Very nice looking snapper and not fat as all. Take note to the fact that snappers typically look fat and beefy under normal weight of a healthy snapper. If your turtle truly is 3 years old then its no where near "growing like a weed". Snapper are known for their rapid growth in captiivty and can easily reach length of 4.5-6 or even 7 inches by 12 months of age. You can expect the first year to be the most rapid growth with nice stead growth for a few years to come following that (some my have same growth right off the back yet I'd expect this to be a 4.5 incher not a 5.5 ). A 3 year old can reach length or 8'' to 10-11'' easy. I personally have a male snapper produced in 31 August 2002 which is already 14.6'' and grew .3'' this past 2.5 months. He reached 5.6''(4.1'' in 12 months) and grew steady for 4 years following his first averaging 1.9'' a year and then his 6th slowed down to only .95''. Yet this past summer he started a growth spurt which helped him reach that size and continuing still. If he manages to continue growth at 1 inches a year he could easily reach in excess of 18'' by his 10th B-day. Yet likely the nice growth spurt will end at some point and it might be his last significant one. I would still expect nice steady growth for a few years to come maybe that just under an inch a year or slight less. I enjoy documenting his growth and look forward to watching him grow up.

Xavier

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