Zusammenfassung: We compared the von Bertalanffy growth function (VBGF) and five polynormial functions (PF) in modelling fish growth for 16 populations comprising six species of freshwater fishes. Ranked results of the variance explained by each growth function indicated that VBGF described growth data better than three- and four-parameter polynomial functions. Log-transforming length and age greatly improved the goodness-of-fit of the three-parameter polynomial function. Statistical comparison of growth between populations or sexes was done using a general linear model for polynomial functions. The VBGF proved to be the best growth model for all 16 populations.