Carp, Growth Rates, husbandry vs Wild Fish

[MoCarp]

Many times I have read that common carp grow so fast they out grow predator fish that could eat them. I do agree it perfect conditions a percentage of fish can grow exceptionally large very quickly. yet even in perfect aquaculture conditions it takes far longer than is typically believed.

The linked video is a well respected carp hatchery in England that supplies quality fish to the multi billion dollar trade in the EU. fish are referred to as C1 for 1st year fish, C2 for second and so on, the fish are fed and weight about double what the fish of the same length would be here  in our area waters.  

Genetically, they seek to get fast growth AND long life. In studies I have read on age and growth in the US is typically slower in the north and faster farther south. Certain latitudes seem to produce more trophy fish (over 20# and > 33") too far south the fish don't live long enough to reach larger sizes seen elsewhere. you will notice the UK bloodline fish have fair more "mirror" carp than what we see here. from the people I interact, with its approximately 80% of the spawned fish are mirrors. here in the ozarks one in 1000 or more. The best UK bloodlines get bigger than our fish, 80 pounds in the UK! our fish seem to be long and lean and do not have the genetic girths we see in UK bloodlines. Basically its like how our native river strain walleyes look vs northern lake strain walleyes, or how a spotted bass is heaver for its length than a smallmouth.

Ageing carp can be problematic, in studies researchers have used; tagging, dorsal spines as well as otoliths for Estimating Ages. In many cases tagging has directly contradicted dorsal spines/otolith results, its particularly noticeable on fish that seem to skew the grow rates up! tagged fish gave the best data.

We do have a couple of hatcheries that raise UK bloodline fish here in the USA, they raise fish and ship them back to the EU.