked the question on another fish site, why this was. Would adding more fish reduce his aggression? (it had worked when I only had 3 tetras!) and why was he so much bigger? The answer I got back was that when a fish becomes dominant, it releases hormones into the water to prevent the other fish growing so that it can remain the dominant fish. At the time, it seemed a reasonable explanation, but I've never ever seen any other mention of this idea anywhere, until this post and it's talk of 'fish hormones'. I've now decided that this just doesn't seem a sensible explanation (correct me anyone??? ).

It would be interesting to find out how many other fish myths are out there????

Methinks I here the Mythbusters calling......

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Its all out of context but certain fish species , mostly marines and a few catfish are known to control their social group by preventing other fish from becoming sexually mature or changing sex in populations that rely on one sex that dominates, usually female.

While its not impossible that some freshwater species may prevent growth and maturation in others, you wont be seeing too many of them in the hobby, and of course a dwarfed fish is usually a result of lacking water volume, poor water quality, and a lousy feeding regime,suboptimal oxygenation, and temperature, any of those factors may retard the growth of most fish species, something that youd imagine the LFS would know about since most of the buggers critically underfeed fish to keep em cute and young looking for sale to gullible people.

So in a way what was told to you was a truth but completely out of context and not applicable to the species you keep. Morover he got it a bit confused with generally lousy water chemistry and abusively small aquaria.

As always , a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Half of the excuses the pet trade have come up with over the years about dwarfing issues are usually about covering their butts in case of prosecution and liability for animal abuse, they know most beginners are reluctant to shell out for a big aquarium and they want to flog em the fish regardless. Half the time , trying to get the truth out of an LFS assistant is like trying to get an objective answer out of a politician or a used car salesman. Some of these people would lie on their mothers grave to avoid any admittance of the culpability of having previously given out fishkeeping advice that could see them implicated in misinformational sales tactics leading to animal abuse for profit reasons.

The not changing water thing though, thats just thick. Sounds like the guy needs his brain cell re-aligning. A 12 pound mallet should do the trick.

While hormones are perhaps not as much a problem as other chemicals, it's not true that people with heavy plant loads can get away with water changes once or twice a year! Plants just don't help that much...

Also, there's something to be said for frequent water changes. I read a column once in TFH by Gary Elson (my favorite columnist, sad I haven't seen "Through a Small Window" in ages), who set up an experiment. I believe he was seeing what would happen in a 20-gallon (IIRC) tank if he did LOTS of water changes - something like 10 50% water changes per day. After all, wild fish that live in rivers have the water changing constantly around them. The tank contained livebearers - swordtails I believe - and the results were quite amazing. Not only did the fish have high survival rates - they grew to full size and thrived in what most of us would consider an incredibly overstocked tank.

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Water changes are the best way to clean the water of possible impurities. IMO you can't have a "decent" fish load and change water only once or twice a year, the bioload has to be low to do water changes that seldomly.

http://www.theaquariumwiki.com/Walstad_method
That sorta explains it. And not really a fully stocked tank for decent bioload, just a nice regular sized school of fish appropriate for the tank's size.

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Well the ambiguous definition of a "decent" bioload was what mixed us up. What's decent to some people isn't decent to others. The link you provided also mentions to keep a "light" bioload. IMO a fish tank with so few fish doesn't have a "decent" amount of fish, but that's just me. More like a plant tank with just a few fish, lol.

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.